A member of the company's executive leadership team, Patterson retains leadership of the global partner ecosystem he has led since joining Exabeam in 2025 and assumes leadership of the entire marketing organisation, including brand, messaging, demand generation, communications, field marketing and account development.

The expanded role aims to more closely aligns Exabeam's marketing and channel strategies as the company scales a new security category.

Agent Behavior Analytics (ABA) aim to extend behavioral detection beyond human users to AI agents and machine identities operating inside the enterprise. ABA baselines each agent's normal pattern of activity and flags the ones that drift from it, says Exabeam.

The shift in how security is bought is structural. Omdia found that 92% of global cybersecurity spending flowed through the channel in Q4 2025, a materially higher share than technology overall, where partners account for roughly two-thirds of IT spend, adds Exabeam.

New categories are won through education, and in security that education happens through partners. The expanded role is intended to align how the company builds demand with how its customers learn, evaluate and buy.

Under Patterson, partner considerations will be integrated into brand, messaging and demand generation from the outset rather than treated as a separate go-to-market motion, says Exabeam.

"Our partners play a critical role in how customers find us, evaluate us and decide to buy," says Pete Harteveld, CEO of Exabeam. "We created this category, and partners will be critical to how we scale it."

"Aligning marketing and channels under Craig's leadership means we can build that partner perspective into our strategy from day one. Craig challenges the status quo, and that is exactly why we gave him this," adds Harteveld.

Since joining Exabeam, Patterson has led the integration of the Exabeam and LogRhythm partner organisations following a cybersecurity mergers, and architected the Exabeam APEX Partner Program, a competency-based global framework that rewards partner capability rather than deal volume, says Exabeam.

In CRN's 2026 Annual Report Card, Exabeam says it took first place across all four subcategories, with partners scoring the company 98.3 for ease of doing business.

"New categories aren't built through a vendor's website alone," says Patterson. "Customers adopt them when someone they trust can explain why they matter, and in security that trusted voice is often a partner. Bringing demand and channel closer together gives us a better way to build that understanding at scale."

Patterson has spent over two decades aiming to build go-to-market engines in cybersecurity and technology. Before Exabeam, he served as SVP of Global Sales and Global Channel Chief at Aryaka and led global post-merger integration at Level 3 and CenturyLink. He is a five-time CRN Channel Chief, named as one of the 50 Most Influential Channel Chiefs, Channel Futures Channel Influencer of the Year in 2023 and Top 100 Executives in 2026.

For more information, visit www.exabeam.com. You can also follow Exabeam on LinkedIn, X, or on Instagram.

*Image courtesy of contributor