People often ask me, "How was it moving from New York to the Bay Area?" and "How do you like your new role?"
If you're curious, here are a few reflections from my first 6 months.
I moved from New York City to the Bay Area to lead
Palo Alto Networks Strategics business in Northern California. I love New York City. Let’s just put that out there. I love every aspect of it. The good, the bad, the ugly. There’s something thrilling about building your career in a city that doesn’t slow down. Ever.
But what do I think about the Bay Area?
In the past several months, I have met some of the most creative and innovative leaders of my career. Founders, operators, engineers, executives all building toward something bigger than themselves. There is a strong belief here that the future is being built now. AI is not incremental progress. It is fundamentally changing how companies operate, how decisions are made, and how value is created. Being at ground zero of that transformation, partnering with the companies driving it, is a true privilege.
Being in the middle of this transformation is energizing. And it is also measurable. To borrow a familiar cybersecurity analogy, a car can only move as fast as its brakes allow it to. Innovation may set the pace, but security determines how confidently companies can accelerate.
In Q2,
Palo Alto Networks delivered $2.6B in revenue, up 15% YoY, with Next-Gen Security (NGS) ARR growing to over $6.3B, up 33% YoY. NorCal Strategics certainly helped move the needle. Our region grew by over 24% in Q2, a meaningful accomplishment at our scale as one of the highest revenue generating regions in the company. We secured major wins with global leaders while strengthening the culture that made those wins possible.
Looking ahead, the opportunity expands. Our strategic acquisitions of
CyberArk and
Chronosphere position us strongly for the next phase of growth. In a world increasingly defined by AI agents, identity becomes the control layer. Every human, machine, and autonomous interaction must be governed.
At the same time, availability and performance are directly tied to revenue for companies operating at massive scale. Predictability, uptime, and application performance are non negotiable. We recently saw a prominent AI company in NorCal close a nine figure deal with
Chronosphere, validating how critical observability has become in this AI era. And yes, you read that right… nine figures!
The strategy is clear. The market opportunity is massive. But the best plans mean little without execution, and execution always comes down to people.
If you are interested in building something special in this next phase of
Palo Alto Networks, we want to talk to you. I am personally hiring a District Sales Manager to lead one of my Strategics districts in Northern California. We also have several Account Executive and Solution Consultant roles open as we continue to grow.
We’re building something special. If you’re ready, let’s talk.