Avast Bolsters its Technology Division with Three Key Appointments

Avast has announced three new strategic appointments strengthening the threat research, AI, and innovation departments, reporting to Avast’s CTO, Michal Pechoucek. Joining the company are Daria Loi as Head of Innovation, Siggi Stefnisson as Head of Threat Labs, and Andrew B. Gardner as Vice President of Research & AI earlier this year.

Daria Loi has extensive experience spanning over two decades in UX research & design, product design & strategy and innovation processes and is driven by mixing design strategy with user experience research and innovation to enrich people’s life and humanize technology. Before joining Avast, Daria Loi worked at Intel, where she led UX Innovation and drove product vision agenda into Intel’s client computing, AI and smart spaces programs for over 12 years. She also worked as Head of Product Design for Emerging Technologies and Head of Design & People Experiences at Mozilla for almost two years. She is a well-known keynote speaker and was recognized as one of Italy’s 50 most inspiring women in tech. 

Siggi Stefnisson joined Avast in March 2021 as Head of Threat Labs. He has more than 20 years of experience in computer and information security, having worked as a virus and malware researcher, and most recently held the position of VP of Threat Research and Detection at Cyren. His team’s main focus lies in developing new analytical capabilities to map, understand and stop new threats in real-time.

Andrew B. Gardner joined Avast in May 2021 as Vice President of Research & AI. He joined Avast from Broadcom and has over 20 years of experience in research, artificial intelligence and data science. He has worked as Global Head of AI and Machine Learning within technology companies previously. He is leading Avast’s over 100 experts dedicated to research and development in artificial intelligence and privacy.  Andrew is a frequent international keynote speaker and presenter and former adjunct professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Michal Pechoucek, CTO at Avast, said, “The Technology and Research & Development team supports and helps execute Avast’s vision of making the digital world a more private, free and safe place for everyone, everywhere, and the strong leadership of Daria, Siggi and Andrew are of vital importance to make this a reality. I am very excited to have them all on board. With the recent additions, we have excellent leadership that ensures Avast remains at the forefront of threat research, AI, and innovation.”