Gary Steele brings more than 30 years of leadership experience in the technology industry and a proven track record of successfully scaling SaaS operations, driving innovation, and growing multi-billion dollar global enterprises. He is currently the Chief Executive Officer of Shield AI, a defense technology company. His background and expertise in building, scaling, and leading multi-product, global technology businesses are accelerating Shield AI’s growth as it expands its Hivemind autonomy products and builds on the momentum of its aircraft business. Before joining Shield AI, Gary served as President, Go-to-Market at Cisco, where he oversaw global Sales, Partner, and Marketing organizations and led the integration of Splunk. As CEO of Splunk, he drove a successful business transformation—achieving double-digit revenue growth, expanding profitability, and accelerating product innovation, including the launch of new AI-powered offerings. Prior to Splunk, Gary was the founding CEO of Proofpoint, which he grew from a startup to a leading publicly traded security-as-a-service company. He currently serves on the board of directors at Upwork.