Chris O’Malley

Former President and CEO Exabeam

Last Reviewed: September 19, 2026

Executive Summary

Chris O’Malley is an enterprise software executive best known for leading turnarounds and consolidations at established but underperforming technology businesses. He most recently served as President and CEO of Exabeam, a SIEM and security-analytics company, a role he held from July 2024 — having come to it through LogRhythm, which he had led since February 2022 and which merged into Exabeam — until his retirement, announced on 8 October 2025. Across nearly four decades he built a track record of revitalising legacy software franchises and steering companies through ownership transitions, including two private-equity take-privates and a large industry merger, most visibly at Compuware, which he moved from waterfall development to Agile and DevOps over six years before its sale to BMC Software.

Career Highlights

• Led the July 2024 merger of LogRhythm and Exabeam, combining two established SIEM and security-analytics vendors under Thoma Bravo ownership, and became President and CEO of the merged company.
• Retired as Exabeam CEO in October 2025, saying the timing was right with the company “delivering two of the strongest quarters in our history”; he remained through Q4 2025 to hand over to Pete Harteveld.
• Led Compuware’s turnaround as President and CEO from December 2014, following Thoma Bravo’s $2.5 billion take-private, shifting the company from waterfall to Agile and DevOps development while retaining roughly 98% of employees, ahead of its March 2020 acquisition by BMC Software.
• Introduced quarterly innovation releases at LogRhythm, including the cloud-native Axon platform; LogRhythm won the 2023 Colorado Technology Association Company of the Year Award.
• Spent nearly twenty-four years at CA, Inc. from October 1988, rising to Executive Vice President and General Manager of both the Mainframe Business Unit and Cloud Products & Solutions.
• Named to Crain’s Detroit Business “Top 50 Names to Know in IT” (2017), “Best DevOps Evangelist” by DevOps.com (2019) and IT Services Report’s “Top 25 Government IT Executives” (2020).
• Contributed to the drafting of the federal Modernizing Government Technology (MGT) Act through engagement with members of Congress.
• Founded the O’Malley Foundation in 1998, supporting college scholarships and youth arts programmes.

Professional Journey

O’Malley began his career at CA, Inc. — later CA Technologies — in October 1988, and stayed until July 2012, close to a quarter-century. He rose to Executive Vice President and General Manager of the company’s Mainframe Business Unit and, separately, of its Cloud Products & Solutions division, giving him deep exposure to exactly the kind of asset he would spend the rest of his career working on: valuable, entrenched, unfashionable software franchises that had stopped growing.

In December 2014 he joined Compuware, a mainframe software company recently taken private by Thoma Bravo in a $2.5 billion transaction, as President and shortly afterwards President and CEO. Over the following six years he led the company’s shift from a slow-moving waterfall development organisation to an Agile and DevOps-driven business, a transformation he has said kept roughly 98% of the company’s employees through the change. He also became one of the more visible advocates for mainframe modernisation in government IT, engaging with members of Congress in the drafting of the federal Modernizing Government Technology Act. Compuware was acquired by BMC Software in March 2020.

He joined the board of LogRhythm, a security-operations and SIEM vendor also owned by Thoma Bravo, in October 2021, and was named its President and CEO in February 2022. There he instituted a cadence of quarterly innovation releases and launched the cloud-native Axon platform, and the company was named Colorado Technology Association Company of the Year in 2023. In July 2024 LogRhythm completed a merger with Exabeam, another Thoma Bravo portfolio company and a direct competitor in SIEM and security analytics, and O’Malley became President and CEO of the combined business, which operates under the Exabeam name. He led the integration and the subsequent product cycle until 8 October 2025, when Thoma Bravo and Exabeam announced his retirement and the appointment of Chief Revenue Officer Pete Harteveld as CEO. He remained engaged through the fourth quarter of 2025 to support the transition.

Alongside his executive roles he has served on several corporate boards, including LogRhythm, Greenphire, Bluenog, Nimsoft, YJT Solutions and VelociData. Outside business, he founded the O’Malley Foundation in 1998, which supports college scholarships, youth arts programmes and other charitable causes, and was recognised as a “Significant Sig” by the Sigma Chi fraternity in 2017.

Education

University of Minnesota-Twin Cities

Degree and field of study are not established by any reliable source.