Appgate, the secure access company, today announced the appointment of Nitin Pillai as its new Chief Technology Officer (CTO). This appointment follows Kurt Glazemakers’ transition to a Strategic Advisor role within the company after more than 11 years as CTO. Nitin brings over 20 years of versatile and visionary engineering leadership to Appgate, with a proven track record of driving significant technical advancements across cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and national defense sectors.
“We are pleased to see Appgate continue to attract top-tier talent like Nitin Pillai. His deep technical expertise and leadership in AI and cybersecurity will help elevate Appgate’s innovation agenda and accelerate the development of next-generation secure access solutions,” said David Snyderman, Senior Managing Partner at Magnetar. “We look forward to working with Nitin and the Appgate team as they continue to strengthen the company’s technical foundation and product leadership.”
“We are incredibly excited to welcome Nitin Pillai to Appgate. His strategic vision and deep understanding of emerging technologies will be critical as we continue to strengthen our leadership in the secure access market and drive the next wave of innovation at Appgate,” said Leo Taddeo, CEO of Appgate. “His expertise will be instrumental in shaping our future product roadmap and ensuring our customers remain protected in an evolving threat landscape.”
Prior to joining Appgate, Nitin held pivotal roles at industry-leading organizations. At Microsoft, he spearheaded critical security projects, including the development of antispam engines for Exchange and Outlook and led the fight against hackers for the U.S. Department of Defense as part of the $10B JEDI contract, building a real-time intrusion detection pipeline for fast and actionable security intelligence.
He further demonstrated his expertise as the Head of Core Platforms Engineering Division at Dataminr, where he was instrumental in building and scaling the world’s leading AI platform for real-time event and risk detection, identifying the earliest signals of high-impact events from publicly available information. Most recently, Nitin served as the Vice President/Head of Engineering at Blackbird.AI, overseeing Engineering, AI/ML, Infrastructure, and Security for a Generative AI platform focused on delivering narrative intelligence and protecting organizations against mis/disinformation and deepfake threats.
Nitin’s deep expertise in cybersecurity, machine learning, big data, and software development will be instrumental in accelerating innovation at Appgate, sharpening product differentiation, and embedding next-generation AI capabilities into the company’s cybersecurity offerings.
Commenting on his new role, Nitin stated, “Appgate has established a strong foundation in the secure access market, and I am excited to bring my expertise in developing AI-driven solutions to further enhance our cybersecurity capabilities. With my experience in building and scaling high-impact technology platforms, I look forward to driving innovation and accelerating Appgate’s growth. I believe the company is uniquely positioned to capitalize on the increasing demand for sophisticated, AI-powered security solutions, and I am eager to play a key role in shaping its technological future.”
In addition to his executive roles, Nitin actively contributes to the tech ecosystem as a Technical Advisor and Subject Matter Expert for early-stage startups at Primary Ventures in New York City, providing guidance on AI, monitoring, and cybersecurity best practices. He holds dual master’s degrees—one in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Stony Brook University, and another in Data Science and Machine Learning from the University of California, Berkeley.
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