Apono, the agentic-forward cloud-native Privileged Access Management platform, has announced three senior leadership appointments as the company moves to scale its operations across finance, customer experience, and sales. Nisim Cohen joins as Chief Financial Officer, Valery Milman as Head of Customer Experience, US, and Patrick Drago as Vice President of Mid-Market Sales. The appointments reflect Apono's focus on building the operational depth required to meet growing enterprise demand for AI-safe privileged access management at scale.
Quick Intel
Leadership Expansion Built for the AI Era
Apono's three new appointments are positioned as part of a deliberate effort to build the operational leadership capacity required to scale an enterprise cybersecurity platform during a period of rapid AI adoption. As organizations deploy AI agents at increasing velocity, the demand for privileged access management solutions that can govern both human and machine identities at runtime has grown significantly. The new leadership team is structured to support Apono's commercial and operational expansion across the United States, Israel, and EMEA.
"Nisim, Valery, and Patrick each bring the kind of operating experience that helps a company move from strong product-market fit to durable scale," said Rom Carmel, Co-founder and CEO of Apono. "We are building Apono for a moment when enterprises must run AI agents safely at the speed their businesses demand. This leadership team gives us the depth to meet that demand across finance, customer experience, and sales."
Nisim Cohen Joins as Chief Financial Officer
Nisim Cohen brings extensive experience in finance, operations, and scaling high-growth technology companies, with a background spanning SaaS and cybersecurity organizations. His work has covered strategic finance initiatives including fundraising, operational scaling, and M&A processes. At Apono, he will oversee finance and operations from the company's New York headquarters, working alongside the executive team across its global offices.
"I joined Apono because of the strength of the team, the market opportunity, and the company's vision for transforming privileged access management in the AI era," said Cohen. "I'm excited to help scale the business and support the next phase of Apono's growth."
Cohen's appointment signals Apono's intention to pursue structured financial and operational growth, with the kind of CFO-level discipline that typically precedes significant fundraising, geographic expansion, or M&A activity.
Valery Milman Leads Customer Experience for the US Market
Valery Milman joins Apono as Head of Customer Experience, US, where he will lead the company’s presales and support functions. Bringing more than two decades of cybersecurity and go-to-market leadership experience across publicly traded technology companies and high-growth startups, Milman has built a strong reputation for scaling high-performing pre-sales and customer-facing organizations. His appointment underscores Apono’s commitment to delivering sustained, expert-level customer engagement throughout increasingly complex enterprise cybersecurity sales cycles — from initial evaluation to long-term customer retention.
Patrick Drago Appointed VP of Mid-Market Sales
Patrick Drago joins as Vice President of Mid-Market Sales, bringing over a decade of experience building and scaling sales teams across high-growth startups and publicly traded technology companies. His background includes contributions to four successful exits, and for the past five years he has focused exclusively on the cybersecurity sector. Drago's appointment targets a segment of the market where demand for cloud-native PAM solutions is accelerating as mid-market enterprises begin deploying AI agents into their operational workflows and confronting the access governance challenges that come with them.
The three appointments collectively position Apono to pursue the next phase of its commercial growth with experienced leadership across the functions that determine whether a high-growth technology company can sustain and scale its momentum. As enterprises accelerate AI agent deployments and the security requirements around privileged access grow more complex, Apono's expanded leadership team is structured to convert that market demand into durable business growth across its target geographies and customer segments.
About Apono
Apono is the agentic-forward cloud-native Privileged Access Management platform, purpose-built for enterprises deploying AI at scale. Founded by cybersecurity and DevOps veterans, Apono eliminates standing privileges and enforces Just-in-Time, Just-Enough access across every identity, from human engineers to co-pilot agents and autonomous AI systems, using Intent-Based Access Controls that operate at runtime. Trusted by global Fortune 500 companies including Intel, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and Monday.com, Apono enables enterprises to deploy agents at full velocity without compromising security.
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