Confidential
Salient PR
Proposal for Public Relations Partnership

A Smarter Approach
to Media Relations

Intelligence-driven PR for Druva's next chapter
in data security and cyber resilience
Prepared by Salient PR · March 2026
Prepared for Alex Cardenas, Sandra Rousseau & Ranga Rajagopalan
SALIENT PR · salientpr.com
Section 01

Understanding Druva

Druva isn't a backup company that bolted on security messaging. You built a cloud-native SaaS platform from the ground up — and Dru MetaGraph represents a genuinely differentiated approach your competitors can't replicate.

$200M+
ARR
7,500+
Global Customers
75
Fortune 500 Clients
The Competitive Landscape

Rubrik went public and commands outsized media attention. Cohesity and Commvault merged, amplifying their resources. Veeam dominates mid-market. Eon is carving niche positioning. The narrative is shifting from "backup" to "cyber resilience" — where AI-driven threat detection and agentic automation define the leaders.

This is Druva's story to own.
Competitive Conflict Confirmation

Salient PR confirms we do not represent — and will not take on — Rubrik, Cohesity, Commvault, Veeam, Eon, or any of their subsidiaries.

Section 02

Our Approach

We're closer to a technology company that does media relations — and that changes everything about how we work and what results look like.

Outcomes Over Hours

Our AI handles monitoring, classification, and research that consume 60-70% of a traditional agency's time. Your human hours go to strategy and pitching.

Full Transparency

Shared media lists, shared pitch tracking, real-time visibility. No proprietary databases held hostage. No 48-hour response windows.

Three Pillars Aligned

Your GEO + Content pillars stay in-house. We own Media Relations execution — with strategic counsel that strengthens all three.

No Empty Calories

Every pitch produces the kind of coverage that changes how reporters think about Druva — features, data-driven stories, and executive profiles.

Section 03

The Salient AI Advantage

Proprietary AI systems replace manual research and monitoring with intelligent pipelines that surface opportunities faster than any human team.

News
Trades
Competitors
Podcasts
Social
Reporters
Threats
Awards
Events
1,000+
signals / day
Salient AI Intelligence Engine
Signal Classification & Noise Filtering
Narrative Matching to Druva's Pillars
Opportunity Scoring & Prioritization
Spokesperson Mapping
Competitive Context Enrichment
5–6
Qualified Opportunities Daily
Feature Stories
Executive Profiles
Data-Driven Coverage
Podcast Placements
SOV Growth
Rapid Response
5–6
Daily Opportunities
<2hr
Rapid Response
2–3x
Strategy vs Admin
On Confidentiality

Enterprise-tier APIs with data isolation. No client data trains models. No proprietary info in shared environments. Every output passes human review. We hold ourselves to the same standard you hold DruAI to.

Section 04

90-Day Media Strategy

Concrete milestones with a 90-day checkpoint to evaluate results and calibrate forward.

Days 1–30
Foundation
  • Intensive onboarding with Alex, Sandra, and spokespeople
  • Media audit: SOV vs. Rubrik, Cohesity/Commvault, Veeam, Eon
  • Develop 3–4 narrative pillars with spokesperson ownership
  • Build tiered target list: 120+ contacts
  • Activate AI intelligence pipeline
  • First proactive pitches by week 3
Days 31–60
Momentum
  • Target 2–3 placed features in security trades and tech press
  • Trend-jack 2–3 active cybersecurity/AI news cycles
  • Stephen Manley intro briefings with priority reporters
  • Launch thought leadership content calendar
  • Scope data report ("State of Cyber Resilience")
  • First contributed op-ed or byline for CTO or CSO
Days 61–90
Proof
  • Weekly proactive pitch pipeline running consistently
  • 2–3 thought leadership pieces placed (op-eds, podcasts, bylines)
  • Data report survey methodology and vendor finalized
  • Reporter introductions converting to positive coverage
  • 90-day checkpoint: placements, SOV, narrative progress
  • Strategic recalibration for next quarter
Section 05

Executive Thought Leadership

Distinct positioning for each spokesperson — matched to the right opportunities with precision.

JS
Jaspreet Singh
CEO · The Architect

Strategic business case for proactive data security. What boards should ask their CISOs. Selective, high-impact moments — long-form features and keynote interviews where depth is a strength.

SM
Stephen Manley
CTO · The Futurist

Lead proactive voice. Charismatic, forward-thinking, makes complex topics accessible. Podcasts, trend commentary, rapid-response. 3–4 rolling themes aligned to active media narratives.

YB
Yogesh Badwe
CSO · The Practitioner

Data-driven security authority. Breach response timelines, ransomware benchmarks, threat intelligence patterns. Grounded in specifics that earn trade reporter respect.

Bench Expansion

David Gildea (VP of Product, AI) and Badri Raghunathan (VP, Cybersecurity & Data Governance Products) activated over time. David's hands-on experience building DruAI makes him uniquely credible for the "AI practitioner" narrative.

Section 06

Building Momentum Between Launches

Sustaining narrative presence in the 47 weeks a year without major news. This is where most agencies go quiet. We don't.

The Proactive Engine
01
Detect
AI identifies emerging threads in cybersecurity and AI coverage
02
Match
Map trends to Druva's pillars — MetaGraph, DruAI, resilience
03
Assign
Right spokesperson matched to each opportunity
04
Craft
Non-obvious angle developed for the 5–8 active reporters
05
Pitch
Personalized outreach within 24–48 hours of identification
Report
Strategic Recommendation

Commission a Data Report

"The State of Cyber Resilience" — surveying 300–500 security leaders on data security in the age of agentic AI. Delivers immediate launch coverage, 6–12 months of proactive pitch fuel, podcast hooks, and data-backed thought leadership reporters actually cite.

<2hr
Response
Rapid Response

When a breach or AI security incident breaks, reporters have a 2–4 hour window. Our AI flags events in real time. Pre-approved messaging and reporter relationships activate immediately — while your competitors schedule internal approval calls.

Section 07

Relevant Experience

Deep roots in the security, developer tools, and enterprise infrastructure ecosystem — the world Druva operates in.

Security & Developer Infrastructure Clients
Vanta
Security Compliance
SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA automation. Forbes Next Billion-Dollar Startups. WSJ, Fortune, VentureBeat.
Sauce Labs
Code Testing & Security
AI-driven testing platform. NYT, Bloomberg rapid response. #1 competitive coverage ranking.
CircleCI
DevSecOps / CI-CD
4-year engagement. Coverage up 11x. Series D through $1.7B valuation. TechCrunch, VentureBeat.
SkipLabs
AI Coding Agent & Security
Coming out of stealth. AI-native code generation with security-first architecture. Current client.
Browserbase
AI Agent Infrastructure
Headless browser for AI agents. VentureBeat exclusive. $6.5M seed → $300M Series B valuation.
Density
Enterprise IoT & Privacy
Privacy-first workplace sensors. Wired, WSJ, Fortune, CNBC, Axios. $51M Series C.
Vanta
Unknown in security
Forbes Next Billion-Dollar Startups
Sauce Labs
#3 in coverage ranking
#1 — passing LambdaTest & BrowserStack
BuildOps
One data report
NYT relationship + 4 podcasts + 12 months coverage
Publications & Reporters We Have Relationships With
Forbes Fortune Wall Street Journal New York Times Bloomberg CNBC Wired The Information
Dark Reading Security Magazine The Register Ars Technica SC Media
TechCrunch VentureBeat InfoQ The New Stack SiliconANGLE DZone SD Times

Nine billion-dollar companies. Series A through pre-IPO.
5 clients in WSJ. 8+ in Forbes. 4 in Fortune. 15+ in TechCrunch.

Section 08

Launch & Announcement Approach

Tier 1 — Exclusive

One reporter or small embargo group for major news. Chosen to deepen the right relationship.

Tier 2 — Embargo

10–15 reporters across tech, security, and trades. Tailored angle per outlet.

Tier 3 — Broad

Day-of outreach to full list, prioritized by AI-identified beat relevance.

Post-launch amplification: Our AI matches announcement themes to emerging opportunities for weeks afterward. A DruAI launch becomes a citation source when reporters cover agentic AI next month.

Section 09

Measurement & Reporting

What We Track
Coverage quality score (DA-weighted)
Competitive share of voice
Reporter relationship pipeline
Thought leadership placement rate
Rapid-response velocity
How We Report
Weekly — Automated branded dashboard
Monthly — Strategic review with metrics
Quarterly — Deep SOV competitive analysis
AI-automated monitoring included — no extra tooling cost
Realistic Benchmarks — 90 Days

6–10 meaningful placements across trade and tech press. 3–5 new reporter relationships. Measurable SOV improvement. At least one proactive feature without a launch driving it. We under-promise and over-deliver.

Section 10

How We Use AI Internally

I
Intelligence

Continuous scanning and classification of thousands of sources to surface opportunities daily.

M
Monitoring

Real-time detection of Druva and competitor mentions across news, trades, podcasts, and social.

R
Reporting

Weekly branded coverage reports generated automatically — no manual effort.

O
Orchestration

Task management, deadline tracking, and QA across client accounts.

Quality Control & Confidentiality

Every output passes human review. AI drafts, humans refine. AI surfaces, humans decide. No client data trains models. Sensitive information never enters shared environments.

As a company building DruAI, you understand responsible AI deployment. We hold ourselves to the same standard.

Section 11

Your Salient Team

No handoff. The people in this proposal are the people doing the work.

Justin Mauldin
Founder & CEO

On every account — strategy to pitching to press releases. 10+ years, nine billion-dollar companies. Direct relationships at Forbes, Fortune, WSJ, TechCrunch. Five-star rated on Clutch and Google.

Lindsey Ranger
Head of Operations

Day-to-day execution lead. Pitch coordination, media list development, outreach tracking, reporting. Works directly with Alex and the Druva team. The operational backbone.

Cris Soto
Account Manager — Cybersecurity

3+ years at Ranger Finn (formerly Touchdown PR), a cybersecurity-focused agency. Led Securin and Vedera accounts. Bylines in Dark Reading, Security Magazine, VentureBeat, InfoWorld. BA in Journalism.

Kayla Haynes
Campaign Ops & AI Orchestration

Pitch deployment coordination, AI system oversight, and quality assurance across automated workflows. Ensures the intelligence pipeline runs accurately.

Salient AI Platform

The equivalent of three additional team members — running 24/7 across intelligence, monitoring, dashboards, and orchestration. Proprietary infrastructure we built. Included at every tier.

Section 12

Investment

$15,000
per month
Everything required to build Druva's media presence to match your enterprise momentum. No reduced tiers — this is what the job requires.
Monthly Hours by Role
Justin
16
Hours
Lindsey
22
Hours
Cris
10
Hours
Kayla
12
Hours
AI Platform
24/7
Always On
What's Included
Full media relations + proactive campaigns
Weekly proactive story pipeline
3 spokesperson thought leadership programs
Dedicated cybersecurity specialist
Data report strategy + execution
Priority rapid response — sub-2hr target
Weekly dashboard + monthly + quarterly SOV
Spokesperson coaching + briefing prep
6 Months
Initial Term
30-Day Out
No Questions Asked
May 2026
Target Start
Monthly
Invoicing

Data report research costs (survey fielding, vendor fees) scoped separately.

What Our Clients Say

Words That Speak for Themselves

"
Their founder is the best in the business. He's responsible for some of the most beautiful company profiles out there.
Allie Cefalo
Partner, Kleiner Perkins
"
...catapulting Kadena from a niche infrastructure project to a globally recognized name... they architected a narrative that broke through the noise...
Tony Pham, VP Marketing
Kadena
"
...so different from any other PR firm. It feels like they've upended the current model... Salient is delivering in the way that you would if you were in that seat.
Aleks Strub, CMO
Density
"
...pivotal role in our brand awareness and journey to become a leader... they successfully led our product launches, funding announcements, thought leadership campaigns...
Summer Falgiano, Dir. of PR
CircleCI
"
I've worked with a lot of PR agencies; most of whom I would not want to work with again. This is not the case with Salient.
Kelsey Bernius, Sr. Mgr Content
Sauce Labs
"
...proactive from day one — we never had to chase them... they knew our space, understood what we needed, and delivered exactly what they said they would.
Daragh Murphy, Founder & CEO
Imprint
"
...found the story we didn't know we had. We came with a funding announcement. They turned it into an industry narrative.
Alex Fuentes, EVP Strategic Growth
Brickeye
"
...balanced strategic thinking with hands-on execution... brought ideas to the table that helped us show up in the right places at the right time.
RC Victorino, Dir. Brand & Comms
BuildOps
"
...made me wish I had switched sooner. They hit the ground running, understood our vision immediately, and delivered results way beyond what I was getting before.
Stephane Giraudie, CEO
Picslo Corp
"
...from launching us out of stealth to securing top-tier media coverage, awards, and thought leadership, they have consistently delivered.
Kristie Jones, VP Marketing
Arable
"
The coverage was exactly what we needed at launch. Fortune Term Sheet, Axios, StrictlyVC — the placements that actually matter.
Mahesh Vellanki, Founder & CEO
YieldClub

Let's build a media presence
that matches Druva's momentum.

We're ready when you are.
Justin Mauldin
Founder & CEO, Salient PR
justin@salientpr.com
737.234.0936
salientpr.com