Leadership

Andre Durand

Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Founded in 2002, Ping has become a leading provider of enterprise identity security, serving more than half of the Fortune 100 and protecting more than 3 billion identities worldwide. In 2016, Ping was acquired by Vista Equity Partners and in 2019, became the first Vista company to IPO on the New York Stock Exchange, trading under the symbol PING. In 2022, Thoma Bravo acquired PING and took the company private for $2.8B. Prior to Ping Identity, Durand founded Jabber to commercialize the Jabber open source instant messaging platform which was acquired by Cisco in 2008. 

Durand serves on the board of Jamf (NASDAQ: JAMF) and in his spare time focuses on causes related to children in the foster care system, building great culture and creating opportunities for entrepreneurs. Durand holds a BA in Biology and Economics from the University of California at Santa Barbara and lives in Denver, Colorado, with his wife Kim and two daughters.

Raj Dani

Chief Financial Officer

Prior to joining Ping, Raj served as CFO of Florida-based systems integration firm AVI-SPL. During his AVI-SPL tenure, he worked to grow and manage the company through its successful sale, earning him recognition as 2016 CFO of the Year by the Tampa Bay Business Journal in the Large Private Company category.

Raj has also held senior financial positions within technology services companies like Flextronics, Jabil Circuit and TeleTech. He began his career with PwC, serving in the audit and transaction advisory practices for over nine years, and his global experience spans both public and private companies, including long-term assignments in Switzerland and Italy. Raj received a bachelor's degree in business administration from Emory University and a master's degree in accounting from the University of Florida. He is an actively licensed CPA.

Aaron LaPoint

Chief Administrative Officer

Aaron joined Ping after most recently working in the telecommunications industry at DISH Network. There, he led a national human resources team that supported almost 20,000 employees. Aaron's broad HR experience spans talent acquisition, leadership development, employee advocacy, total rewards and HR strategy. He's held HR positions with EchoStar Communications and multiple healthcare companies in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, and his roles focused on building centers of excellence for various HR functions. Aaron grew up in the Minneapolis area and received a Bachelor's of Business Administration with an emphasis on Human Resources from the University of Minnesota.

Shalini Sharma

Chief Legal Officer

Shalini is a seasoned legal professional with more than 23 years of international corporate legal experience and 15 years of global financial technology expertise. Prior to joining Ping, she served as SVP and General Counsel at Vantage Data Centers where she oversaw legal and corporate governance and compliance matters during a period of expansive international growth. Sharma joined Vantage from Broadridge Financial Solutions (NYSE: BR), a leading fintech solutions company, where she was Assistant General Counsel and Chief Privacy Officer, serving the global financial services industry. Previously, she was in private practice as a corporate transactional attorney at Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle LLP in New York. Sharma holds a B.A. and M.A. from the University of Chicago and a J.D. from the University of Texas at Austin School of Law. She is also a recipient of a Fulbright Award. Outside of work, Shalini is an avid reader, cook, wanna-be yogi and can also be found planning her next travel adventure with her kids.

Kevin Sellers

Chief Marketing Officer

Kevin joins Ping with more than 20 years of global marketing leadership experience in the technology sector. His passion for strategic marketing combines storytelling and partnerships across brand leadership, demand generation, digital marketing and transformation and corporate communications. Prior to Ping, Kevin served as chief marketing officer at Avnet, where he oversaw the company’s business-to-business strategies and orchestrated significant digital transformation efforts across the entire marketing organization. He also held multiple leadership positions at Intel, where he led the historic re-branding that took Intel beyond its core personal computer market. Kevin has been recognized in the industry as one of B2B Magazine’s Top Digital Marketers, and he’s won multiple Cannes Lions, as well as ADDY and Effie awards for creative excellence. He holds a BA in Finance and an MBA from Brigham Young University. Outside of work, Kevin enjoys live music, running outdoors and traveling the world with his wife and four grown children checking things off his bucket list—next stop: scuba diving in the Red Sea.

Candace Worley

Chief Product Officer

Candace joins Ping by way of Amazon Web Services (AWS) where she served as Director of Enterprise Strategists and Vertical Marketing, managing the development of AWS messaging and marketing plans for industry and C-level business decision makers. She also spent 19 years with McAfee (and Intel Corporation during acquisition) where she held roles ranging from General Manager of the Endpoint Business Unit to VP of Product Marketing and Chief Technical Strategist. Candace brings a wide range of skills in product management, customer engagement, cross-functional collaboration, product and business strategy and P&L oversight. Candace holds a Bachelor of Science in Management from Oregon State University and an MBA from Marylhurst University. She lives in Oregon on a hazelnut farm with her husband and two black labs, and outside of work you can find her checking off her travel bucket list and spending time in her flower and vegetable gardens.

John Cannava

Senior Vice President, Chief Information Officer

John joined Ping in 2013 after serving as the Vice President of Technology Strategy and IT Business Capabilities at TTEC. He brings over 20 years of experience leading high-performance teams delivering rapid growth through strategic planning, business transformation and operational execution in support of all enterprise functions. At Ping, he previously served as the Vice President of Technology & Strategic Programs where he directed Ping's IT Strategy and Business Enablement, led successive business transformations and built Ping's first enterprise Strategic Programs organization. Outside of work, John enjoys skiing, mountain biking and trail running with his wife. He's a lifetime learner, live music lover and the biggest fan of his son's sports teams.

Jason Wolf

Chief Revenue Officer

Jason joins the Ping executive team as a seasoned sales executive with nearly two decades of experience to support ongoing growth in enterprise sales, cloud channel development and long-term customer success. Most recently, he served as the chief revenue officer at SAP overseeing the Spend Management and Network line of business. Jason oversees Ping Identity’s global team of worldwide sales and revenue, channels, customer success, operations and enablement, leveraging his in-depth experience with go-to-market strategy, sales performance, customer success and operations of global field organizations. Outside of work you will find Jason at a sporting event cheering on one of his 3 kids, outside with the dogs, or enjoying time in the country.

Jason Kees

Chief Information Security Officer

Jason joins Ping as a seasoned information security leader with a track record of developing cybersecurity strategies for large enterprises and managing best-in-class security teams. With more than 20 years of experience in the security domain, Jason most recently served as vice president and chief information security officer at Groupon, where he built the enterprise security organization from the ground up and had oversight for the popular online marketplace’s IT and engineering operations teams. Prior to Groupon, Jason served as director of information security at CBS Interactive, where he owned the information security strategy, security compliance and incident response programs. He began his career as a network security leader for McAfee, which ultimately advanced into senior management roles at Siebel and Oracle.

Craig Solberg

Senior Vice President, Customer Care

Craig joins Ping with over 20 years of experience in managing direct sales, software sales, and customer service management organizations with SaaS at the forefront. His extensive leadership experience includes enterprise sales, sales strategy development and execution, customer success and SaaS renewals, commercial operational management, strategic consulting, and direct sales with Crownpeak, Lithium Technologies, North Plains Systems, and SAP Ariba. Craig holds a BBA in Business Information Systems from the University of West Georgia. Out of the office, Craig spends his time on the coast with his family (Kristi, Parker, Campbell, and Anderson), fishing, and volunteering.

Rakesh Thaker

Chief Development Officer

Rakesh brings over 25 years of engineering leadership experience having successfully led technology organizations at various private and public companies in hypergrowth, sustaining growth, and turnaround phases. Most recently, Rakesh was Vice President of Enterprise networking at Cisco leading a portfolio that delivered $3B+ in annual sales. Prior to that, Rakesh held leadership roles at Gigamon, Blue Coat, and Dell where he transformed and scaled diverse teams across the world building enterprise-class SaaS, security, and networking products. Rakesh has a proven track record of driving innovation while building a culture of operational excellence, agility, and sharp customer focus. In his free time, Rakesh loves to photograph nature, go on long walks, and read. He also enjoys meeting new people and trying new cuisines.

Loren Russon

Senior Vice President, Product Management

Loren has served Ping and brought massive success for himself and his teams for over eleven years. He oversees an ever-growing portfolio of cloud and data-center products and solutions available for managing identities and access of web, mobile, and API applications and services for workforce, customers, and partners. Loren has spent his career working in Taiwan, Utah, California, Boston, and Colorado building high-performing teams that plan, develop and deliver some of the best software and cloud services in the world. His broad functional expertise spans product lifecycle management, program management, marketing and sales execution, business development and planning, and annual planning and operations.

Brian Yoon

Senior Vice President, Solutions Architecture

Brian joined Ping Identity in 2012 and offers over 20 years of identity and systems integration experience.  Brian has served Ping in numerous functions from business development to enterprise architecture, designing the identity infrastructures for some of the largest organizations in the world.  He now looks after the solution architecture team globally along with guiding Ping’s platform architecture and M&A strategy.  Brian was instrumental in the vision and acquisition of Singular Key, now DaVinci.  He and his team are passionate about creating delightful user experiences with strong security postures for many brands across the globe. Out of the office, Brian enjoys learning and experiencing new things, which means the world is his playground.

Chief Identity Champion

I know what you’re all thinking. Wait, that guy works for Ping Identity now? Not exactly. But I am helping Ping spread their message to the world. See, Ping and I share a common belief that you should be able to embrace your unique identity, fully and confidently, whether you’re an individual or an enterprise. And in the digital world, your uniqueness shouldn’t slow you down. It should be what gives you an edge and sets you free. That’s what it means to champion identity. How can we champion you?