Appointment
Former Facebook, Uber CSO joins cyber unicorn Upwind
Joe Sullivan becomes a strategic advisor to Amiram Shachar’s startup as demand for cloud and AI security accelerates.
Upwind Security has appointed Joe Sullivan, one of Silicon Valley’s most prominent cybersecurity executives, as a strategic advisor, as the company positions itself to capitalize on growing demand for cloud and AI security.
Sullivan previously served as Chief Security Officer at Facebook, Uber and Cloudflare, and earlier spent eight years at the U.S. Department of Justice, where he helped establish a unit focused on prosecuting cybercrime. His appointment comes at a time when enterprises are struggling to adapt to a rapidly expanding attack surface driven by cloud computing and artificial intelligence.
Upwined, which reported 900% year-over-year revenue growth and recently raised $250 million in a Series B funding round, seeks to compete with both established cybersecurity vendors and newer cloud-native players.
Sullivan’s role at Upwind will focus on enterprise strategy and customer engagement, reflecting a broader trend in the industry: as cybersecurity becomes more central to business operations, companies are turning to experienced operators who have managed security at global scale.
"Security leaders are navigating something genuinely new right now,” said Sullivan. “The tools, the risks, the speed at which everything is moving in 2026 is unlike anything I have seen in my career. And the enterprises that are going to come out ahead are the ones that invest in real-time visibility at the cloud and AI layer, not just controls at the perimeter. What Upwind has built addresses exactly what the industry needs: the ability to see what is happening at runtime, in the moment, and act on it."
