# David DeSanto

> David DeSanto is the Philadelphia-area technology executive who became Anaconda's CEO in October 2025 after six years at GitLab and an earlier career in cybersecurity research and product validation. A developer by training and co-author of Threat Forecasting, he has built his leadership philosophy around testing systems under pressure, keeping product leaders close to the product, and pairing open-source freedom with enterprise security and governance.

- **Role:** Chief Executive Officer at Anaconda
- **Organizations:** Anaconda, GitLab, OpenSSF, Spirent Communications, NSS Labs, ICSA Labs
- **Education:** Master of Science in Cybersecurity, New York University, Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, Millersville University of Pennsylvania
- **Known for:** Helped guide GitLab from a high-growth startup into a publicly traded DevOps platform company during a six-year tenure., Led GitLab's global product organization and helped launch GitLab Duo, GitLab Dedicated, and integrated security and compliance capabilities., Served on the OpenSSF Governing Board in 2024 as a general member representative.

## Career timeline

- **2000-2005** — Worked as an independent IT consultant.
- **2003-2006** — Worked as a senior network administrator at Central Penn Management Group.
- **2006-2013** — Served at ICSA Labs, ultimately as a technical lead focused on security product testing and validation.
- **2013-2014** — Led product management work at NSS Labs.
- **2014-2019** — Directed products and threat research at Spirent Communications.
- **2015** — Co-authored Threat Forecasting: Leveraging Big Data for Predictive Analysis.
- **2019** — Joined GitLab to help grow its security offering within the DevOps lifecycle.
- **2022** — Became GitLab's Chief Product Officer after product leadership roles covering development and security.
- **2024** — Served as a general member representative on the OpenSSF Governing Board.
- **2025** — Appointed Chief Executive Officer and a director of Anaconda on October 16.
- **2026** — Led Anaconda through acquisitions of Outerbounds, Kilo Code and Enkrypt AI, expanding its platform across orchestration, agentic engineering and AI security.

## Achievements

- Helped guide GitLab from a high-growth startup into a publicly traded DevOps platform company during a six-year tenure.
- Led GitLab's global product organization and helped launch GitLab Duo, GitLab Dedicated, and integrated security and compliance capabilities.
- Served on the OpenSSF Governing Board in 2024 as a general member representative.
- Co-authored Threat Forecasting: Leveraging Big Data for Predictive Analysis.
- Became Anaconda's CEO and joined its board of directors in October 2025.
- As Anaconda CEO, oversaw the 2026 acquisitions of Outerbounds, Kilo Code and Enkrypt AI.

## Latest updates

- **2026-09** — Anaconda was named to the 2026 Inc. 5000 after expanding its platform through three acquisitions in six months; DeSanto framed the company's focus around model choice, data control, security and cost management.
- **2026-08** — Anaconda acquired Enkrypt AI, adding model, agent and MCP-server security and compliance capabilities.
- **2026-07** — Anaconda acquired Kilo Code, bringing a model-agnostic agentic engineering platform used by more than three million developers into the company.
- **2026-06** — DeSanto published a hands-on local-AI build series using Anaconda Desktop and an NVIDIA DGX Spark.
- **2026-04** — Anaconda acquired Outerbounds, adding production workflow orchestration and deployment capabilities based around Metaflow.

## Links

- Website: https://www.anaconda.com/about-us/leadership/david-desanto
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ddesanto

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/david-desanto
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-09-27