ExtraHop, the global leader in real-time wire data analytics for IT intelligence and business operations, today announced the addition of two technology industry veterans that will expand the company's product and corporate leadership teams. John Leon, a former business development executive from Puppet Labs, VMware, and Intel joins as Vice President of Business Development. Paul Sanford, formerly a product and engineering manager with Microsoft and Splunk, will now lead the Product Management team as a Senior Director.

With a combined 34 years in IT leadership, Leon and Sanford will play key roles in helping ExtraHop accelerate its market leadership in IT Operations Analytics (ITOA), a fast-growing enterprise technology category projected to grow at 23.7% CAGR through 2020. Their appointments closely follow other high-profile additions to the ExtraHop team, including Mark Anderson, Executive Vice President of World Wide Field Operations for Palo Alto Networks, who joined the ExtraHop Board of Directors in March 2016.

"ExtraHop is trailblazing the rapidly growing ITOA category, which requires a special breed of tech talent and entrepreneurial drive," said ExtraHop CEO Jesse Rothstein. "John and Paul bring insights and experience from some of the industry's fastest growing companies. Their expertise will prove invaluable for partners and customers as we continue to drive innovation as the de facto platform for IT operations analytics."

Prior to joining ExtraHop, Leon was the director of business development and alliances for Puppet Labs. He also served as the senior alliance manager and regional OEM alliance manager at VMware and held product and alliance management roles at Intel and Hewlett-Packard.

"I've worked with and for many disruptive companies, and I know a game-changing product when I see it," said Leon. "For customers, the ExtraHop platform offers an unprecedented degree of visibility and control. For alliance partners it means seamless deployment and ongoing customer success. I look forward to deepening relationships with our existing technology partners and forging new ones that accelerate IT innovation." 

Before joining ExtraHop, Sanford was a founding member of the Seattle engineering campus of Splunk, where he built the product management team. As senior director, he also led Splunk's Seattle engineering team with cross-functional product delivery responsibilities. Prior, Sanford was a senior product manager at Microsoft, director of product management Avalara, and a post-sales manager at InStranet Inc. (acquired by Salesforce).

"ExtraHop is championing wire data analytics to solve many of the issues IT organizations experience daily with expediency and ease," said Sanford. "The company's technology fundamentally changes how businesses approach IT, and I'm looking forward to furthering our customers' successes."