Exabeam Expands Craig Patterson’s Role to SVP of Global Channels and Marketing

Cybersecurity company Exabeam has expanded the role of Craig Patterson, appointing him Senior Vice President of Global Channels and Marketing as the company seeks to accelerate growth in the emerging Agent Behavior Analytics (ABA) security category.

Patterson, who joined Exabeam in 2025, will continue to lead the company’s global partner ecosystem while assuming responsibility for its entire marketing organization. His expanded remit includes brand, corporate messaging, demand generation, communications, field marketing and account development. He will report to Exabeam CEO Pete Harteveld and remain part of the company’s executive leadership team.

The appointment brings Exabeam’s channel and marketing strategies under a single leadership structure as the company develops ABA, which extends behavioral security analytics from human users to AI agents and other machine identities operating within enterprise environments.

Exabeam said ABA is designed to establish behavioral baselines for AI agents and identify deviations that could indicate potentially risky or anomalous activity. The company sees the approach as increasingly important as enterprises deploy AI agents with access to business systems and sensitive data.

The expanded role also reflects the growing importance of channel partners in cybersecurity technology purchasing. According to Omdia, 92% of global cybersecurity spending flowed through the channel in the fourth quarter of 2025, compared with approximately two-thirds of overall IT spending.

“Our partners play a critical role in how customers find us, evaluate us and decide to buy,” said Pete Harteveld, CEO of Exabeam. “We created this category, and partners will be critical to how we scale it.”

Patterson has led Exabeam’s partner organization since joining the company, including the integration of the Exabeam and LogRhythm partner organizations following their merger. He also developed the Exabeam APEX Partner Program, a competency-based global framework intended to reward partner capabilities rather than deal volume.

The company said its channel strategy has also received recognition from the industry. In CRN’s 2026 Annual Report Card, Exabeam ranked first across all four subcategories in the AI Security category, with partners giving the company a 98.3 score for ease of doing business.

“New categories aren’t built through a vendor’s website alone,” Patterson said. “Customers adopt them when someone they trust can explain why they matter, and in security that trusted voice is often a partner.”

Patterson brings more than two decades of experience in cybersecurity and technology go-to-market operations. Before joining Exabeam, he served as SVP of Global Sales and Global Channel Chief at Aryaka and was involved in global post-merger integration at Level 3 and CenturyLink. He has been named a CRN Channel Chief five times, was included in CRN’s 50 Most Influential Channel Chiefs in 2026 and was recognized among CRN’s Top 100 Executives in 2026. He was also named Channel Futures Channel Influencer of the Year in 2023.

Exabeam said the alignment of marketing and channels is intended to integrate partner perspectives earlier into its brand, messaging and demand-generation activities as it works to build awareness and adoption of Agent Behavior Analytics.