Frederic Kerrest

Executive Vice Chairman, Chief Operating Officer and Co-Founder

Frederic Kerrest is the Executive Vice Chairman, Chief Operating Officer, and Co-Founder of Okta. He is responsible for Okta's day-to-day operations, working with employees, partners, and customers to deliver on the company's vision of enabling any organization to use any technology. As a key member of management, Frederic helps set corporate priorities to drive success for the company and its customers. He oversees corporate strategy, corporate development, strategic partnerships, and Okta’s social impact arm, Okta for Good.

Prior to Okta, Frederic worked in sales and business development at Salesforce.com, and in venture capital at Hummer Winblad Venture Partners.

Frederic is the author of Zero to IPO, a guide to building startups based on his own experiences and those of some of the world’s most successful and recognizable entrepreneurs. The book was an outgrowth of his award-winning podcast of the same name, which features Silicon Valley founders, investors, and entrepreneurs sharing insights from their experiences building businesses. He serves on the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship Executive Advisory Board and advises early stage software companies. Frederic is also the Chairman and Co-Founder of System1 Biosciences, a neurotherapeutics company.

Frederic earned a B.S. in computer science from Stanford University, and an M.B.A. in Entrepreneurship & Innovation from the MIT Sloan School of Management, where he was the 2008 MIT Patrick J. McGovern, Jr. Entrepreneurship Award recipient.

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The Future of Online Voting in the U.S: New Data Reveals Voter Distrust in Government

Between long lines at voting polls, mail-in voting controversies, and delayed election results — not to mention the health and safety concerns of voting during a pandemic — 2020 spurred significant debate around the possibility of online voting. We’ve seen the same problems repeat in the Georgia runoff. Addressing these issues and the future of…

Making 2021 the Year of Rapid Innovation

There’s no question that 2020 will go down in history as an unprecedented and challenging year. But in spite of this—or even because of it—we’ve seen several breakthroughs in science and technology. Take the vaccines that have been developed to combat COVID-19. Before the pandemic, there had never been a vaccine created in under a year, nor one…

The Cost of Privacy: Understanding the Global Ramifications of Data Collection

Every person who uses the Internet has a unique digital identity, consisting of individual data points, such as their username and passwords, what movies they stream, what articles they tweet, and more. Laws like the GDPR and CCPA attempt to give people some control over their data, but it can still be challenging to understand what our digital…

Okta’s Commitment to Social and Environmental Responsibility

At Okta, we live by our core values: love our customers, act with integrity, never stop innovating, be transparent, and empower our people. We put these into practice with our co-founder led weekly All Hands meetings and by giving back to our communities — we took the 1% Pledge prior to our IPO, offer frequent employee volunteering opportunities,…

Zero to IPO Season 2 Sneak Peek: A Conversation with Zoom and MikMak

The entrepreneurial journey is often portrayed by the media as a glamorous transition from founding to funding to IPO. In movies and on TV, startups are buzzing innovation hubs with ping pong tables and kombucha on tap. Either that, or a company goes up in smoke, and then is profiled in a ruthless documentary series. But as every entrepreneur —…

2019 in IPOs: Which Software Stars Made the Cut?

Last May, I shared my thoughts on the IPO landscape. At the time, the business world was anxiously watching and awaiting the public market debut of some of the biggest names in tech—it was the “year of the tech IPO.” Throughout the second half of 2019, we saw many tech companies successfully go public, but we also saw many offerings fail to meet…

How to Set Yourself up to Land the Big Wins in Your Career and Personal Life

Golden State Warriors player Andre Iguodala has always excelled under pressure. Back when he was a teenager in 2001, Iguodala’s AAU National Championship semifinal game was coming down to the wire. He was one of the best players on the team, and his opponents were guarding him aggressively. Suddenly, with two seconds left on the clock, a teammate…

Best-of-Breed vs. Suites: Growth of Slack and Zoom Across the Okta Integration Network

By now you’ve likely heard the debate about the growth and adoption of Microsoft Teams vs. Slack. We wanted to bring a different perspective to this conversation based on the trends we're seeing across our network of thousands of companies, applications, and technology integrations, and millions of daily authentications and verifications. As the…

The Year of the Tech IPO: Exploring App Growth in the Okta Integration Network

For years, the business world has awaited the public market debut of the most talked about companies in tech. Enterprise and consumer heavyweights like Zoom, Lyft and Pinterest have already gone public this year, and more are expected to file in the coming months. At Okta, we connect our customers to the apps many of these newly- or soon-to-be…

Okta + Azuqua to Join Forces

Todd McKinnon and I have always strived to make Okta an iconic technology company, and we know our relentless innovation and laser focus on customer success are what will set us apart. Today, we’re happy to announce a step forward in our vision to enable any organization to use any technology — we’ve entered into a definitive agreement to acquire…