Phosphorus, the leading provider of proactive security and management for the extended Internet of Things (xIoT), today announced the company has appointed Sonu Shankar, its Chief Product Officer, as the new President and Chief Operating Officer. The move comes on the heels of a record-breaking growth quarter, underscoring the surging enterprise demand for comprehensive xIoT security hygiene and automation.
“Sonu is an industry veteran with the rare ability to bridge business leadership and engineering depth — he can run the boardroom in the morning and talk APIs in the afternoon,” said Chris Rouland, Phosphorus Founder and CEO. “His leadership has been essential in positioning Phosphorus as the only provider with patented technology capable of delivering end-to-end xIoT discovery, remediation, and management. He’s been key in driving the company toward device management autonomy in a world of 60 billion connected devices — and growing — that have never had human owners. As President and COO, Sonu will continue to help us scale globally and ensure our customers remain secure and resilient.”
Leadership for the Future of xIoT Security
The appointment of Sonu Shankar as President reflects Phosphorus’s commitment to its next phase of scale and innovation. As Chief Product Officer, Sonu spearheaded the platform’s leap towards intelligent automation, delivering industry-first capabilities in automated xIoT security and management under his leadership.
“Phosphorus is solving one of the most complex and urgent challenges in cybersecurity, securing the world’s growing fleet of unmanaged devices,” said Art Coviello, Chairman of the Phosphorus Board of Directors. “Sonu’s vision and proven track record make him exactly the kind of executive I trust to help shape the future of this industry.”
Growing Urgency for Autonomous xIoT Security and Management
Across the globe, enterprises are grappling with the unmanaged and unmonitored sprawl of connected devices — including IoT, OT, and IoMT devices — consistently outnumbering human asset managers by orders of magnitude. There is increasing concern around the security of xIoT devices, as most lack basic security hygiene, ranging from default passwords and insecure configurations to vulnerable firmware. Regulatory bodies are now stepping in, banning certain dangerous Chinese-manufactured devices and emphasizing baseline security measures like password rotation, firmware patching, and configuration management.
Phosphorus has significantly evolved its platform by expanding automated capabilities across discovery, risk assessment, remediation, compliance enforcement, and lifecycle management. These advances are laying the groundwork for true xIoT autonomy, a future in which devices are discovered, secured, configured, and operated without human intervention.
“We see the shift from humans in the loop to humans on the loop as inevitable,” said Sonu Shankar, President & COO of Phosphorus. “Phosphorus is pioneering xIoT-focused agentic AI, built on the world’s most complete xIoT data, enabling proactive, autonomous decision-making and action at a scale beyond human capability. Phosphorus was founded to harness this shift for the world of xIoT, and I’m honored to lead this next chapter as we help customers reclaim control of their unmanaged device landscapes.”
Fortune 10 and Global 2000 customers rely on the Phosphorus platform daily to remediate critical risks across tens of thousands of devices without manual oversight. These early proof points signal a shift toward smaller teams maintaining control and remediating risk across massive device fleets without manual intervention.
Last quarter, Phosphorus eclipsed an industry milestone of scanning more than 5 billion IP addresses, bringing previously unknown devices out of the shadows and into the light of proper cybersecurity management. The company has seen 157% year-over-year growth in xIoT device password rotations and a 65% year-over-year increase in firmware updates, demonstrating that organizations are maturing from simple device and vulnerability discovery to automating action to remediate the issues.
Reinforcing the Moat
Phosphorus continues to reinforce its competitive moat with the world’s deepest and broadest xIoT device intelligence dataset. With customers spanning manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, data centers, and defense, including major deployments across North America, Saudi Arabia, and Asia Pacific, the company is positioned to lead the market into a new era of autonomous security operations.