David DeSanto

Chief Executive Officer Anaconda Inc.

Last Reviewed: September 26, 2026

Executive Summary

David DeSanto is Chief Executive Officer of Anaconda, the Austin, Texas company whose Python distribution and package management made it a fixture of data science, and which now sells an enterprise platform for building, orchestrating and securing AI applications. Anaconda’s board appointed him CEO and a director in October 2025. He came from GitLab, where he was Chief Product Officer after six years at the company, and before that from cybersecurity research and product management. In his first year he has turned Anaconda into an acquirer, buying Outerbounds, Kilo Code and Enkrypt AI in the space of four months, and has hired a new Chief Financial Officer.

Career Highlights

• Appointed Chief Executive Officer and member of the board of Anaconda on 16 October 2025.
• Acquired Outerbounds in April 2026, Kilo Code in July 2026 and Enkrypt AI in August 2026, extending Anaconda into AI orchestration, agentic coding and AI security.
• Appointed Stewart Grierson as Chief Financial Officer in August 2026.
• Chief Product Officer of GitLab, leading its global product organization; Anaconda credits him with launching GitLab Duo, GitLab Dedicated and integrated security and compliance.
• Earlier led teams in vulnerability and malware research, network security and security product validation at Spirent Communications, NSS Labs and ICSA Labs.
• Served on the Governing Board of the Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF).

Professional Journey

DeSanto trained in computing and security, with a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Millersville University and a master’s in cybersecurity from New York University. His early career was in security testing and research, holding cybersecurity and product management leadership roles at ICSA Labs, NSS Labs and Spirent Communications, where he led distributed teams working on vulnerability and malware research, network security and the validation of security products.

He then spent six years at GitLab, ending as Chief Product Officer responsible for the global product organization behind its DevSecOps platform, which Anaconda describes as having more than 50 million registered users. By Anaconda’s account, the initiatives launched under his leadership included GitLab Duo, AI assistance embedded across the software development lifecycle; GitLab Dedicated, a single-tenant SaaS offering for regulated industries and the public sector; and security and compliance built natively into the platform. His time there spanned GitLab’s transition from a high-growth private company to a publicly traded one. He also served on the Governing Board of the OpenSSF, which works on software supply chain security.

Anaconda appointed him Chief Executive Officer and a director on 16 October 2025, shortly after it raised more than $150 million in a Series C led by Insight Partners, with participation from Mubadala Capital, and said it was operating profitably with more than $150 million in annual recurring revenue. Announcing the appointment, Insight Partners managing director and Anaconda board member George Mathew called him “a world-class leader who shares our customer obsession and commitment to the broader Anaconda community.”

As CEO he has pushed Anaconda beyond its package-management roots. In April 2026 it acquired Outerbounds, the company behind the open source AI/ML orchestration framework Metaflow; in July 2026 it acquired Kilo Code, an agentic coding tool, a deal the company says took its valuation above $2 billion; and in August 2026 it acquired Enkrypt AI, which provides security and guardrails for AI systems. “The future belongs to AI-native development, where the AI model is the core of how applications are built, not something bolted on at the end,” he said of the Outerbounds deal. In August 2026 Anaconda named Stewart Grierson Chief Financial Officer, reporting to DeSanto, and in September 2026 the company was named to the Inc. 5000.

Education

New York University

Master of Science, Cybersecurity

Millersville University

Bachelor of Science, Computer Science