‘What that implies for us is the need to be agile [so] that we’re adapting as quickly as possible,’ recently appointed Optiv CRO Sean Forkan tells CRN.
The unprecedented pace of the AI revolution is creating massive opportunities for cybersecurity powerhouse Optiv to become even more essential to customers—particularly when it comes to helping customers navigate security challenges that are changing more rapidly than in the past, according to new Optiv CRO Sean Forkan.
In an interview with CRN, Forkan, a tech industry veteran who was hired as Optiv CRO in late August, said that the arrival of frontier AI has more than ever reinforced “the need to be agile”—ultimately “making sure that we’re adapting as quickly as possible.”
[Related: How Optiv Defined The Security Channel—And Is Transforming Partnership For The AI Era]
“The one thing that differentiates this time that we’re operating in right now is the speed at which that change is happening,” he said. “It’s not that any [prior] technologies were less disruptive. It’s just that [with AI] it is happening in such a compressed timeframe.”
Ultimately, “that focus on agility is a big part of who we want to be when we’re supporting our customers through this transition,” Forkan said.
Forkan has succeeded John Hurley, who stepped down in late August, as CRO at Leawood, Kansas-based Optiv, No. 29 on CRN’s 2026 Solution Provider 500.
Most recently, Forkan had served as CRO at application security testing platform vendor Black Duck since 2024. Prior roles included seven years in executive roles at VMware, including as the company’s vice president for worldwide sales of Carbon Black and other security products.
Earlier, Forkan had served as a vice president at Symantec and, before that, had spent a decade at Cisco, including as a vice president of sales and general manager.
What follows is more of CRN’s interview with Forkan.
What brought you to Optiv?
I left Black Duck in late June and was looking at a number of opportunities, and this opportunity showed up with Optiv. Right out of the gates, the appeal was [that] it brought me back to my roots. The early part of my career, which I really thoroughly enjoyed, was in the consulting, systems integration and outsourcing space. What I used to really like about that is how every conversation we did was anchored on, what is the customer challenge? You could tap into a variety of tools and technologies and services and methods to go solve that. That was definitely appeal No. 1 for me. [I knew] it would be really enjoyable to have an opportunity to do that again.
How would you describe your goals and vision for the role?
One of the things I learned very early on in my career—and I made this kind of classic sales leader mistake back in the Cisco days—is, it’s very dangerous for a new leader to come in with an outside perspective and share opinions on how things should be done. I usually take at least my 60 days, sometimes 90 days, really doing discovery—hearing from those that are closest to the customer and partner and the business, around where they see strengths and risks in the business. … I think that will really form the basis for how I think about leading teams. It is critically important to have a vision and strategy. But you want one that’s fact-based. It’s something where, when people look at the data, we’re going to try to stretch people to grow a little faster or achieve something special. But they’ve got to understand that the logic is sound behind that.
The second big thing around vision and strategy for me is, it needs to be co-authored by the team. It’s super dangerous for a leader to go, “Hey, here’s the new vision and strategy,” and then run for the hills. It’s really important that you have everybody in the business share their perspectives around the kinds of things that we can do to grow faster than the market, which is always my benchmark for building a truly strong go-to-market organization.
With the massive change from the arrival of frontier AI, how much do you see that changing how you would go about trying to drive growth?
The thing with the technology industry is, it’s gone through these kinds of disruptions in the past. You can go way back and think mainframe to client-server, Y2K, the dot-com bubble and COVID. The term we used to use in consulting is, “There’s margin in mystery.” And so, anytime there’s a big disruption in the market, for those that really have a clear strategy and really focus on customers’ unmet, underserved needs that matter most to them—they’re the ones that, if they’re listening really well, can pull away. The one thing that differentiates this time that we’re operating in right now is the speed at which that change is happening. It’s not that any of those other technologies were less disruptive. It’s just that [with AI] it is happening in such a compressed timeframe. And so, I think what that implies for us is the need to be agile—the need to always be listening to what’s going on within the market and with our customers—and making sure that we’re adapting as quickly as possible. And so, that focus on agility is a big part of who we want to be when we’re supporting our customers through this transition.
What issues are you hearing about most consistently from CISOs and CSOs in this environment?
Even with all this change going on, [what is] always topical with chief security officers is thinking about risk—how do they capture and represent risk to the board? I was recently in Asia and met with a number of CISOs. And we just started to talk about, how are we thinking about representing AI risk to the board? And so, they’re all like, “If you have a point of view, or if you have a peer-level colleague that I can have a one-on-one conversation with, I’d really welcome that.” I was talking about qualitative versus quantitative risk many years ago. Now it’s AI risk, and so it continues to be a big theme. The other one is really around talent. There is such an immense need and such an immense pressure in so many businesses to attract, retain and train top cybersecurity professionals that we’re all going to have to have a role in that—whether we’re supporting postsecondary education or intern programs. But I think, by all organizations coming together, that’s the only way we’re going to address that kind of challenge going forward. So lots of CISOs want to talk about different ideas and approaches around that, even on a global scale.
So they’re not seeing that need for more professionals going away because of AI? They’re not seeing humans being replaced, and they still do have a shortage in terms of talent?
Yes. When I talk to CISOs, they’re still looking for skilled cybersecurity professionals. I think, as we’re all realizing, the profile is starting to change. We’re looking for those that are really comfortable using AI tools. But the volume—even if you think about application security, which is where I most recently came from—no one is talking about the volume of code going down. There is kind of still maybe a flattening of developer headcount. But there’s lots of code being created. And that code needs to be scrutinized and reviewed, and making sure it’s free of security vulnerabilities and IP infringement.
I hear sometimes that CISOs are trying to make a case for getting more budget for securing AI itself, and that it still proves difficult sometimes at this stage. Perhaps a CISO would be talking to someone like Optiv to say, “How can you help me make the case for why we need to be securing AI?”
It is a highly disruptive time and a challenge. It’s always been a challenging time to be a CISO, but it’s particularly challenging now. I think, on a positive note, this is now definitely a board-level conversation. The CEO and the CISO are talking regularly, in terms of what they are doing to protect the business. The role for us is to really partner with CISOs and making sure we’re focused on those big jobs—or those big unmet, underserved needs, that matter most to them—and then making sure we bring to bear the best-of-breed portfolio of both product and service to address that need. … The other thing is, customers are starting to grapple with costs as well. You dabble a little bit, and then all of a sudden that token bill—which was a decimal point [previously]—now is a material line item. And so, it’s not like we’re all getting more budget in the world. We’re trying to navigate within a specific threshold. We’re making sure that we focus really on solving the problems that matter to you the most—and making sure that along the way, we’re checking in. Are you getting value out of the products and services that we’re offering? If that turns out not to be the case, we’re making sure that we course correct as quickly as possible. Because those that are truly focused on value, I think, are going to come out ahead at the end of the day.
