Gary Steele is the CEO of Shield AI, a venture-backed defense tech company building intelligent systems to protect service members and civilians. He brings more than 30 years of experience growing category-defining companies. Before joining Shield AI, Gary served as President, Go-to-Market at Cisco and CEO of Splunk, where he drove double-digit revenue growth and AI-powered innovation. Prior to Splunk, he was the founding CEO of Proofpoint. He serves on the boards of Samsara and Upwork.