Cohesity has announced the appointment of Dr. Craig Martell as the company’s new Chief Technology Officer.

Martell brings to the role years of experience, having led AI programmes for a range of tech companies since 2013. His most recent position as Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer for the US Department of Defense saw him take responsibility for accelerating the adoption of data, analytics, digital solutions, and AI functions to generate decision advantage across the department.

He previously held a position at Lyft as Head of Machine Learning, as well as Head of Machine Intelligence at Dropbox. Before then, he led a number of AI teams and market-moving initiatives at LinkedIn.

“The speed and scale Cohesity has achieved over the last several years is a testament to the incredible technology platform the company has built at the junction of multi-cloud, security and AI for the future of data protection. My role will be to accelerate the innovation internally and the advocacy externally of Cohesity’s AI-powered innovations that are second to none,” said Martell.

“I’m honoured to join Sanjay and the talented team he has put together as we accelerate the company’s course to advance AI and machine learning capabilities critical to addressing key challenges to enterprise data.”

“AI represents a massive competitive opportunity and advantage for Cohesity. Our launch of Cohesity Gaia – with its first-to-market, patent-pending innovations – was the first step in our strategy,” added Sanjay Poonen, President and CEO, Cohesity.

“Attracting and hiring an industry pioneer of Craig’s calibre – someone who has been driving an agenda of responsible AI at the highest levels of both public and private sector organisations – rounds out our strong executive leadership team with expertise across security, multicloud, and AI. I expect that Craig’s experience and vision for Cohesity’s AI roadmap will accelerate our lead in this critical area of our business.”