Turning endless alerts into clear answers — that’s the new face of security.
In this interview, Stairwell CEO Emmy Linder shares how the company’s AI-first approach brings context, speed, and clarity to security teams. She highlights how Stairwell cuts through noise, shortens investigations, and scales smarter to make cybersecurity truly impactful.
I’ve always been drawn to companies at an inflection point where the mission is clear, but focus and discipline are needed to realize the vision. Stairwell stood out because it’s solving a real pain I’ve seen firsthand: security teams drowning in alerts but lacking the context to know what truly matters. Stairwell’s AI-driven platform changes that by giving teams the ability to dig deep, instantly, across their entire environment.
For me, this role is about more than stepping into the CEO seat. It’s about taking what I’ve learned from scaling businesses before and applying it to a problem that impacts every organization today. The timing felt right — for Stairwell, for the market, and for me personally.
Most platforms give you a moment-in-time view. Stairwell provides the full timeline. You don’t just see what’s happening now — you see how it started, how it evolved, and what it connects to. With AI at the core, we surface the meaningful signals quickly, so teams can prioritize faster and avoid chasing noise.
We’re not trying to be another detection vendor. Stairwell is the intelligence layer that makes existing tools and teams more effective. Our value is in showing CISOs and security teams how Stairwell reduces the time and effort it takes to understand what’s real and what’s not. By using AI to connect the dots, we make work that is often painstaking and slow much simpler.
That’s a different conversation than selling “yet another box.” It’s about impact and making complex work faster, clearer, and more reliable.
Security teams turn to Stairwell to get fast, reliable answers across their full dataset. AI shortens weeks of work into hours. A great example is Fox Corporation: they used Stairwell to uncover threats that had slipped past their traditional EDR stack. What once took weeks of investigation turned into hours.
More broadly, customers use our platform to spot patterns and variants at scale — the kinds of tasks that overwhelm even the strongest teams if done manually.
I pay attention to how deeply customers are embedding us into their workflows. If Stairwell becomes part of their daily threat hunting or incident response, that’s a strong signal of value.
I always want to ensure we’re solving real pain. I don’t want Stairwell to be a “nice-to-have” but an essential part of how teams operate. Internally, I focus on clarity and alignment across teams. My job is to keep us scaling in a way that’s balanced and sustainable.
A universal truth in startups is that the only constant is change. I’ve learned that the people who thrive in fast-growing companies aren’t just experienced, they’re curious, adaptable, and motivated by the mission. At Cybereason, we scaled from a small team to hundreds, and those who grew the most were the ones who leaned into change and seized opportunities.
At Stairwell, I want to create the same environment: clear goals, trust, and support, with enough autonomy for people to truly own outcomes. That’s how you build lasting strength in a team.
Yes. The vision is to give organizations lasting control over their security environments, instead of constantly playing catch-up. That means building a platform that keeps learning, expands across more data sources, and leverages AI to simplify complexity at scale.
For me personally, the motivation is impact. Cybersecurity touches every part of life as we know it, and the stakes are only getting higher. If Stairwell can make it easier for organizations to understand and act on threats before they become crises, that’s the kind of impact worth dedicating myself to.
Emmy Linder, CEO of Stairwell, is a cybersecurity and business operations leader known for scaling security-driven companies. As COO at Cybereason, she led global growth, GTM strategy, and operational change. Previously, a Principal at BCG and a veteran of IDF Unit 8200, Emmy also advises startups on scaling, GTM, and efficiency.
More about Emmy Linder: 
Stairwell gives security teams the confidence to know if, when, and where malware has ever been on their systems. With a data search approach to security, Stairwell collects, stores, and continuously reassesses every executable file and indicator of compromise — across all time, at planet scale.
Learn more at stairwell.com
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