Okta Accelerates Customer Adoption, Adds Key Security and Marketing Executives

SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwire - Jul 19, 2012) - Okta, the leading on-demand identity and access management service, today announced an acceleration on the customer acquisition front and the addition of two new executives to their leadership team. The appointment of security veteran David Baker as chief security officer is a direct reflection of the company's ongoing commitment to building and running the most secure and reliable on-demand identity management service in the industry. In addition, Corinna Krueger is joining the Okta team to increase focus on corporate marketing and further accelerate momentum in the market.

Chief Security Officer Underscores Okta's Commitment to the Enterprise

Enterprises need an identity management provider that meets their stringent security and reliability standards. With the completion of the SOC 2 Type II audit against all five associated trust principles, Okta has demonstrated a level of security and operational maturity found only in the most security-minded SaaS providers. In addition, Okta's zero downtime architecture has enabled the company to maintain service availability through major disruptions like the recent Amazon Web Services outage when Netflix, Instagram, Pinterest and many other cloud-based companies suffered downtime.

To build on this solid track record and ensure an even greater focus on security across all aspects of the company's operations, Okta added David Baker as chief security officer. The CSO role is a new executive position for the company and is a reflection of Okta's ongoing commitment to delivering enterprises with the most secure, robust identity management service in the cloud.

Baker brings more than 20 years of information and security architecture experience to Okta. Before joining the company, he served as vice president of services at IOActive, where he managed the technical staff, provided consulting services to the company's Fortune Global 500 customers and was responsible for delivering complete customer satisfaction -- helping grow company sales and revenue more than 15 percent year-over-year. Prior to IOActive, Baker held a variety of engineering and security leadership roles at VANTOS, WebEx, LoudCloud and NASA's Ames Research Center.

"The work Okta has done toward building an extremely secure, reliable architecture since day one is remarkable," said David Baker, CSO, Okta. "The service that the team built securely powers millions of authentications per month for a customer base that includes a number of public and Fortune 500 companies. I am excited to be joining a team with such a keen focus on customer success and look forward to accelerating our leadership position as the most secure and reliable cloud identity and access management service provider on the market."

Accelerating Momentum with New Marketing Leadership

Okta's unmatched commitment toward building a highly available and secure cloud-based service has helped it rapidly expand its customer base in the first half of 2012. With more than 130 customers across a number of different verticals, customers joining Okta over the past quarter include Brady Corporation, BroadSoft, Celigo, City Year, Comcast, Edmunds, GlobalEnglish, NetMotion Wireless, PointClickCare, Raven Industries, Roku, Siegel + Gale, Softchoice, and Vera Bradley.

To accelerate this market momentum, Okta has also added Corinna Krueger as its senior director of marketing. Krueger comes to Okta from Cotendo, where she served as the head of marketing and played a pivotal role in the company's growth ($700K to $15.2M in revenue from 2009 to 2011) leading to its acquisition by Akamai (for $268M) in 2011. Prior to Cotendo, Krueger held a variety of marketing and business development positions at Keynote Systems and Siemens.

"The rapid growth we've experienced is a testament to the identity challenges customers are facing as they move to the cloud, roll out BYOD strategies, and increasingly collaborate online with customers and partners," said Todd McKinnon, CEO, Okta. "Enterprises understand that the best way to address these identity challenges is in the cloud, and Okta has built the most secure, reliable service to help them do just that. I am very excited to have David join the team to amplify our focus on security across the company and look forward to broadly expanding our marketing presence with Corinna now on board."

About Okta

Okta is the market leading on-demand identity and access management service that enables enterprises to accelerate the secure adoption of their web-based applications, both in the cloud and behind the firewall. Okta delivers a complete solution addressing the needs of IT, end-users, and business leaders; no customization required.

Okta's initial service is built on a secure, reliable and extensible on-demand, multi-tenant cloud services platform. That platform will be the foundation for a growing set of core Okta and partner services that empower businesses to eliminate cloud adoption barriers and unlock the potential of the cloud for enterprise users everywhere.

The Okta team has built, deployed, and supported market leading, on-demand and enterprise software solutions from companies including Salesforce.com, SuccessFactors, PeopleSoft, Microsoft, Sun and HP. Okta is backed by premier angel and venture investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Greylock Partners, and Khosla Ventures. For more information, visit us at www.okta.com or follow us on www.okta.com/blog.