The cybersecurity company expands its agentic AI security portfolio as global customer wins and demand for API protection strengthen its growth momentum.
Cequence Security has appointed Russ Schafer, former Executive Vice President of Marketing at Fortinet, as Chief Marketing Officer, bringing an experienced cybersecurity marketing leader into the company as demand for application, API and agentic AI security accelerates.
Reporting to CEO Ameya Talwalkar, Schafer will oversee corporate and product marketing, demand generation, field marketing, analyst relations and creative services. He brings more than 25 years of leadership experience across cybersecurity, enterprise software, SaaS and technology, including senior roles at Fortinet and Check Point Software.
The appointment follows what Cequence describes as its strongest quarter and the largest deal in its history, alongside customer wins across the United States, Japan, South Korea, Brazil and the Middle East. Among its customers is NTT DOCOMO, Japan’s leading mobile operator, which has deployed Cequence’s application and API protection to safeguard its service infrastructure, applications and APIs against sophisticated attacks, business logic abuse and unauthorised access.
Cequence says its platform processes more than 10 billion API calls daily while protecting four billion user accounts. As AI agents increasingly access enterprise applications and data through APIs, the company is extending its established security capabilities to address agent identity, permissions, behaviour and governance.
“Cequence is solving the exact agentic AI security challenges that enterprise leaders are just beginning to discover.” — Russ Schafer, Chief Marketing Officer, Cequence Security
Its Application and API Protection platform, now incorporating an AI assistant, an MCP server and Agent Trust, is designed to help organisations discover APIs, detect abuse and block harmful agent behaviour in real time. The company’s AI Gateway adds controls for agent identities and permissions, shadow AI discovery, model failover and AI spending management.
Together, these capabilities aim to secure traffic in both directions: external agents accessing enterprise applications and internal agents connecting to tools, data and AI models.
“Because AI agents rely on the very APIs Cequence already protects, we are uniquely positioned to give enterprises complete visibility and real-time control and governance of AI agents,” said Ameya Talwalkar, co-founder and CEO of Cequence. He said Schafer’s experience would help strengthen market awareness and establish the company’s position in agentic AI security.
Beyond its commercial expansion, Cequence is co-authoring CIS Critical Security Controls Companion Guides for AI agents, large language models and Model Context Protocol, while co-chairing TM Forum’s AI-Native Blueprint initiative. It is also working with a dozen global telecommunications providers on autonomous network initiatives.
Schafer previously led global marketing at Fortinet across a portfolio of more than 60 network, cloud and AI security products. His earlier roles include product marketing and analyst relations at Check Point, technology leadership at THX, and senior positions at Intel, IBM, Sybase and Yahoo!.
His appointment signals Cequence’s effort to translate growing interest in agentic AI security into broader market adoption as enterprises seek greater control over autonomous systems operating across their digital environments.
