Neo, the AI security control platform, has announced that Anton Mayr has joined as chief operating officer. Mayr spent the past seven years in technology investment banking at Morgan Stanley, working on more than $1 trillion in transactions across AI, cybersecurity and software. At Neo, he will oversee the company's operations as it scales, including finance and strategic partnerships.
Neo appoints Anton Mayr as chief operating officer
Mayr spent the past seven years in technology investment banking at Morgan Stanley
He worked on more than $1 trillion in transactions across AI, cybersecurity and software
He advised on SpaceX's IPO and combination with xAI, Splunk's sale to Cisco, and NVIDIA's backing of SB Energy's AI campus for OpenAI
Mayr joins less than four months after Neo emerged from stealth with $100 million from a16z and Bessemer Venture Partners
Neo was recently named to the 2027 Fortune Cyber 60
Prior to joining Neo, Mayr advised on some of the largest technology transactions, including SpaceX's IPO and combination with xAI, Splunk's sale to Cisco, and NVIDIA's backing of SB Energy's 8-gigawatt AI campus for OpenAI. In cybersecurity, he also helped take Netskope, SentinelOne and McAfee public, and advised on McAfee's later sale. Along the way, he worked closely with many of the leading companies in technology and cybersecurity, seeing firsthand what makes companies and teams succeed.
"Security is going through one of the biggest shifts in its history, and the companies that win will be the ones that scale as fast as the problem," said Nick Warner, CEO and co-founder of Neo. "Anton has seen firsthand what separates enduring technology companies from the rest, and there are few people whose judgment I trust more. He'll help us build the operating foundation to scale with our customers. For CISOs, that means a partner built for the long term."
Before Morgan Stanley, Mayr spent more than 5 years at Siemens, where he led teams on strategy and operations initiatives across the company's global businesses, from integrating a major software acquisition and streamlining manufacturing operations to developing go-to-market strategies and product roadmaps for cloud and IoT platforms. An engineer by training, he began his career in robotics and holds dual bachelor's degrees in engineering and finance from the Technical University of Munich, as well as an MBA and a Master of Science in robotics from Columbia University.
"Every major technology shift creates problems that existing tools weren't built to solve, and we're at the center of one now," said Mayr. "Enterprises are giving AI the ability to act inside their most trusted systems, and security teams need new ways to discover and control it wherever it operates. That's what we're building at Neo and it's why I joined."
"Neo combines visibility into AI agents with the controls enterprises need to put them to work securely," said Zane Lackey, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz. "Anton brings engineering training, comprehensive operating experience and has advised many leading technology companies. Anton gives Neo the operating depth that will support Neo's next phase of growth as enterprise adoption accelerates."
Neo was recently named to the 2027 Fortune Cyber 60, which recognizes the most important venture-backed cybersecurity companies based on annual recurring revenue, growth and business operations. Since its July launch, Neo has also introduced tamper protection for AI agents, which keeps Neo's policies in force even if a user or agent tries to remove them; announced an integration with Claude Cowork; launched the Neoverse security intelligence engine; and extended visibility and control to AI coding agents running inside WSL.
About Neo
Neo is the AI security platform built from the endpoint out. Neo gives security teams control over every AI agent across endpoints, SaaS and cloud, enforcing policy dynamically with Neoverse intelligence on millions of software artifacts and the semantic intent behind every action.
