Wiz Hires Veteran Exec Fazal Merchant As President For IPO Push

Merchant, whose prior roles included as co-CEO of Tanium and CFO of DreamWorks Animation SKG, will also serve as CFO of fast-growing cloud and AI security vendor Wiz.

Wiz announced Thursday it has named well-known executive Fazal Merchant as its president and CFO, a major hire that comes as the fast-growing cybersecurity vendor eyes going public.

Merchant, who was most recently the co-CEO at cybersecurity unicorn Tanium, told CRN that helping five-year-old Wiz to continue laying the groundwork an initial public offering will be a top priority.

During recent meetings with Wiz co-founder and CEO Assaf Rappaport, “I felt like he was really focused on the right things, and that I might be able to help,” Merchant said. “And a big piece of that is getting the business to be IPO-ready.”

For Wiz, a cloud and AI security vendor that has been valued at $12 billion by its investors, a target for the IPO timing has not been settled upon yet, according to Merchant. But from what he has seen so far, the company is well on its way in terms of IPO readiness.

“I am really pleasantly surprised with the efforts the team has made — the systems and the processes they've put in place,” Merchant said. “It is actually incredibly impressive what they've done in such a short period of time, given the growth.”

Merchant had initially joined Tanium in 2017 as COO and CFO, before being named co-CEO in 2019, a role he held until 2020.

Previously, he served as CFO of DreamWorks Animation SKG from 2014 to 2016, helping to oversee the ultimate sale of the company to Comcast. Earlier roles included as CFO of DirecTV Latin America and in executive positions at Ford Motor Company.

Currently, Merchant serves on several boards including Warner Bros. Discovery, Ryman Hospitality Properties and Ariel Investments.

The hire comes as Wiz continues to see what has been described as unprecedented growth for a cybersecurity startup.

Founded in 2020, Wiz disclosed that it had crossed $100 million in annual recurring revenue by mid-2022, achieving this key startup milestone in the shortest amount of time of any company to date at 18 months, according to the vendor.

Wiz — which last summer turned down a reportedly $23 billion deal to be acquired by Google — reached $500 million in ARR last year and is looking to cross $1 billion this year.

Merchant said that companies such as Wiz that grow at a “blinding pace” will inevitably need to invest in maturing their processes around governance, compliance and capital discipline.

Doing so in preparation for going public “requires some investment in terms of time and resources and effort and knowledge to get it up to that standard,” he said.

“And so I'm excited about coming in and getting to know the team, getting to know the operations and helping to get us to that maturity milestone of being IPO-ready,” Merchant said. “And once we get there, it certainly gives us the option on whether we want to take that leap.”

In May 2024, Wiz announced raising $1 billion in new funding at a $12 billion valuation, led by major names of Silicon Valley venture capital including Andreessen Horowitz and Lightspeed Venture Partners.

As a crucial part of its strategy, top executives at Wiz have told CRN that the company is pursuing an intensified push with channel partners for its next stage of growth.

Rappaport told CRN last year that the company is accelerating its efforts with partners amid the surging demand for security tools that can protect cloud environments and the use of GenAI applications.

“In cybersecurity partners are super, super important in the success of a company. So we’ve always [seen that] this has huge potential for us to tap into. I think there is so much more we can do,” Rappaport said at the time.