KnowBe4 names Alex Callihan Chief Technology Officer

KnowBe4 has appointed Alex Callihan as Chief Technology Officer, promoting a senior engineering leader who has spent more than nine years at the cybersecurity company.

Previously Senior Vice President of Engineering, Callihan will now oversee product innovation and research and development. He will report to Chief Executive Officer Bryan Palma and work with the product management, customer success and marketing teams.

The appointment comes as KnowBe4 expands its focus on security tools for both human users and artificial intelligence agents. The company recently introduced Agent Risk Manager and AIDA, short for AI Defence Agents, including products for deepfake training content, content creation and orchestration.

Callihan brings more than 15 years of software engineering and leadership experience to the role. His remit includes products designed to address cyber risks such as prompt injection, shadow AI and social engineering.

Palma described the promotion as part of a broader leadership shift at the business.

"Alex has been an invaluable leader within our engineering organisation for nearly a decade, instrumental in scaling our technical capabilities," said Bryan Palma, Chief Executive Officer of KnowBe4. "As we navigate a new era of digital workforce security, where securing both AI agents and humans is paramount, Alex's expertise and vision make him the perfect choice to lead our next-generation research and development. His leadership will be critical as we continue to pioneer innovative, AI-driven defence solutions for our customers worldwide."

The management changes also include Fran Roberts taking on the role of General Manager of KnowBe4 Studios. Mark Patton will become Chief Scientist, working with Palma and Callihan on special projects tied to the company's longer-term direction.

Product focus

KnowBe4 has built its business around security awareness training and attack simulation, and now presents that work more broadly as digital workforce security. That includes technology for organisations seeking to manage risk linked to staff behaviour, as well as newer forms of exposure created by AI systems and agents.

The company says more than 70,000 organisations worldwide use its platform. It combines training, attack simulation, collaboration security and agent security, alongside a proprietary risk scoring system.

Callihan's promotion gives an internal engineering executive responsibility for steering that next phase. His background at the company may provide continuity as KnowBe4 adjusts its product strategy to reflect the growing use of AI tools in workplaces and the corresponding rise in security concerns.

Those concerns have become a central theme across the cybersecurity sector, with vendors adapting products to address AI-generated fraud, manipulation of AI systems and employees' unauthorised use of consumer AI services. KnowBe4's recent launches suggest it wants to position itself in that market by linking its longstanding human-risk business with tools aimed at securing AI-driven activity.

Callihan outlined his view of the transition in a statement accompanying the announcement.

"I am incredibly excited to step into the new role at such a pivotal moment for KnowBe4 and the broader cybersecurity industry," said Alex Callihan, Chief Technology Officer of KnowBe4. "Over the past nine years, I've watched this team push the boundaries of innovation. I look forward to working closely with our product, marketing and customer success teams to accelerate our platform and deliver the best defence solutions against advanced threats like prompt injection, shadow AI and social engineering to our customers."

The appointment places a long-serving technical executive at the centre of KnowBe4's product development efforts as the company responds to a changing threat landscape that increasingly spans both employees and AI systems.