SASE & Network Security

I have been working in the SASE space since before the term existed in its current form. Senior SE at Zscaler when cloud-delivered security was still a debate, not a default. Marketing and field roles at Palo Alto Networks when Prisma Access was being defined to the market. Director of Product Marketing and then Channel SE at Cato Networks, where the work helped land Cato in the Gartner Magic Quadrant as a leader in 2024. The SE and marketing roles have alternated throughout, each one making the other more accurate.

At Zscaler, I was a Senior Sales Engineer when zero trust network access was a concept most enterprises were still evaluating skeptically. The work was technical: understanding the architecture well enough to answer hard questions from network engineers who had been running MPLS and perimeter firewalls for fifteen years, and understanding the buyer well enough to know which questions actually mattered to a security decision. That is where I built the vocabulary and the instincts that shaped everything that followed.

Palo Alto Networks was two distinct chapters. First as Technical and Product Marketing Manager for SASE, shaping how Prisma Access was positioned externally and building the content and enablement infrastructure that supported the field. Then as SE Specialist, taking that positioning back into direct customer and partner engagements. Ultimate Test Drive sessions across the US. Presentations at the Executive Briefing Center. Ignite Conference. The back-and-forth between building the narrative and testing it in front of buyers made both sides sharper.

Building the Cato story

I joined Cato Networks as Director of Product Marketing. Three-plus years in that role before moving into a Channel Sales Engineer position. The marketing years were the most expansive: content strategy, competitive positioning, external narrative, and the GTM motion for a platform that was genuinely differentiated but operating in a market full of vendors claiming the same thing.

The most significant outcome of that period was Cato's recognition as a Gartner Magic Quadrant leader in 2024. That kind of result doesn't come from marketing alone. It requires sustained collaboration with product management on how capabilities are described, documented, and differentiated. I owned the PMM side of that process directly.

After Cato, a stint as Director of Product Marketing at Zero Networks, where the work shifted toward identity-based segmentation, adjacent to SASE in the network security conversation, but a distinct motion and buyer profile.

Alongside the analyst work: a full website product section rebuilt from scratch in two months, a competitive intelligence program built to give sales credible language without scripted talking points, and demo video content I scripted and appeared in. Awards from Cato: Outstanding Contribution to Sales and Company MVP.

When the marketer goes back to the field

When I moved into the Channel SE role, I brought that product knowledge directly into partner and customer engagements. The channel work required a different mode: less narrative building, more field credibility. The fluency in both directions is what makes the overall work add up to something more than a resume of titles.