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Zscaler, Inc.

Cloud SecurityFounded 2007
Reviewed by Swet Parvadiya
Company data updated: October 2026

Founders

Who Founded Zscaler?

Jay Chaudhry, K. Kailash · Founded 2007 · HQ today: San Jose, California, United States

Who founded Zscaler?

Zscaler was founded by Jay Chaudhry, K. Kailash in 2007. It is now led by Jay Chaudhry.

Founders
Jay Chaudhry, K. Kailash
Founded
2007
Headquarters
San Jose, California, United States
Number of founders
2
Current CEO
Jay Chaudhry (since 2007)
Where was Zscaler founded?
Zscaler was founded in San Jose, California, United States in 2007.
When was Zscaler founded?
Zscaler was founded in 2007.
Who started Zscaler?
Zscaler was founded by Jay Chaudhry and K. Kailash.
How old is Zscaler?
Zscaler is 19 years old as of 2026.

Founding Story

Jay Chaudhry, who had already founded and sold several security companies including SecureIT, CipherTrust, and AirDefense, started Zscaler in 2007 with K. Kailash. Their premise was that security inspection should move from on-premises appliances into a multi-tenant cloud. Zscaler listed on Nasdaq in March 2018 under the ticker ZS.

What each Zscaler founder did

FounderRole at foundingContribution
Jay ChaudhryCo-founder, Chairman and CEO—
K. KailashCo-founder—

Jay Chaudhry

Co-founder 2007

Background

Chaudhry studied engineering at IIT (BHU) Varanasi and earned graduate degrees at the University of Cincinnati before working in enterprise technology and founding several security startups.

Role at Zscaler, Inc.

Jay Chaudhry founded and sold security companies including SecureIT, CipherTrust, and AirDefense before starting Zscaler in 2007. He has served as chief executive officer since founding and also chairs the board. Under his leadership Zscaler went public in 2018 and expanded from secure web gateway into private access, data protection, security operations, and AI security.

K. Kailash

Co-founder 2007

Background

Kailash is a networking and systems engineer who worked on the technical side of Zscaler's founding.

Role at Zscaler, Inc.

K. Kailash co-founded Zscaler with Jay Chaudhry in 2007 and helped build the early multi-tenant cloud proxy architecture that inspects user traffic in Zscaler's data centers rather than on customer premises.

Zscaler, Inc.: CEO & Leadership History

Full timeline →

Ross Tackett

Chief Revenue Officer

2026 – Present

As a senior sales executive, he played a critical role in aggressively scaling Zscaler's massive enterprise go-to-market strategy, securing highly lucrative contracts with Fortune 500 CISOs.

Kevin Rubin

Chief Financial Officer

2025 – Present

Serving as CFO for a critical hyper-growth phase (before resigning in 2017), he helped heavily prepare the massive cybersecurity darling for its highly successful public offering.

Jay Chaudhry

Co-founder, Chairman and CEO

2007 – Present

Has led the company since founding; fiscal 2026 revenue reached $3.353 billion.

Compare Zscaler, Inc. Leadership With Competitors

Zscaler, Inc. vs CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. Leadership →Overview
Zscaler, Inc. vs Cloudflare, Inc. Leadership →Overview

Keep researching Zscaler

Who Founded Zscaler? FAQ

Who are the co-founders of Zscaler?

Zscaler was founded in 2007 by serial cybersecurity entrepreneur Jay Chaudhry and distributed networking software architect K. Kailash.

What was K. Kailash's technical background before co-founding Zscaler?

K. Kailash was the Chief Architect at NetScaler (acquired by Citrix for $300 million), where he invented high-performance application delivery and load-balancing systems.

What technical problem did the founders solve in 2007?

The founders recognized that inspecting encrypted web traffic at scale would melt hardware firewall appliances, designing a multi-tenant cloud architecture that inspects traffic inline with zero latency.

How did Jay Chaudhry's wife, Jyoti Chaudhry, contribute to the company?

Jyoti Chaudhry played a foundational role in Zscaler's early days, managing finance, human resources, and administrative operations as the startup scaled its first engineering teams.

Why did the founders name the company 'Zscaler'?

The name 'Zscaler' stands for 'Zenith of Scalability,' reflecting the founders' goal of building a massively distributed cloud security network capable of handling global internet scale.

How did the founders prove their model when cybersecurity experts were skeptical?

Early critics argued that enterprises would never route confidential corporate traffic through a third-party cloud; the founders demonstrated superior security efficacy, winning Fortune 500 pilots.

What philanthropic initiatives have the founders supported?

Jay Chaudhry has funded educational scholarships, established entrepreneurship centers at IIT BHU, and built healthcare facilities and schools in his home state of Himachal Pradesh.

Where are the founders based today?

Jay Chaudhry lives and operates from the San Francisco Bay Area, remaining actively in control as Chairman and CEO, while continuing to direct Zscaler's global software engineering hubs.

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Explore Zscaler

Core profile pages, founders and related research hubs for this company.

Content is for informational purposes only. Not financial advice. Data sourced from SEC filings, annual reports, and public records. See our full disclaimer and methodology.