Vanta has appointed Sarah Scharf as chief marketing officer. Scharf joined Vanta in 2020 as its first product marketer and has since led every function within the company's marketing organisation. Reporting directly to CEO Christina Cacioppo, she will oversee product marketing, brand, communications, content, growth, and revenue marketing. During her tenure, Scharf led Vanta's positioning through three category shifts: from automated compliance to trust management to agentic trust. The appointment comes as Vanta surpassed $300 million in annual recurring revenue, reaching the milestone nine months after hitting $200 million. Over 16,000 companies, including Snowflake, GitHub, and Ramp, use Vanta's platform. Before Vanta, Scharf spent seven years at Google in product marketing roles. She holds a degree from Stanford University.

Vanta names Sarah Scharf Chief Marketing Officer as trust becomes the defining challenge of the AI era. Updated Aug 12, 2026 SAN FRANCISCO-(BUSINESS WIRE)-Aug 12, 2026- Vanta, the leading Agentic Trust Platform, today announced the appointment of Sarah Scharf as Chief Marketing Officer. Joining the executive team and reporting directly to CEO Christina Cacioppo, Scharf will oversee the entire marketing organization, including product marketing, brand, communications, content, growth, and revenue marketing. Sarah Scharf has joined the executive team at Vanta as Chief Marketing Officer, reporting directly to CEO Christina Cacioppo and overseeing the entire marketing organization. Scharf joined Vanta in 2020 as its first product marketer and has since led every function within Vanta marketing. During her tenure, she has led the company's positioning through three category shifts, from automated compliance, to trust management, to agentic trust. "Sarah created our category and then led its next two chapters as we led the market," said Christina Cacioppo, CEO of Vanta. "Over the past six years, Sarah has led every part of marketing at Vanta: PMM, brand, communications, content, and revenue marketing. She knows Vanta in the way one only can by being in the business for years." Scharf takes on the role as trust becomes a central concern for companies adopting AI. Customers, regulators, and partners increasingly want proof that AI systems are secure and governed - a category Vanta created and has since expanded into AI governance and agentic trust. She has led Vanta through each of these shifts, most recently steering the company's own AI transformation, giving her firsthand experience building an AI-native organization. "Trust is the defining problem of the AI era. Solving it takes a brand that's earned trust itself, and helps others earn it, too," said Scharf. "At Vanta, the story and the product move forward together, and right now that means transforming how we work with and for AI, without losing the 'with a wink' spirit that our customers love. I'm proud to lead a team I've helped build since the very beginning." Before Vanta, Scharf spent seven years at Google in product marketing roles across Account Settings, Next Billion Users, and the Platforms team supporting Android and Google Play. She holds a degree from Stanford University. Her appointment comes as Vanta surpassed $300 million in ARR, reaching the milestone just nine months after $200 million, with growth accelerating each of the past four quarters. The company was recently named to the CNBC Disruptor 50 list and recognized as a Leader in The Forrester Wave(TM) for Governance, Risk, and Compliance Platforms. About Vanta Vanta is the leading Agentic Trust Platform, setting the standard for how businesses earn and prove trust as AI reshapes security and compliance. Over 16,000 companies like Snowflake, GitHub, Ramp, Cursor, Golden State Warriors, and Icelandair rely on Vanta to guide, automate, and improve the GRC work that trust is built on. [email protected] KEYWORD: CALIFORNIA UNITED STATES NORTH AMERICA INDUSTRY KEYWORD: SOFTWARE TECHNOLOGY ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE SECURITY PUB: 08/12/2026 09:00 AM/DISC: 08/12/2026 09:03 AM

$4 billion Vanta has a new CMO who wants to make security compliance marketing 'a little zingier' Aug 12, 2026, 4:00 AM PT Security-compliance software startup Vanta wants to become known as a "trust company" that can also have a bit of fun. It's entrusting a new CMO to get it there. Vanta has promoted its VP of marketing, Sarah Scharf, to CMO, the company exclusively told CMO Insider. In an interview, Scharf said the two tasks at the top of her to-do list are to solidify the Vanta brand's association with trust among its clients and potential customers, and to reinvent how the company gets marketing done internally in the age of AI. "How can we capture the moment and also reposition Vanta in a way to showcase how we help businesses of all sizes instill and maintain that trust in a world where AI makes it harder to come by and maintain?" Scharf said. Founded in 2018, Vanta offers an automated platform that helps companies assess the security and compliance of their products. While it's best known for helping startups complete processes like SOC 2 audits, it's branched out to offer services to larger enterprise customers, in areas such as assessing third-party risk and AI governance. Its customers include Snowflake, GitHub, and the Golden State Warriors. Vanta said it was valued at about $4 billion in a funding round last year. Vanta has sought to stand out from its competitors with playful marketing, such as plastering San Francisco with billboards reading: "Compliance that doesn't SOC 2 much." Scharf, who joined the company in 2020, said she wants Vanta to continue marketing "with a wink," while other security brands tend to focus on fear and posturing to emphasize their strength. "We're a compliance company, we're giving you security information. Some of that is going to be bland and boring, but what can we do to make it just a little zingier?" Scharf said. "We want to be seen as trusted experts, someone you can come to with a question," she added. "We're not arrogant or looking down." While these marketing efforts can help humanize the brand in an often dusty sector, Sarah Ashdown, consumer marketing and revenue director at the consultancy Manifesto Growth Architects, said Vanta can't simply build "trust" into a platform or claim it through positioning alone. "Trust is earned over time through the quality of the service, the outcomes customers achieve, and the relationship a business builds with them," Ashdown said. Where Scharf is investing Vanta's marketing budget. Scharf said the company is investing its marketing budget in areas such as influencer marketing and podcasts. This summer, it launched a video podcast called "The Tabletop," in which it invites chief information security officers to role-play live "situation-room"-style scenarios, such as how they would respond to a security breach. "That's what people want to watch and engage with, and also has the added benefit now that LLM search is blowing up, and high-authority, owned content is very additive for LLM discovery," Scharf said. Internally, Scharf said Vanta is using AI to streamline repetitive tasks, like resizing advertising assets and editing content. It's also using tools like Midjourney to prototype campaigns. When hiring, Scharf said she is screening candidates for AI proficiency - though "not from a tokenmaxxing perspective."