# Jay Chaudhry

> Jay Chaudhry is the founder, chairman and CEO of Zscaler, the cloud security company he started in 2007 to replace corporate firewalls with a zero trust internet exchange. A serial founder of five security companies before Zscaler, he took the company public in 2018 and built it into a multi-billion-dollar pillar of the cybersecurity industry.

- **Role:** CEO, Chairman & Founder at Zscaler
- **Organizations:** Zscaler, SecureIT (founder, sold to Verisign), CipherTrust (founder, sold to Secure Computing), AirDefense (founder, sold to Motorola), CoreHarbor (founder, sold to USi/AT&T), IBM (early career), Unisys (early career), NCR (early career), Verisign (post-acquisition)
- **From:** Panoh, Una district, Himachal Pradesh, India
- **Nationality:** Indian-American
- **Education:** B.Tech, Electronics Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University (IIT-BHU), MS (Industrial Engineering / Computer Engineering), MBA, University of Cincinnati, Executive education, Harvard Business School
- **Known for:** Founded five security software companies, four of which were acquired (Verisign, Secure Computing, Motorola, USi/AT&T)., Took Zscaler public in 2018 in one of the largest cybersecurity IPOs of its era., Built Zscaler into a flagship of the zero-trust and SASE/SSE category.

## Career timeline

- **1958** — Born in Panoh, a village of 800 in Himachal Pradesh, India.
- **1980** — Moves to the United States to attend the University of Cincinnati.
- **1980s-90s** — Engineering, sales and management roles at IBM, NCR, and Unisys.
- **1996** — Co-founds SecureIT with his wife Jyoti, using their life savings.
- **1998** — SecureIT acquired by Verisign; moves to San Francisco to run security services.
- **2000** — Founds CipherTrust (email security) and CoreHarbor (managed e-commerce).
- **2001** — Co-founds AirDefense, a wireless security pioneer (later acquired by Motorola).
- **2006** — CipherTrust acquired by Secure Computing for $274 million.
- **2007** — Founds Zscaler with a bet on cloud-delivered security.
- **2018** — Zscaler goes public on Nasdaq (ZS) on March 16, 2018.
- **2024** — Featured by CNBC as a self-made billionaire worth roughly $11B.
- **2026** — Continues as CEO and Chairman, expanding Zscaler into AI security and agent identity.

## Achievements

- Founded five security software companies, four of which were acquired (Verisign, Secure Computing, Motorola, USi/AT&T).
- Took Zscaler public in 2018 in one of the largest cybersecurity IPOs of its era.
- Built Zscaler into a flagship of the zero-trust and SASE/SSE category.
- Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year (Southeast USA).
- Goldman Sachs '100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs.'
- Bloomberg Billionaires Index member; family controls roughly 35% of Zscaler.
- Named to Forbes' richest immigrant billionaires list.

## Latest updates

- **2025-05** — Tells CNBC that banks are embracing Zscaler's zero trust approach as cloud and AI workloads expand.
- **2026-01** — Sits down with The Motley Fool to discuss Zscaler's positioning in zero trust and AI security.
- **2026** — Focuses public commentary on 'securing AI agents with zero trust.'

## Links

- Website: https://www.zscaler.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaychaudhry/
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/jaychaudhry
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Zscalerinc
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Zscaler

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/jay-chaudhry
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-30