Sumo Logic Snags Top McAfee Enterprise Exec Lynne Doherty

Lynne Doherty’s departure from McAfee Enterprise comes less than a month after the company merged with FireEye and she was passed over as CEO of the combined organization, with the top executive role instead going to Bryan Palma.

Sumo Logic has landed top McAfee Enterprise go-to-market executive Lynne Doherty for a newly created role leading the data analytics company’s worldwide field operations.

The Redwood City, Calif.-based vendor tapped Doherty to drive Sumo Logic’s go-to-market strategy, strengthen its global sales and partner ecosystem, and help the company further scale going forward. Doherty spent the past 19 months at McAfee Enterprise overseeing a team of 1,200 people and driving more than $1 billion of revenue annually as executive vice president of global sales and marketing.

“Sumo has all the pieces required to become a category leader – vision, technology, happy customers, strong partner ecosystem, and purpose-driven culture,” Doherty said in a statement. “I’m thrilled to join the company and help lead them through the next phase of growth as we scale to address the market transitions of cloud computing, cyber security and observability.”

[Related: 10 Things To Know About The FireEye-McAfee Enterprise Deal]

Doherty will assume many of the responsibilities held today by Steve Fitz, who has served as Sumo Logic’s chief revenue officer since October 2016 and will transition out of the company by the end of the year. Under Fitz, Sumo Logic raised $325.6 million in a September 2020 initial public offering that valued the company at $2.2 billion and built out a network of more than 175 international channel partners.

Sumo Logic’s stock is up $0.26 (1.51 percent) to $17.53 per share in trading Monday morning. Many of Doherty‘s responsibilities at McAfee Enterprise will be assumed by Adam Philpott, who spent more than four years leading McAfee’s EMEA business before being promoted to president of global sales in October. A Sumo Logic spokesperson said Doherty wasn’t immediately available for additional comment.

“Sumo Logic is strongly positioned as a real-time data analytics leader that can help them [customers] build, run and secure their digital applications and multi-cloud infrastructure,” Sumo Logic President and CEO Ramin Sayar said in a statement. “I’m thrilled to have Lynne join Sumo Logic, and am excited to partner with her to capture the large and growing market opportunity in front of us.”

Doherty’s departure from McAfee Enterprise comes less than a month after the company merged with FireEye under the ownership of private equity firm Symphony Technology Group (STG). Despite being one of the highest-ranking executives to come over to McAfee Enterprise when it was acquired by STG in July for $4 billion, Doherty was passed over as CEO of the combined FireEye-McAfee Enterprise unit.

Instead, STG give the CEO title and responsibilities to Bryan Palma, who joined the significantly smaller FireEye business in February 2021 as executive vice president of products. Doherty and Palma worked together at Cisco from 2013 to 2019, with Doherty leading the 2,000-person U.S. commercial sales team and Palma running Cisco’s $8 billion subscription software, customer success, and services organization.

“Bryan and I have known each other for many years, and from the beginning, his leadership, energy and experience make him one of the best in the industry,” Doherty wrote on LinkedIn last month after Palma’s selection as CEO was announced. “We are lucky to have him guiding us on this journey as we combine forces with FireEye to become a new cybersecurity company!”

Palma told CRN last month that there’s places where both FireEye and McAfee Enterprise already have leaders in place and decisions will have to be made about who’s best-suited to lead the company going forward. Each company has experienced channel leaders, with Chris Carter running FireEye’s Americas channels since 2016 and Kathleen Curry running McAfee Enterprise’s global channels since 2020.

Following Doherty’s exit, the most senior executive from the McAfee Enterprise side of the business who’s still with the organization is Shishir Singh, who has led product strategy and execution since Jan. 1, 2021. Doherty and Singh were the only two senior McAfee executives to move over to STG with the Enterprise business, with all other McAfee leaders staying with the pure-play consumer organization.