# Sonali Shah

> Sonali Shah is the CEO of Cobalt, the leading Pentest as a Service (PtaaS) platform, where she took the helm in August 2024 after serving on its board. A product visionary and operator with 20+ years in cybersecurity, she pioneered the first cybersecurity risk rating platform at Bitsight, helped shepherd Veracode through its $950 million sale to Thoma Bravo, and drove Invicti's $625 million acquisition before stepping up to run Cobalt. Educated at Wharton (MBA) and the London School of Economics (MS Economics), she brings a rare mix of Wall Street discipline and deep security product expertise to a company at the intersection of human-led and AI-powered offensive security.

- **Role:** CEO at Cobalt
- **Organizations:** Cobalt, Shibumi, ThreatX, 826 Boston, Mass TLC, Springboard Enterprises, Astia, Hestia, GreenLight Fund
- **From:** Potomac, Maryland, United States
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** MBA, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Master's in Economics, London School of Economics
- **Known for:** Pioneered the world's first cybersecurity risk rating platform at Bitsight Security Ratings, Contributed to Veracode's $950 million sale to Thoma Bravo (January 2019), Contributed to Invicti Security's $625 million majority stake acquisition by Summit Partners (October 2021)

## Career timeline

- **Early career** — Investment banker at Credit Suisse, Wall Street
- **~2003-2010** — Product marketing leadership at Verisign (~7 years)
- **~2010-2013** — Product leadership at Syniverse (~3 years)
- **~2013-2016** — Product & marketing at Bitsight - pioneered the first cybersecurity risk rating platform (~3 years)
- **~2016-2019** — Product and marketing leadership at Veracode (~3 years); contributed to $950M sale to Thoma Bravo (January 2019)
- **~2019-2020** — Chief Product Officer at Human (~1 year)
- **~2020-2022** — Chief Product Officer at Invicti Security (~2 years); contributed to $625M acquisition by Summit Partners (October 2021)
- **January 2024** — Joined Cobalt Board of Directors
- **August 2024** — Appointed CEO of Cobalt (effective August 28, 2024)
- **2025** — Named finalist for CRN Women of the Year (CEO category)
- **2025** — Led Cobalt to deliver 255,000 testing hours and 31,000 testing days - strongest year ever
- **March 2026** — Announced new AI capabilities for continuous pentesting at RSA Conference

## Achievements

- Pioneered the world's first cybersecurity risk rating platform at Bitsight Security Ratings
- Contributed to Veracode's $950 million sale to Thoma Bravo (January 2019)
- Contributed to Invicti Security's $625 million majority stake acquisition by Summit Partners (October 2021)
- Led Cobalt to 255,000 hours of penetration testing in 2025 - strongest year on record
- Elevated Cobalt to #1 ranked penetration testing platform across 42 vendors in G2 rankings
- Named finalist, CRN Women of the Year 2025 (CEO category)
- Named GigaOm Radar Leader and Fast Mover in PTaaS for fourth consecutive year under her leadership
- Scaled Cobalt to 1,400+ enterprise customers
- Second member of her immediate family to hold a CEO position (alongside husband Praveen Tipirneni, formerly CEO of Morphic Therapeutic)

## Latest updates

- **2026-03** — Announced new AI capabilities for continuous pentesting at RSA Conference, integrating AI with elite human pentesters and proprietary pentesting data
- **2025-12** — Named finalist for CRN Women of the Year 2025 (CEO category); Cobalt closed its strongest year with 255,000 testing hours and 88 G2 badges
- **2025-11** — Authored security update on Cobalt's response to the Shai-Hulud npm supply-chain compromise
- **2025-08** — Published 'One Year In: A Year of Progress and Promise' reflecting on first year as CEO; also published op-ed warning on CISA expiration
- **2025-07** — Published Cobalt's AI Manifesto outlining philosophy for integrating AI into offensive security
- **2024-08** — Officially became CEO of Cobalt on August 28, 2024, replacing Chris Manton-Jones

## Links

- Website: https://cobalt.io
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/sonalinshah
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/cobalt_io
- Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/cobaltsecured

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/sonali-shah
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-22