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.

Peter Barker

Chief Product Officer

Peter Barker is Chief Product Officer, driving the global product vision, and joined Ping Identity via ForgeRock. Prior to ForgeRock, Peter served as senior vice president and general manager of the Identity Management and Security business at Oracle. Based in Austin, Texas, Peter previously held executive-level positions at Good Technology, Motorola, FedEx and other companies.

Michael Hubbard

Chief Customer Officer

As Chief Customer Officer, Michael is responsible for every customer's experience and achievement of value, marshalling our customer success and renewals, technical support, and professional services organizations. In this role, he’s focused on engaging, retaining, and scaling customer relationships via world-class enterprise outcomes. Prior to joining Ping Identity, Michael held leadership positions with Smartsheet, ServiceNow, VMware, and Oracle focused on enabling customer value. He has a proven track record of implementing and scaling data-driven, repeatable processes to drive customer operations and revenue growth. Based in Chicago, Michael holds a Bachelor’s of Science in Mechanical Engineering from University of Illinois and enjoys live music, skiing, and traveling with his family.

Kimberly Lytikianen

Chief Legal Officer

As Chief Legal Officer, Kimberly Lytikianen is responsible for the legal affairs of the company, and leads our global legal and compliance team by applying keen legal insight with a collaborative, business-first approach. Kimberly is a seasoned legal leader with more than two decades of experience helping technology companies grow, transform, and succeed on the global stage. She’s led legal teams at NVIDIA, MINDBODY, Poshmark,and Five9 — guiding companies through IPOs, major financings, M&A, data privacy and cybersecurity challenges, and complex governance. Kimberly is based in the San Francisco Bay Area and enjoys yoga, skiing and cooking with her family.

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.