US software vendor Progress Software has appointed Bridget Collins as its new Chief Information Officer (CIO). According to the company, Collins brings more than 30 years of experience in enterprise IT, business transformation and AI strategy, and will report directly to CEO Yogesh Gupta.
Progress Software (Nasdaq: PRGS) has appointed Bridget Collins as its new Chief Information Officer. According to a company announcement made on August 18, 2026, at its headquarters in Burlington, Massachusetts, Collins will lead the company’s global IT and security organization and report directly to CEO Yogesh Gupta. Per the company, Collins brings more than 30 years of experience in enterprise IT, business transformation and AI strategy.
As CIO, her responsibilities are said to include advancing the use of AI across internal operations and overseeing cybersecurity. Collins is also expected to evaluate emerging technologies and strengthen governance frameworks for data, security and AI usage. The appointment comes as Progress says it continues to integrate acquisitions and expand its platform with AI capabilities. For Collins, this marks a return to her former workplace: she previously worked at Progress from 1997 to 2008.
Gupta said the global CIO team plays an important role in the company’s growth strategy while helping to mitigate risk as AI use expands across the business. He said Collins’ expertise in enterprise technology, business transformation and cybersecurity would help scale operations, integrate acquisitions and support employees and customers. He noted that Collins began her career at Progress as a software engineer, calling her return to the company especially notable.
Collins said Progress has positioned itself as a vendor that provides organizations with the context and control they need to work with AI. She said she looks forward to partnering across the business to build on that positioning for the benefit of customers and employees, and to be part of the company’s next phase of growth.
Before joining Progress, Collins served as Chief Information and Business Transformation Officer at cybersecurity vendor Rapid7, where she was responsible for global IT, real estate and workplace experience, and enterprise AI, with combined budget responsibility of 75 million US dollars. In that role, she says she led the expansion of Rapid7’s India operations from zero to more than 200 employees across IT, engineering, finance, HR and operations in under 14 months, and established an enterprise AI governance program. She also says she changed the IT cost structure through targeted hiring in India, lowering average cost per head while growing the team.
Prior to that, Collins held the role of Chief Transformation Officer and CIO at Cerence, a provider of AI-powered virtual assistants for the automotive industry. As founding CIO, she built the company’s entire IT infrastructure, business systems and security organization following its spin-off from Nuance Communications, including ERP, HCM and CRM systems as well as cloud hosting. At Nuance Communications, a provider of conversational AI and speech recognition technology, she previously served as Vice President of Information Technology, where she supported the corporate transactions that led to the automotive division’s spin-off as Cerence and the divestiture of the imaging division.
Collins began her career at Progress Software in 1997 as a software engineer, working her way up to IT director over more than a decade. She was named a 2021 BostonCIO of the Year ORBIE Award winner, an honor recognizing technology leadership. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Providence College and an MBA in High Technology Management from Northeastern University.
Progress Software describes itself as a vendor that helps organizations extract value from AI using context drawn from their data, content and workflows, while maintaining control over security, governance and cost. The company is listed on the Nasdaq under the ticker PRGS.
Dr. Jakob Jung is Editor-in-Chief of Security Storage and Channel Germany. He has been working in IT journalism for more than 20 years. His career includes Computer Reseller News, Heise Resale, Informationweek, Techtarget (storage and data center) and ChannelBiz. He also freelances for numerous IT publications, including Computerwoche, Channelpartner, IT-Business, Storage-Insider and ZDnet. His main topics are channel, storage, security, data center, ERP and CRM.
Contact via Mail: jakob.jung@security-storage-und-channel-germany.de