Cequence Security Appoints Russ Schafer as CMO Amid Record Quarter, Expanding Customer Base, and Surging AI Security Demand

Former Fortinet and Check Point cybersecurity marketing executive joins following a record quarter, global customer wins including NTT DOCOMO, and the expansion of Agentic AI Security and Governance

 Cequence Security, the leader in application, API, and agentic AI protection, today announced that Russ Schafer, former Executive Vice President of Marketing at Fortinet, has joined as Chief Marketing Officer, reporting to CEO Ameya Talwalkar. Schafer joins as Cequence builds on major customer wins, the expansion of Agentic AI security solutions and industry recognition.

Schafer brings more than 25 years of marketing leadership at billion-dollar companies and high-growth startups across cybersecurity, SaaS, enterprise software, semiconductors, and media. He has led global teams of 200+ professionals and managed budgets exceeding $300M, generating billions in pipeline. As CMO at Cequence, he leads corporate marketing, product marketing, demand generation, field marketing, analyst relations, and creative services.

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For 12 years, Cequence has stopped bots and secured APIs for some of the world’s largest and most demanding organizations in telecommunications, financial services, retail, and transportation. The Cequence Platform scales to process over 10 billion API calls per day while protecting 4 billion user accounts. AI agents now reach enterprise data through the same APIs Cequence already protects, and the company is applying that experience to secure them. To protect enterprises adopting AI, Cequence continues to expand its AI security solution to protect against the latest AI Agent threats, including:

• Cequence Application and API Protection v9: Helps security teams discover APIs and stop attacks, bots, and abuse, and is now AI-native, with a built-in AI assistant and MCP server. Agent Trust verifies agent identity and blocks harmful behavior in real time. Cequence found Meta’s Muse at more than half of the customers studied within two weeks of the agent’s launch.
• AI Gateway: Treats agents as properly onboarded digital employees, tying tools, APIs, skills, LLMs, and permissions to Agent Personas, containing agents and preventing overreach in real time. AI Discovery brings shadow AI under governance, while LLM Continuity and Budgets & AI Spend deliver model failover and spend control.

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Together, Application and API Protection, including Agent Trust, and AI Gateway secure both directions of agent traffic, from external agents reaching enterprise applications to an enterprise’s own agents reaching tools, data, and models.

The demand for bot, API, and agentic AI security is surging, and Cequence’s record growth reflects that trend. Cequence reported its strongest quarter and largest deal in company history, with new customers in the United States, Japan, South Korea, Brazil, and the Middle East. NTT DOCOMO, Japan’s leading mobile operator with over 91 million subscribers, deployed Cequence’s application and API protection solution to safeguard its service infrastructure, applications, and APIs from sophisticated attacks, business logic abuse, and unauthorized access. Cequence is defining the security standards for the agentic era, co-authoring the CIS Critical Security Controls Companion Guides for AI agents, LLMs, and Model Context Protocol (MCP), while co-chairing TM Forum’s AI-Native Blueprint initiative. The company is also working with a dozen global telecommunications providers on their autonomous network initiatives to safely enable agentic AI.

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“Enterprise leaders are just beginning to realize the sheer scale of the AI agent security and governance challenge,” said Ameya Talwalkar, co-founder and CEO of Cequence. “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. Russ brings the strategic vision and proven marketing playbook to drive awareness, build pipeline, and establish Cequence as a leader in agentic AI security.”

“Cequence is solving the exact agentic AI security challenges that enterprise leaders are just beginning to discover,” said Russ Schafer, Chief Marketing Officer, Cequence. “Cequence’s proven heritage in stopping bot and API abuse, combined with breakthrough innovations like Agent Trust and full-lifecycle AI governance, uniquely positions us to lead this market. I’m thrilled to join the team and empower enterprises to adopt AI agents with complete confidence and control.”

Prior to joining Cequence, Schafer served as Executive Vice President of Marketing at Fortinet, driving global demand across a portfolio of 60+ network, cloud, and AI security products—experience that directly aligns with Cequence’s platform expansion. Schafer is a recognized thought leader and featured event speaker who presented on Agentic AI for Coordinated and Unified Cybersecurity Defense at RSAC 2026. He previously headed product marketing and analyst relations at Check Point Software and served as SVP & GM of Technology at THX. His earlier experience includes serving as VP of Product Marketing at Adap.tv (acquired by AOL for $405M), alongside senior leadership roles at Intel, IBM, Sybase, and Yahoo!. He holds an MBA from Duke University and a BBA from Texas A&M University.