Darktrace CEO Poppy Gustafsson has announced she is to step down from her post effective immediately, and will be replaced by the artificial intelligence (AI)-led cyber specialist’s chief operating officer (COO), Jill Popelka.
The split comes in the wake of a multibillion-dollar deal to acquire the LSE-listed supplier by US private equity house Thoma Bravo, which was finalised earlier in 2024.
One of the original company employees recruited out of Autonomy by recently deceased Darktrace founder Mike Lynch, Gustafsson, who holds a degree in mathematics from the University of Sheffield, began her career at consultancy Deloitte.
She served as chief financial officer for the first three years of Darktrace’s existence, followed by a brief stint as COO, before being named CEO in October 2016.
“Darktrace has been a huge part of my life and my identity for over a decade, and I am immensely proud of everything we have achieved in that time,” said Gustafsson. “Together we have revolutionised the marketplace for cyber security and brought our AI-powered technology to almost 10,000 customers around the world, keeping them safe from cyber disruption.
“This challenge has required tremendous personal and professional commitment from me,” she continued. “With the acquisition of Darktrace by Thoma Bravo nearing its completion and with us having identified an excellent successor in Jill, now is the right time to hand over the reins so Jill can lead Darktrace through its transition into private ownership and beyond.
“I am profoundly grateful to have had the privilege of leading such an exceptional team and I look forward to remaining engaged in this exciting next chapter of the business as a non-executive director after the transaction completes. I remain Darktrace’s number one fan.”
Gustafsson’s successor, Popelka, arrived at Darktrace at the start of 2024 as a non-executive director, before being made COO at the beginning of June. She has a 25-year tech industry career behind her, including lengthy stints at SAP and, until May this year, Snapchat parent Snap Inc.
“Poppy and the team have built something very special,” she said. “The potential of Darktrace is enormous – our technology has never been more critical to organisations around the world and our AI-native capabilities position us at the forefront of the ever-changing cyber security market.
“We have an outstanding platform offering, a broad base of customers across the globe, and some of the most talented people working in technology, not least our remarkable R&D teams based in Cambridge and The Hague. I am excited to partner with the whole Darktrace team to take advantage of the many opportunities we have ahead of us as we embark on this next phase of our journey.”
Influential on AI
At the helm of one of the UK’s most successful technology companies of recent years, Gustafsson was made an OBE in 2019, and named Computer Weekly’s Most Influential Woman in UK Technology in 2021.
At the time, she said she believed a mix of skillsets was the foundation of a solid technology business, and argued that people needed to be less apologetic if their skills were less technical in their nature.
“We’re using AI for cyber security, so there is a whole bunch of really complicated mathematics that underpins all of that,” said Gustafsson. “But when you’re trying to talk to a customer about how that can benefit their organisation, you’re not going to be saying, ‘If you integrate this end of Bayesian recursive inference…’ You’re going to be saying, ‘Let me show you how this works, let me show you what it’s doing for your business’, and you need a different skillset to be able to do that.
“People need to be less apologetic about it and see it as a sign of strength,” she added. “There are other people that can do that, and that’s great, and it’s really important, useful talent, but that doesn’t preclude you from being part of a technical role. Just because you don’t understand the ones and zeros doesn’t stop you thinking about how you can use that technology to solve different problems.”
Increased profile
Darktrace bet on AI at its inception, and in the past few years, the advent of usable generative AI has greatly increased Darktrace’s profile in the industry – while its partnership with Formula 1 team McLaren, a contender for the 2024 Drivers’ and Constructors’ Championships – has brought its name to mainstream attention.
In the autumn of 2023, Gustafsson was one of a small number of people in the room at the UK’s AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park, convened by then prime minister Rishi Sunak, at which she spoke on issues including securing the datasets used to train AI models, and building in privacy-by-design to make sure such models have meaningful consent to use such datasets, among other things.
Speaking to Computer Weekly a few days prior to the summit, she said she felt immense pride to be part of the burgeoning AI sector and helping other organisations to safely embrace the innovative possibilities, describing her work as akin to a seatbelt enabling them to drive the road ahead safely.
“I think it’s natural as a species that we are quite good at imagining risks, and we’re less good at imagining opportunities,” said Gustafsson. “[But] my view is I’m a massive AI advocate. I think it’s a hugely exciting technology. It underpins everything we do at Darktrace, and I’d love to see society adopt more of it.”