A brunette woman standing next to a blonde man. Both are smiling while standing against a cerulean wall with the Imperva logo on it.
From left: Jennifer Lovette, SVP of customer success at Imperva, and Chris Hylen, president and CEO at Imperva. Image: Libby Greene/Nasdaq Inc

Imperva to set up office in Belfast and create 220 jobs

4 Dec 2018

California-headquartered Imperva sets its sights on Belfast as it plans further global growth.

Cybersecurity provider Imperva will set up a new office in Belfast, Northern Ireland, creating 220 jobs over the next three to five years.

Imperva uses data, analytics and best-of-breed software to deliver protection for its clients on premises, on cloud and in hybrid environments. Headquartered in Redwood Shores, California, Imperva is best known for applications such as Incapsula, SecureSphere and ThreatRadar, which protect against things such as denial-of-service attacks, and provide threat intelligence.

The company expects that the new roles will span several functions including tech support, customer success management, managed services and product development. To support the company’s hiring aims, Invest NI has offered it a total of £1.43m worth of assistance.

“Northern Ireland’s sectoral strength in cybersecurity continues to attract the attention of the leading companies operating in this arena,” commented Steve Harper, executive director of international business at Invest NI. “Imperva’s investment will make a significant contribution to the cybersecurity sector in Northern Ireland which includes Rapid7, Proofpoint and WhiteHat.”

Chris Hylen, president and CEO of Imperva, added: “Establishing an Imperva office in Belfast will help us fuel the next phase of our global growth and expansion as part of our goal to become the world’s leading hybrid security company.

“Our new office … allows us to tap into the tremendous talent in the region, scale our business, and continue providing customers with innovative solutions and support services. We’re excited to be in Belfast and are looking forward to building a best-in-class team.”

This is a good boost for the Irish cybersecurity industry, though it is not the only Irish industry to experience good fortune in recent times. In the month of November, industries such as pharmaceuticals and life sciences, fintech and financial services, and artificial intelligence all flourished and produced hundreds of jobs between them.

In the case of pharmaceuticals, its fortune was helped along massively by the acquisition of Irish start-up Genomics Medicine Ireland (GMI) by Chinese-owned genomics company WuXi NextCode. The company plans to invest $400m and create 600 jobs in Dublin.

Eva Short
By Eva Short

Eva Short was a journalist at Silicon Republic, specialising in the areas of tech, data privacy, business, cybersecurity, AI, automation and future of work, among others.

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