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."