Turning an Emerging XDR Category into an Enterprise Buying and Selling Proposition

Palo Alto Networks introduced the XDR concept, and other vendors and analysts subsequently adopted it. Building that category was the work of the wider Cortex team: Cortex XDR launched publicly in February 2019, a few months before Germán joined, and his part was helping the category take hold commercially in his region.

For later market context, Palo Alto Networks has cited a MarketsandMarkets estimate of $7.92B for the global XDR market in 2025. That figure describes the category years afterwards; it is not a value created during Germán's tenure or a personal financial result.

A new category creates a specific commercial problem: buyers have no existing budget line or evaluation habit, and sellers need to explain why the approach matters before they can compete on features.

Product Sales Enablement in Spain and Portugal, in partnership with account teams and Sales Engineers.

Sales enablement is one of the core capabilities of Product Marketing: turning positioning, product knowledge, and competitive understanding into what sellers can use with customers. This role applied that capability in the field; it was not ownership of the whole Product Marketing function.

The work centred on the questions that stall early-category deals:

• Explaining what XDR changes in detection and response, in terms technical and business stakeholders could each evaluate.
• Anticipating buyer objections and equipping sellers to answer them.
• Preparing account teams and Sales Engineers for real customer conversations, and collaborating with them in the field.

Working in an entrepreneurial unit within a large organization meant combining startup-style pace with the parent company's processes, field organization, and customer relationships.