When Kevin Rubin arrived at Zscaler in May 2025, he joined an established organization following the retirement of the company’s longtime CFO, taking responsibility for continuing the work of a finance leader who had already built a strong foundation. Rubin describes stepping into a business with scale, experienced leadership, and a customer base that included some of the world’s largest enterprises, he tells us.
In explaining what Zscaler does, Rubin walks through the company’s core idea: zero trust. Traditional cybersecurity, he says, relied on network-centric “castles and moats,” requiring large amounts of equipment to connect people, applications, and data. Zscaler challenged that model by treating the internet as a “superhighway” and applying a principle of minimal access. If an employee wants to use Salesforce or email, Rubin explains, the system first authenticates the user and then limits access to only what that person is authorized to see, he tells us.
Read MoreZscaler was founded in 2007 and went public in 2018, Rubin tells us. Today, roughly 40 percent of the Global 2000 and about 45 percent of the Fortune 500 use the company’s platform. Rubin attributes that adoption to a model that delivers security with less overhead and infrastructure than traditional approaches, he tells us. At its core, he says, cybersecurity comes down to two problems: stopping malicious activity from entering the network and preventing sensitive data from leaving it.
Reflecting on his first 100 days, Rubin says the transition was shaped by continuity and people. He describes a welcoming executive team and an organization already positioned for growth. Cybersecurity, he notes, remains a dynamic market, with new vulnerabilities constantly emerging, and staying ahead of those threats continues to define the work ahead, Rubin tells us.
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CFOTL: You joined Zscaler in May 2025. Looking back on your first 100 days, how did that experience differ from earlier CFO chapters in your career?
Rubin: I was joining a much more mature organization in terms of size and scale, and I also had the good fortune of coming in on the heels of Remo’s retirement. He’s a very experienced CFO who did an incredible job building the business, so I was essentially taking the baton from someone who had already created a strong foundation. My mandate was to continue that work and help the company scale through its next chapters of growth.
Read MoreThat dynamic alone made the experience very different. I inherited a great team and was able to continue working with leaders who had already been successful together. The executive team was incredibly warm and welcoming, which made the transition smoother. As I evaluated the opportunity, several things stood out: we serve some of the largest companies in the world, customers genuinely love the value Zscaler provides, and our model delivers less overhead and infrastructure compared to traditional security approaches. That creates real stickiness.
Cybersecurity itself is also a highly dynamic market. Investment continues to increase as new threats emerge and vendors work to stay ahead of bad actors. Every time a vulnerability is addressed, another one appears. Being part of that constant cycle has made the first several months both challenging and exciting, and it’s been a pleasure to step into that environment.
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