CodeHunter names Stephen McCarney as Chief Strategy Officer

CodeHunter has appointed Stephen McCarney as Chief Strategy Officer to help expand its Zero Trust for Code business in enterprise and government markets.

He will oversee corporate strategy, market expansion, strategic partnerships and go-to-market efforts as CodeHunter positions its software security model around a core question: whether code should be trusted before it is allowed to run.

The approach extends Zero Trust principles beyond users, devices and networks to software itself. CodeHunter says organisations can use the model to judge software by its behaviour and intended actions before execution.

The pitch comes as cybersecurity vendors respond to the spread of AI-generated code, automated development tools and faster attack methods. CodeHunter argues that traditional detection tools, software supply chain security products and older Zero Trust controls do not address the risks created when software executes.

Founded in 2021, the company says its technology has roots in US government research labs. It focuses on regulated industries, with tools designed to help customers prevent malicious code from running, reduce alert volumes and automate security decisions across development pipelines, endpoints and broader enterprise systems.

Career path

McCarney joins from Merlin Group, where he served as Chief Marketing Officer. The company works with cybersecurity businesses serving US government and commercial critical infrastructure markets.

Before that, he was Vice President of Marketing at OPAQ Networks, a cloud security company later acquired by Fortinet. CodeHunter said he helped position and expand one of the earlier cloud-based secure access service edge and Zero Trust Network Access offerings there.

Earlier roles included senior marketing and security positions at Arxan Technologies and Unisys. His background reflects a career spent helping cybersecurity companies define new product categories and build market presence.

For CodeHunter, the hire adds a senior executive with experience in security marketing and market development as smaller vendors compete to stand out in crowded cyber market segments. The company is seeking to frame software execution as a distinct security control point rather than a subset of application or supply chain security.

Chief Executive Officer Ken Ammon said McCarney's background would help translate the company's technical approach into broader commercial adoption.

"Stephen has spent his entire career helping category-defining cybersecurity companies translate technical innovation into market leadership," said Ken Ammon, Chief Executive Officer of CodeHunter.

"His experience scaling Zero Trust, SASE, cloud security, application security and emerging technology companies will be instrumental as we expand Zero Trust for Code into a critical control layer for enterprise and AI security," Ammon said.

Market focus

Security spending on software development and software supply chains has risen as companies grapple with risks tied to open-source code, third-party components and internally generated applications. The growth of generative AI coding tools has added another layer of concern for security teams, particularly where code is produced quickly and reviewed unevenly.

CodeHunter is trying to tap that concern with a message centred on trust decisions before execution. Rather than relying only on post-deployment alerts or identity-based controls, the company says organisations need a way to decide whether software should run at all.

McCarney said those market conditions made the company's focus timely.

"AI-generated code, autonomous development tools and machine-speed attacks are challenging the assumptions behind traditional detection and software supply chain security," said Stephen McCarney, Chief Strategy Officer of CodeHunter.

"The need for CodeHunter, which is defining a new control plane focused on whether software should be trusted before it runs, couldn't be stronger. I'm looking forward to helping the company scale its partner ecosystem and capitalise on market demand for Zero Trust for Code among enterprises and government agencies," McCarney said.