Zscaler appoints new leadership to drive AI innovation

US-based cloud security company Zscaler on Thursday announced the appointments of two senior executives — Claudionor Coelho Jr. who joins as Chief AI Officer and Mohamed Shabar, who joins as EVP, Data & AI Platforms.

The additions to the Zscaler executive team reinforce the company’s commitment to driving rapid innovation in advanced applied Machine Learning (ML), and artificial intelligence (AI) to help define the future of cloud-based security technologies.

"We are delighted that Shabar and Coelho are joining the Zscaler family to drive the vision and implementation of advanced AI technologies for the world’s largest cloud security platform," said Syam Nair, Chief Technology Officer for Zscaler. "The combination of Coelho’s and Shabar’s expertise and accomplishments in creating cutting-edge AI/ML and hyper-scale automation platforms technologies will help propel Zscaler’s innovation engine and enable our customers to accelerate their digital transformation initiatives."

With over 25 years of IT experience, Shabar possesses a wealth of expertise in driving the next generation of automation, AI, and cloud platform development. Previously at Salesforce, he led the Marketing Cloud Technology organisation. As a result of his vision and execution, the organisation achieved an astounding 30% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over four years, coupled with an impressive three times reduction in customer attrition.

Under Shabar, the automation platform underwent a 10-fold scaling in volume and throughput, catapulting the B2C growth engine for Salesforce and enabling the delivery of trillions of hyper-personalised messages for enterprises. Prior to his tenure at Salesforce, Shabar spent 18 years at Microsoft, where his focus was on constructing robust platforms, developer tools, and ecosystems.

“I’m thrilled to join the visionary team at Zscaler,” said Shabar. “In the era of zero trust, we’ll empower organisations to thrive against an evolving threat landscape with AI, data and automation, and build a future where resilience is rooted in the power of Zscaler’s largest security cloud.”

Coelho brings a wealth of expertise to help Zscaler deliver a competitive technology advantage through the development of AI and ML innovations. Prior to joining Zscaler, Coelho served as the Chief AI Officer and SVP of Engineering at Advantest, where he spearheaded the development of a Zero Trust private cloud solution tailored for the semiconductor manufacturing market.

Before Advantest, Coelho was the VP/Fellow of AI and the Head of AI Labs at Palo Alto Networks where he led the charge in AI, AIOps and Neuro-symbolic AI, an advanced form of AI that enables reasoning, learning, and cognitive modeling, to help revolutionise time series analysis tools on a massive scale. Coelho’s career also includes vital roles in ML and Deep Learning at Google, where he developed a state-of-the-art Deep Learning technology designed for automatic quantisation and model compression which played a pivotal function in the search for subatomic particles at CERN.

“As Zscaler continues to empower organisations to realise the full potential of the cloud and mobility by securely connecting users to applications from any device, anywhere, I’m humbled to join this exceptional organisation at the forefront of zero trust cybersecurity,” said Coelho.

“In our relentless pursuit of zero trust, at Zscaler, we’ll revolutionise the way we protect data, devices, and networks through state-of-the-art applied Machine Learning (ML), Deep Learning and Generative AI techniques,” he added.

As Zscaler embarks on its next era of growth and leading-edge advancements, Shabar’s and Coelho’s appointments signify the company's unwavering commitment to lead the innovation path of the evolving AI landscape. Their leadership, experience and vision will be instrumental in accelerating Zscaler's ongoing mission to protect organisations in today’s mobile and cloud era, the company said in a statement.