In early January, the Rapid7 global sales team converged in Dallas for our 2026 Sales Kickoff (SKO). The air buzzed with a singular focus: how we, as a collective force, will drive success and redefine cybersecurity in the year ahead. Our Chief Commercial Officer, Allan Peters, kicked things off with a clear message: "This year matters".
As we look toward 2026, we aren't just participating in the cybersecurity market; we are defining it. Based on the insights shared during SKO, here is how Rapid7 is sharpening its strategy and why now is the most exciting time to join our team.
The Market Isn't Consolidating, It's "Recalibrating"
Rapid7 CEO Corey Thomas put it plainly: the cybersecurity market isn't just seeing vendors consolidate; it's undergoing a fundamental recalibration. What does this mean for sales professionals? It means customers aren't just looking for fewer vendors; they're hungry for clarity, confidence, and tangible outcomes.
Building a secure future requires listening to what businesses are actually trying to achieve. As noted by customer speakers at the event, CISOs and Boardrooms care about risk. They need trusted partners who can help them understand their distributed ecosystems through converged data. To succeed, we must sell the journey, not just the product.
Beyond Reactive: The Future is Pre-emptive Security
The days of purely reactive security are behind us. The market demands (and Rapid7 delivers) pre-emptive security. With AI-powered attacks escalating, our customers need to shine a light on where attackers will be, not just where they were.
This is where Rapid7's platform approach truly shines. We leverage our deep understanding of customer environments and cutting-edge AI to provide pre-validation and eliminate lag time. Our mission is clear: help organizations manage risk in an attacker context, monitoring 100% of their attack surface, ultimately empowering them to "Govern" their security posture, a critical new pillar in the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) framework.
Selling is a Team Sport
Our Chief Experience Officer, Julian Waits, articulated it perfectly: "Sales owns the promise, Customer Success keeps the promise." As a Rapid7 sales professional, our team isn't just closing deals; they are forging strategic cross functional partnerships based on trust, value, and a genuine commitment to positive customer outcomes.
This year, SKO brought together teams from across the business that help sales succeed. Collaboration in roundtables between sales engineering, our renewals team, and product leaders enabled teams to share their expertise, strengthening the knowledge and confidence of our sellers when facing unique customer challenges. In the exhibit hall, representatives from marketing, people strategy, and more were on site to answer questions, and show their commitment to supporting our people.
Also highlighted during the event was the power of strategic business partnerships. Our partnership with Microsoft, for instance, allows us to deliver enhanced product experiences for customers already leveraging Defender, providing a holistic view of their security landscape that others simply can't match. Today, we integrate with over 500 technology partners to enhance visibility and improve efficiency across more than 11,000 customer environments.
Who We’re Looking for in 2026
Rapid7’s SKO made it clear that 2026 is a year of incredible opportunity. We’ve been embedding AI capabilities and agentic AI workflows to help security teams prioritize alerts and focus on what matters most. Through strategic partnerships and integrations, we’re eliminating blind spots and helping customers shift to a more proactive approach as attacker methodologies evolve.
As we expand our global team, we’re looking for people who:
- Are consultative sellers, capable of navigating complex organizational structures and speaking the language of risk, platforms, and consolidated data.
- Are driven by the desire to deliver consistent value and build lasting relationships.
- Possess the necessary grit to work through unique customer challenges in a quickly evolving industry
- Have a track record of building cross-functional relationships that drive positive business outcomes.
I’m excited to speak with candidates that care about making an impact in their role, and share our core values. If this sounds like you, we’d love to have you as part of our team as we kick off 2026.
- sales