Andreessen-Backed Cybersecurity Software Firm Tanium Taps Next CEO

Kamaron Leach, Bloomberg News

Orion Hindawi, co-founder and chief executive officer of Tanium Inc., arrives for the morning sessions during the Allen & Co. Media and Technology conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, U.S., on Friday, July 14, 2017. The 34th annual Allen & Co. conference gathers many of America's wealthiest and most powerful people in media, technology, and sports. , Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Tanium Inc., a cybersecurity software maker that was valued at more than $9 billion in 2020, has chosen Dan Streetman to succeed co-founder Orion Hindawi as chief executive officer.

As part of the plan and in support of Streetman, Hindawi will remain active in the business and become executive chairman, according to a statement confirming a Bloomberg News report earlier Wednesday. Hindawi, who previously had apologized for being “hard-edged,” will focus on strategy and tech innovation in his new role.

David Hindawi, Orion’s father and also a co-founder of Tanium, will take on the role of chairman emeritus going forward.

“Founding and leading Tanium as its chief executive officer has been an honor, both personally and professionally,” Orion Hindawi said in the statement. “Dan is a leader who shares our values, and I am proud that he is coming aboard to help write the next chapter of Tanium’s story. I have full confidence in his vision and his ability to responsibly nurture our organization’s growth.”

Streetman, an industry veteran based in San Francisco, was most recently CEO of Allvue Systems, the private capital focused software firm owned by Vista Equity Partners. He was also the CEO of Tibco Software Inc. from 2019 until its merger with Citrix Systems in September.

“Dan is an exceptional leader with a proven track record of working with founders to deliver exceptional results,” Ben Horowitz, co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz and a Tanium board member, told Bloomberg News. “I am confident he is the right person to serve as the next CEO.”

Tanium was founded in 2007 by the father-son duo as a cybersecurity software developer for customers to pinpoint their network vulnerabilities. Over the past decade, the Kirkland, Washington-based company has attracted more than $900 million in funding from investors such as Andreessen Horowitz, TPG Capital, Salesforce Ventures and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board. It was last valued at more than $9 billion in a funding round in 2020. It isn’t clear what its current valuation is.

The software maker’s customers include an array of household names such as Barclays Plc, Chevron Corp. and Cigna Corp., according to its website. The company has openly flirted with going public since 2016.

The following year, Orion Hindawi apologized for his treatment of subordinates that led to an exodus of top executives. “It is true that I personally can be hard-edged, and that I’ve had to apologize to people at Tanium when I’ve gotten too sharp at times,” Hindawi wrote in a blog that April.

Hindawi’s apology at the time also included Tanium’s salespeople using the computer network of a client hospital without its permission when pitching potential customers.

According to Streetman’s LinkedIn profile, the incoming CEO’s expertise spans all verticals of the software sector including financial services, telecom, defense, critical manufacturer and consumer goods. He graduated with a degree in national security strategy from the US Military Academy at West Point and received an MBA from Harvard Business School. Streetman served as an officer in the US Army and has completed a dozen Ironman triathlons.

Streetman said in the statement that leading Tanium was an enormous opportunity and that he is “deeply committed to furthering its mission to provide certainty in uncertain times.”

(Updates with customers in eighth paragraph.)