Meet our Regional Sales Manager, Zach Lanksbury

As part of our spotlight series highlighting members of the Styra team, we can’t wait for you to meet our Regional Sales Manager, Eastern U.S. and Eastern Canada, Zach Lanksbury!

I’ve spent the past ten years working in the cloud-native security space, starting at a company called Twistlock. They were one of the first security products focused on securing containers. When Twistlock was acquired by Palo Alto Networks, I became responsible for educating their largest 50 customers on modern security best practices. It was through this experience that I was first introduced to Open Policy Agent (OPA). For most of these customers, I implemented fine-grained security controls by standardizing on OPA. So, I started learning more about OPA, the company behind the project (Styra), and how it was going to transform the security landscape.

Translating technical value into business value. How do we solve technical problems to deliver business value? That is what my responsibility is at the end of the day. There is a rich set of awesome technology products out there. If those products can’t solve a technical problem and deliver business value there is not a lot of success for us or the customer. 

I think OPA is going to change the world and be the next big wave in tech. My last two start-ups were acquired for half a billion dollars, so I believe I have a good pulse on what is happening in the industry. Security is broken and we have an amazing opportunity to reinvent security. I look at all of my opportunities from three different perspectives: who is the tech team, who is the executive team and who will I be selling to? Styra had all three: we have the founders of OPA, an amazing executive team and the technology is super hot. I believe we have a long-term, holistic solution that is going to be a mainstay in the industry. 

To build a strong company you need to have strong representation across the board. Previously, I didn’t focus enough on the engineering and product side of a company — assuming that if the product looked good, then you could solve any problems that popped up. I’ve learned that if you don’t have the ability to deliver to the market in a timely manner or a good engineer/product process, you are going to seriously impede your ability to deliver for your customers. 

Customer-driven, innovative and culture-driven. 

I want the power to create world peace. I would be happy to be able to do that for the world. I’d love to have the power to compel George R.R. Martin to finish the Game of Thrones series, but I think we have a better shot at world peace. 

I would just add ice. Add a shot of espresso and now you can sell it at a higher price point.  I am always thinking about what the customer needs and how to increase the value of our product.

My family. My son and I often travel around the country to visit family. I love how social media has made it so easy to stay in touch with family. I know a lot of people don’t like social media. I think it is an end-user issue, you just have to keep your posts to family and pets. 

I always have a television series that I am binging. Some of my recent favorites have been House of the Dragon, Andor, Only Murders in the Building and The Rings of Power. I just finished Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities which was a great watch. I love all of del Toro’s work and it reminded me of The Twilight Zone or Black Mirror. I had to stop watching Black Mirror though; it was getting a little too close to reality. 

My team is the New York Jets. We have had a challenging decade (or two) but things are starting to look up.