John Maddison

Chief Marketing Officer & Executive Vice President of Product Strategy, Fortinet

Search every verified John Maddison interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. In an April 2024 interview at Fortinet's Accelerate 2024 event, John Maddison discussed the company's platform strategy and recent product updates, including the release of FortiOS 7.6. Maddison stated that Fortinet has "been doing platforms for a long, long time" and described the company's operating system as analogous to Apple's iOS, with devices and capabilities integrated on that OS and a fabric ecosystem connecting them. He noted that the security industry's current focus on platforms reflects the commoditization of features such as IPS, firewall, and antivirus, which can now be combined into secure web gateways. Maddison also outlined what he called a "third era" of network security, which he termed "unified SASE," extending beyond traditional SASE definitions to include the LAN, WAN, and cloud, requiring an OS that works across hardware, cloud, and home environments. Maddison addressed the role of artificial intelligence in Fortinet's products, stating that AI will help identify campaigns in the wild and that generative AI will enable customers to use products more effectively. He described the company's analyzer product as a "mini-SOC" that replicates a SOC analyst by aggregating client, endpoint, and management information. On data protection, Maddison said AI will assist in tagging unstructured data, which has historically been difficult, and that protection must extend to data loaded into large language models. He argued that vendors who have "cobbled together platforms through acquisition" face siloed data, whereas Fortinet's single operating system and consistent data set create a competitive advantage for AI.