IRONSCALES names Steve McKenzie Chief Operating Officer

IRONSCALES has appointed Steve McKenzie as chief operating officer as the email security company expands its leadership team.

McKenzie joins from legal technology company LinkSquares, where he served as chief customer and revenue officer. He also spent more than nine years at Mimecast in senior roles, including interim chief customer officer, vice president of sales and customer success for North America, vice president of marketing and strategic accounts, and vice president of sales for the UK and Europe.

At IRONSCALES, he will oversee go-to-market alignment, customer success, and revenue operations as the company pushes into its next phase of growth in the email security market.

His arrival follows two other recent senior hires: Steve Malone as chief strategy officer and Amit Bluman as senior vice president of research and development.

IRONSCALES, which says it serves more than 17,000 organisations worldwide, is positioning itself around the rising use of generative artificial intelligence in phishing, business email compromise, and other social engineering attacks. It argues that the speed and realism of AI-generated messages are making older approaches to email defence less effective.

Research from Osterman cited by IRONSCALES found that 88% of organisations experienced at least one security incident in the past 12 months that undermined trust in digital communications. More than 80% reported greater attacker interest in exploiting trusted channels, while nearly one in five security leaders said awareness training alone no longer works against AI-enhanced threats.

AI verification

The appointment follows another recent development for the company. IRONSCALES said it became the first email security vendor to be verified under Anthropic's Cyber Verification Program, which gives approved cyber security suppliers access to advanced AI tools for defensive use.

The verification comes amid a wider race among cyber security companies to adapt products to threats such as impersonation, account takeover, and deepfake-enabled fraud. Email remains one of the main entry points for attackers, while collaboration tools are also becoming targets for voice and video deception.

IRONSCALES said its platform includes specialised AI agents for red teaming, phishing operations, and phishing simulation, as well as deepfake protection for Microsoft Teams. It also draws on a network of more than 35,000 security professionals across its customer base and partner ecosystem to feed threat intelligence into the system.

McKenzie linked his decision to join the company to both its installed base and its technical direction.

"I came here because this team is building something that matters, and they are in the perfect position to bring it to scale," said Steve McKenzie, Chief Operating Officer of IRONSCALES.

"I was also drawn to IRONSCALES by something I rarely see in this market: a platform that already delivers measurable results for 17,000+ organizations, a community of 35,000+ security professionals making it smarter every day, and an agent architecture built for where threats are actually headed. Add to that frontier AI verification earned from Anthropic, and IRONSCALES has every structural advantage it needs to define the next era of email security," he said.

Leadership push

The hire brings in an executive with direct experience at one of the better-known businesses in the email security sector. Mimecast has long been a significant player in the market, and McKenzie's background there gives IRONSCALES someone who has worked across sales, customer operations, and international expansion.

That operational background appears central to the role as IRONSCALES seeks closer alignment between commercial teams and customer-facing functions and tries to turn product development into broader market traction.

Founder and Chief Executive Eyal Benishti said McKenzie's experience would be valuable as the business scales.

"Steve spent nine years inside one of the largest email security companies ever built," said Eyal Benishti, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of IRONSCALES.

"He knows the category, he knows the buyer, and he knows what operational excellence looks like at scale. That experience is exactly what we need right now, as our accomplishments in 2026 have created a product that has outpaced the brand. Steve is the operator who will close that gap," he said.