Mimecast has promoted its deputy counsel and compliance head to the general counsel role, the Lexington, Massachusetts-based company has announced. 

Chris Dollase has more than 20 years of experience leading legal teams in the cybersecurity industry and will take over 1 February from Robert Nault. 

Dollase joined Mimecast five years ago as vice president and deputy general counsel and has led the company’s compliance function since he started. Before that he spent more than 15 years at RSA Security, including 10 as lead counsel; earlier in his career was in private practice at Testa Hurwitz & Thibeault. 

“Chris has been an invaluable member of Mimecast since he joined,” said Rafe Brown, Mimecast president and chief operating officer. “As an organisation we have ambitious goals, and Chris’ expertise in cybersecurity, corporate governance and compliance, strategic and commercial transactions and employment, will be critical in helping us meet our objectives. We thank Bob for his numerous contributions to Mimecast and wish him the best for his next chapter.”

Nault is stepping down after six years at Mimecast. Earlier he was general counsel at Constant Contact for nine years and also had a stint as GC at RSA Security that overlapped with Dollase’s time at the company. 

Dollase’s promotion follows Mimecast being acquired by private equity company Permira last May in a take-private deal that saw it valued at $5.8bn. A Goodwin Procter team advised Mimecast on the matter, while Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson acted for Permira. 

During his time at Mimecast Dollase has helped the company to navigate seven acquisitions, including machine learning company MessageControl and digital threat protection provider Segasec in 2020 and security software developer Solebit in 2018 for $88m. 

Mimecast said it expected Dollase to play an ‘instrumental’ role in maintaining its culture and delivering on its growth strategy. 

“I am proud to serve as general counsel at Mimecast and look forward to working alongside our team to continue delivering value to our customers and partners and to our global Mimecast colleagues,” said Dollase. “Compliance and data protection are mission-critical to Mimecast, and as a legal team we will continue to put privacy and data protection first for all our customers.”