Crosspoint’s New Weapon: Why Hiring an Operator is the Ultimate AI Power Play

MENLO PARK, CA – September 15, 2026

When Crosspoint Capital Partners announced it was adding Panos Kozanian to its operating team, the press release read like a standard-issue executive appointment. A former leader from Five9 and Cisco, Kozanian brings a formidable resume to the cybersecurity-focused investment firm. But to dismiss this as just another personnel move is to miss the plot entirely. This isn't about filling a seat; it’s a declaration of strategy. Crosspoint, a firm that has amassed an impressive $8.6 billion in assets since its 2020 founding, is signaling a profound shift in the private equity playbook: in the age of AI, the operator, not the financier, is the new kingmaker.

The Operator as the New Kingmaker

For decades, the private equity model was straightforward: acquire, leverage, cut costs, and exit. Value creation was a financial exercise. But in the hyper-complex world of enterprise software and cybersecurity, that model is obsolete. Today, value is created through product superiority, engineering velocity, and strategic navigation of disruptive technologies like artificial intelligence. Financial engineering can’t build a better AI agent or scale a cloud platform during a crisis. An operator can.

This trend is crystallizing across the industry. Competitors like Thoma Bravo have forged strategic partnerships with giants like Google Cloud to infuse their portfolio companies with AI capabilities. The message is clear: passive ownership is a losing strategy. The new mandate requires PE firms to function as extensions of their portfolio companies' leadership teams, providing not just capital but deep, sector-specific operational expertise. Crosspoint’s hire is a masterclass in this new philosophy.

“AI is changing the economics of software and the way great technology companies are built,” said Greg Clark, Managing Partner of Crosspoint Capital, in a statement accompanying the announcement. “The advantage will accrue to companies that can translate technical innovation into products customers value and then execute at scale.” This isn’t just a soundbite; it’s the core thesis driving Kozanian's appointment.

A Career Forged in Technological Upheaval

To understand the significance of this hire, one must understand Panos Kozanian's track record. He is the quintessential operator, a leader who has consistently been at the epicenter of major technological shifts and has proven his ability not just to survive them, but to harness them for immense commercial growth. He represents a rare combination of technical foresight, product intuition, and operational discipline.

His 14-year tenure at Cisco was marked by a series of high-stakes challenges. He led the company's emerging technologies incubation lab, a role that charged him with identifying and building Cisco’s “next billion-dollar businesses.” More visibly, he was a key leader in scaling the Webex collaboration platform. During the unprecedented demand surge of the COVID-19 pandemic, Kozanian helped steer the platform through a staggering 400 percent growth, ensuring stability for the 95 percent of Fortune 500 companies that relied on it.

More recently, as Executive Vice President of Product Engineering at Five9, he was responsible for the company’s entire technology stack. There, he translated his deep understanding of AI into tangible business results, helping build the company's AI portfolio into a business generating over $100 million in revenue. He led a global engineering organization of 1,000 people and was the executive briefing the board on AI strategy and technology risk. As Crosspoint Managing Director Samir Kapuria noted, “He has done that across AI, cloud and collaboration software, from incubating new technologies to scaling platforms used by the world's largest enterprises. That combination of technical judgment, product instinct and operating execution will be extraordinarily valuable across the Crosspoint portfolio.”

Doubling Down on AI-Native Security

Kozanian’s arrival is no accident; it is the logical next step in Crosspoint’s deliberate strategy to dominate the intersection of AI and cybersecurity. While the firm’s portfolio includes established names like McAfee and Forescout, its recent investments reveal an aggressive push into the next generation of AI-native security platforms. Companies like Ent AI, which builds an “intent-aware” security platform; Geordie AI, a governance platform for AI agents; and TENEX.AI, an AI-native threat detection platform, form the vanguard of Crosspoint's future.

These are not legacy companies in need of a tech facelift. They are startups built from the ground up on AI. They require a different kind of guidance—not from a traditional buyout specialist, but from someone who has built and scaled precisely these kinds of platforms. Kozanian’s role is explicitly defined to provide it. He will work directly with portfolio companies on “product and AI strategy, engineering scale, platform architecture, innovation and technical diligence.” He is the in-house expert tasked with helping these nascent companies navigate the treacherous path from innovative concept to durable, scalable, and monetizable business.

The New Mandate for Private Equity

The dual nature of artificial intelligence—simultaneously the industry’s greatest opportunity and its most potent threat—has created a new imperative for investors. In cybersecurity, where AI-driven attacks are becoming more sophisticated by the day, the only defense is a better offense, built on superior AI. This requires a level of technical and operational acumen that few investment firms possess internally.

Crosspoint is betting that by embedding an operator of Kozanian’s caliber, it can provide its portfolio with an unfair advantage. He brings the ability to vet the technical claims of potential acquisitions, guide the architectural decisions of early-stage companies, and instill the operational discipline required to turn promising technology into a market-leading enterprise. This hire is an acknowledgment that in the modern technology landscape, the most valuable asset isn't just capital, but the proven experience to deploy it effectively. For Crosspoint and its portfolio, the mission is to build the future of cybersecurity, and they have just brought in one of its most experienced architects.