Meet Sunny Rao, JFrog’s New SVP of Asia Pacific

With APAC economies rapidly going digital, businesses are hyper-focused on becoming more efficient, agile, and customer-focused. Software is playing an increasingly critical role in their success. At the same time, today’s software development landscape is more complex than ever, driven by cybersecurity concerns, emerging and constantly evolving regulatory requirements, plus AI-assisted coding trends that have the potential to both increase developer productivity, but also introduce software vulnerabilities if not used responsibly.

As such, JFrog recently doubled-down on its APAC focus with the appointment of seasoned software industry sales leader and tech veteran, Sunny Rao, as Senior Vice President of APAC. Rao brings almost three decades of business management experience in information technology and enterprise software, having held several general manager and leadership roles at Vonage, Vidyo, Nuance Communications, Genesys, and Avaya.

We sat down with Rao to learn more about his career journey through several software companies, what it is about JFrog that inspires him, his thoughts on the opportunity for JFrog’s growth in APAC, and the role software supply chain platforms will play in transforming the industry.

Why did you choose to join JFrog and why now?

In my experience, many APAC companies face challenges in achieving agility due to limited end-to-end visibility and data on key metrics like developer efficiency and pace of secure software releases. Solutions like JFrog’s Platform that provide comprehensive insights can help the companies struggling with these challenges to accelerate software delivery, diagnose bottlenecks, and enable more agile, efficient and secure release processes. This is the primary reason I was drawn to JFrog – I saw them as truly capable of solving the development obstacles of today and tomorrow. Now, as part of the JFrog team, I look forward to helping push this work to the next level in the local market – collaborating with our customers and partners to help enhance, secure, and accelerate their entire software supply chain.

What makes the APAC region unique?

I’ve lived and worked all around the world, and for me, what makes the APAC region unique is its diversity. Not just in languages and culture, but also in business maturity, levels of risk aversion, development cultures, and more, making it impossible to take a “one size fits all” approach to the region.

In Australia, for example, the focus on productivity is driving the shift from siloed point solutions to end-to-end platforms with an emphasis on privacy, governance, and compliance. While in Japan, companies prioritize security for regulated industries. And in India, the focus is on agility and scale followed by security.

This is why we at JFrog pride ourselves on building trust through presence and prioritizing long-term customer value with a customer-first approach vs. transactional. We jointly plan their path to software supply chain success. JFrog’s access to local knowledge sources, coupled with proven technical expertise, means we’re able to equip our customers with the tools they need to scale and succeed, regardless of where they are based.

What is the most significant opportunity you see for JFrog in APAC?

With the diversity of business challenges in APAC, I see two main opportunities for JFrog. The first is to act as a bridge between global best practices and regional-specific needs. Our customers operate in incredibly diverse environments – blending local development, offshore build centers and outsourced integrators. The opportunity for us lies in creating an ecosystem of federation where our teams appear as one with theirs, and where the JFrog platform acts as a single source of truth.

The second is guiding businesses towards responsible AI/ML adoption, at scale. While APAC businesses might be at different stages of integrating AI/ML, they’re all asking the same questions around how to scale securely, responsibly and navigate regulatory implications. That’s where JFrog comes in. JFrog is here to be the guiding force in this journey, helping customers navigate not just how to scale AI, but how to do it well, in a way that aligns with their business environment and growth objectives.

Staying ahead of the curve in an ever-evolving tech landscape is challenging for software development professionals and business leaders who want to remain competitive. We believe the easiest way for companies to do this is to embrace ‘EveryOps.’  The core idea behind EveryOps is that a secure software supply chain cannot operate in silos and it needs automation across every layer – building a culture around best practices of embedding security and governance at every step, with end-to-end visibility. Businesses that can get EveryOps right will be able to scale with confidence, without compromising trust or quality.

What are some of the most important things you’ve learned in your career?

I’ve been fortunate to learn from some incredible leaders throughout my career, but the one growth exercise I’d say was consistent amongst all of them was they pushed me into “zones of discomfort,” if you will. This included challenging my skill set in different domains, from direct sales to product management, profit and loss governance, regulatory requirements, team management and development, and more. Having exposure to different aspects of a business helped me gain a better understanding of what drives a company’s success, while my organization leadership roles taught me how to motivate and develop collaborative teams by encouraging their personal goal setting and self-reflection, aligned to common objectives.

Finally, if there’s one key piece of advice I’d urge everyone to follow, it’s to live up to your word. If you say you’re going to do something, get it done. Doing so is essential for building credibility with both teams and customers.