Mimecast Leadership Team | Mimecast

Peter Bauer

Chief Executive Officer

Peter Bauer is the CEO, Co-founder and Board Member at Mimecast, which he launched in 2003 with fellow Board Member and Co-founder, Neil Murray.

He is the visionary behind Mimecast's SaaS strategy, which empowers businesses across the globe with comprehensive cyber resilience for email. Mimecast's security, archiving, business continuity and risk mitigation products and services are all delivered from a single cloud platform. This home-grown, pure-cloud delivery mechanism enables an intuitive user experience, suited to the way people interact with email today.

The combination of next-generation technology and seamless integration with existing email systems, is the driving force behind Mimecast's success in its mission to transform the way people remain productive, collaborative and efficient in today's ever-changing threat landscape.

Peter was born and raised in South Africa, trained as a Microsoft systems engineer, and began working with corporate messaging systems in the mid-1990s. He moved to the UK where Mimecast was founded and then moved once more, arriving in Boston, Massachusetts in 2011, to lead Mimecast's aggressive push into North America. Since that time, Mimecast has been one of the strongest performers in its market segment in terms of customer acquisition and top-line growth, making Peter one of only a handful of CEOs to have lead a pure-Saas company for over 15 years while acquiring tens of thousands of customers worldwide.

Rafe Brown

President and Chief Operating Officer

Rafe Brown joined Mimecast in March 2019 as Chief Financial Officer, overseeing global financial strategy and operations, including accounting, tax, treasury, investor relations and real estate.

In September 2022, Rafe took on the mantle of President and COO, overseeing the strategy, operating model and transformation initiatives that will guide Mimecast through its next stage of accelerated growth, with a focus on providing enhanced customer and partner experiences.

Rafe brings more than 20 years of experience leading high-growth software companies. Prior to joining Mimecast, Rafe served as the Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer of SevOne, Inc., a provider of digital infrastructure management solutions. Before SevOne, Rafe served as Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Administrative Officer of Pegasystems, Inc., a publicly traded global business process management software provider.

Additionally, Rafe served in leadership positions at Salesforce, Inc. for several years, including as a Senior Vice President of Finance, where he helped grow the company to a $4 billion entity. He began his career at the accounting firms of Arthur Anderson and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Rafe holds a certified public accountant (CPA) designation. He holds a Master of Accounting from Brigham Young University and a Bachelor of Science in accounting from Southern Utah University.

Bernd Leger

Chief Marketing Officer

Bernd joined Mimecast in 2021 as Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), where he leads all areas of the company's global marketing function. He brings to Mimecast a wealth of business, leadership, and marketing expertise, and has developed and executed go-to-market plans that have resulted in double- and triple-digit revenue growth across a variety of technology and cybersecurity organizations.

Prior to joining Mimecast, Bernd was CMO at Nexthink, a leader in digital employee experience where he was a key stakeholder in the company's growth strategy, leading to a $180M Series D at an $1.1B valuation. Previously, Bernd was CMO of Checkmarx, a global leader in software security solutions for DevOps, where he helped launch the company's unified software security platform and establish Checkmarx as a category leader leading up to a $1.15B acquisition. Bernd has also held marketing leadership positions at CloudLock (acquired by Cisco), Localytics, Rapid7, Veracode, Oblicore, Navisite, and Point Information Systems.

Bernd holds a master's degree in business administration from the University of Munich and has completed studies at Georgetown University.

David Raissipour

Chief Technology & Product Officer

David joined Mimecast in 2021 as Chief Technology & Product Officer (CTPO). He will bring together Mimecast's product management and engineering organizations into one fully integrated team. Raissipour will support the company's strategy to accelerate innovation to serve customers and partners.

Prior to joining Mimecast, David was the senior vice president, Sophos Cloud Platform Group & Sophos Messaging Security Group at Sophos from 2016-2020. He has experience across a diverse set of enterprise software products, and prior to joining Sophos, he held executive roles at Carbonite and RSA. He worked at Microsoft Corporation for 14 years, holding numerous senior leadership roles.

David holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from Central New England University.

Karen Anderson

Chief Human Resources Officer

Karen Anderson joined Mimecast in 2019 as Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO). In this role, Karen will lead global strategy for the Company’s people and culture, support geographical growth, and ensure Mimecast remains a top place to work for all employees.

Karen has more than 20 years of experience in Human Resources, having started her career as a consultant with the Hay Group in Toronto Canada. She supported Compensation, Benefits and Systems for Bayer Canada before moving to the U.S. in 2000, at which point she became the Global HR Director for Baxter in Chicago. Next, she joined Pfizer to first support the Global Research teams and then the Commercial businesses in both the Developed Markets and the Emerging Markets. In 2013, Karen relocated to Boston to lead the Research and Development and Corporate Development teams for Biogen before becoming the CHRO for Alnylam Pharmaceuticals.

Karen has a BA in Psychology and Labor Relations and a Masters in Organization Development. She is an active mentor in the community, a Board member of the Northeast HR Association, an advisor to WEST (Women in the Enterprise of Science and Technology), and in 2018, received the HRO Today magazine award as a CHRO Leader of Distinction.

Shahriar Rafimayeri

Chief Information Officer

Shahriar Rafimayeri joined Mimecast in September 2020. As newly appointed Chief Information Officer, he will be overseeing the global Infrastructure and internal application technology at Mimecast. Shahriar is responsible for executing a strategic road map to make internal processes more efficient by digitally transforming the business using technology.

Shahriar has extensive experience in managing large, global, and diverse technology organizations where he has transformed and modernized complex technology platforms to greatly improve the stability, resiliency, and cybersecurity of applications and infrastructure. Recently he was the CIO and Senior Vice President of Business Innovation at Infor where he executed on the company’s complete digital transformation and migration to the cloud. Shahriar has also held many senior leadership positions within technology arms of leading financial institutions, including Morgan Stanley, Blackstone, Credit Suisse, UBS, and Bankers Trust.

Shahriar holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Mathematics from Hofstra University. He also serves as a member of the board of trustees at Kaufman Music Center in New York City and is an Advisory Board Member of Brooklyn STEM Center at the Brooklyn Navy Yard Technical High School. He lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

Mick Paisley

Chief Security and Resilience Officer

Michael Paisley joined Mimecast in 2020 as Chief Security and Resilience Officer. With nearly 20 years’ experience as a CISO in multi-national, highly targeted and highly regulated organizations, Mick is well-versed in operating at the continually evolving intersection of cyber security, resilience, quantitative risk and advanced data analysis.

During his career, Mick has successfully developed and executed efficient threat- and risk-based cyber resilience strategies that have reduced aggregated cyber loss exposure, while enabling colleague’s productivity for several large and complex organizations. Prior to joining Mimecast, Mick was CISO at Verifone Inc a global payments provider. He was previously CSO for Vocalink, a component of the UKs critical National Infrastructure where he successfully led the first formal CBEST testing of any financial services organization with full transparency of the process to key stakeholders. Before that, Mick was responsible for all aspects of cyber resilience, digital risk, e-fraud, business continuity planning and crisis management for Santander UK.

Mick holds a Bachelor of Laws degree and a Master of Science degree in Security and Organizational Risk Management from the University of Leicester.

Robert Nault

Senior Vice President and General Counsel

Bob joined Mimecast in September 2016 as Senior Vice President and General Counsel. He has over 20 years of experience leading legal teams in a variety of industries, including SaaS, security, enterprise software and financial services.

Prior to joining Mimecast, Bob was Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary of Constant Contact, Inc., a leading provider of email marketing SaaS solutions. Bob joined Constant Contact in 2007 and led the legal team through the company’s initial public offering, multiple acquisitions and the sale of the company to Endurance International Group, Inc. in February 2016. Before joining Constant Contact, he served as Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary of RSA Security Inc., a provider of security technology solutions, until its acquisition by EMC Corporation. Prior to that, Bob served in the general counsel role for a number of companies including Med-i-Bank, Inc., a provider of software and services for electronic benefit payments, ON Technology Corporation, an enterprise software company, and The Pioneer Group, Inc., a financial services and alternative investments company. Before joining Pioneer, Bob was a member of the corporate department of Hale and Dorr LLP (now Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP).

Bob holds a B.A. from the University of Rhode Island and a J.D. from Boston University School of Law.