Fortifai Ltd (ASX:FTI, OTC:FTILF, FRA:9UQ0) has appointed seasoned Silicon Valley executive Kelly Herrell as chief executive officer of the company and its AI infrastructure subsidiary Nol8, effective June 1, 2026.
Herrell brings 30 years of operating experience in technology infrastructure, with a track record of scaling disruptive software and silicon-based businesses from early-stage growth through to IPO and acquisition exits. He has held senior roles across companies that have collectively generated more than US$12 billion in M&A and IPO exit value.
He was an early executive at CacheFlow, which listed on NASDAQ at a US$6 billion valuation and later became Blue Coat Systems, before being acquired by Symantec for US$4.65 billion.
At Cobalt Networks, he helped scale revenue from US$20 million to US$70 million in 18 months and supported preparations for its US$6 billion NASDAQ IPO before the company was acquired by Sun Microsystems for US$2 billion.
Herrell also served as CEO of Vyatta, where he helped build the company’s software-defined networking strategy before its acquisition by Brocade Communications in 2012.
"We set out to find a CEO who has done this before — taken a deeply technical, infrastructure-layer technology and built it into a company that competes with and displaces incumbents at scale. Kelly has done exactly that, multiple times, across three decades. His track record of category creation, his ability to translate complex technology into enterprise value, and his network across the Fortune 500 make him the right leader to take Nol8 to market globally," Co-Founder and CTO, Nol8 Alon Rashelbach said.
Focus on taking Nol8 global
The new CEO will lead the commercialisation and global go-to-market strategy for Nol8’s AI Data Plane technology.
Most recently, he was CEO of Hazelcast from 2018 to 2024, a real-time data processing platform used by major banks and financial institutions.
Herrell said Nol8 fitted the same model that had underpinned his previous roles: identifying a fast-growing infrastructure challenge, developing a new product category and scaling it through disciplined go-to-market execution.
"Every company I have built or scaled has centred on the same methodology, identify a rapidly-growing pain point in technology infrastructure, deliver an innovative new category of product that eliminates the pain, and dominate that category through go-to-market execution. Nol8’s AI Data Plane precisely fits that formula, addressing a massive need to fuel AI Agents with the immense amounts of data they require. The technology is extraordinary, the founding team is world-class, and the market timing is right. I am here to build the go-to-market engine that turns this technology into a category-defining company."
What FortifAI and Nol8 do
Nol8 is developing an FPGA-accelerated AI Data Plane designed to process, inspect, classify and act on data in real time at scale.
The technology uses proprietary neural-network architecture implemented in silicon and has potential applications across cybersecurity, financial services, telecommunications and other data-intensive sectors.
FortifAI is focused on artificial intelligence and advanced computing. Alongside Nol8, the company also has a portfolio of video games and is seeking to use AI to target technology efficiencies and growth opportunities.
What’s next
Herrell’s appointment comes as FortifAI looks to advance Nol8’s technology and build commercial partnerships.
His long-term incentive package includes milestones linked to demonstrating more than three times data-per-dollar performance against industry-standard CPU pattern matching, delivering a streaming data validation MVP and securing at least two binding design partnership agreements.