In episode 77 of the Cyber Security Matters podcast, hosts Matt Rose and Harry Baldwin sit down with Scott Gainey, Chief Marketing Officer at Checkmarx, for a wide-ranging conversation on marketing transformation, leadership, and the seismic shift AI is forcing on application security. With nearly three decades leading marketing at companies like Cisco, Palo Alto Networks and SentinelOne, Scott brings a rare blend of go-to-market craft and deep security-category expertise and a clear-eyed view of why AppSec has suddenly become one of the most urgent problems in cyber.

Key topics covered:

• How Scott fell into security, marketing, and leadership, none of which he originally set out to do
• The leadership lessons that shaped him: Chris Young, West Point’s Thayer program, and ROI rigour under private-equity ownership at KKR
• Why conference marketing is won before the event, not on the show floor
• The “go local” community trend emerging alongside the big conferences
• How the CMO role has changed: AI, frontier models, and a buying committee that’s ~70% through its decision before sales is involved
• What separates great marketers: intellectual curiosity, self-drive, and field credibility
• The biggest shift in application security: AI’s “two-front problem”: more code and more vulnerabilities on one side, adversaries weaponising those same models on the other
• What Checkmarx does, and why deterministic and probabilistic (AI) scanning need to work together
• Career advice for anyone entering cybersecurity

Guest bio:

Scott Gainey is Chief Marketing Officer at Checkmarx, the application security company. He brings over two decades of marketing leadership across Palo Alto Networks, SentinelOne, Cisco Security, NetApp and Nile, and has studied leadership at Stanford GSB and West Point’s Thayer Leadership Development Group. Connect with Scott on LinkedIn

About neuco: 

neuco is a Global Specialist Recruitment and Executive Search firm based in Brighton, UK. We help recruit for mid-senior hard-to-fill roles in Cyber Security, Satellite, Space & Defence and Media & Sports Technology sectors. If hiring or talent is on the radar now or in the future, get in touch for an initial conversation today via hello@neuco-group.com.