Automation Anywhere Inc. named software industry veteran Sumit Johar as its new chief information officer, as the startup employs its own automation tools to improve internal operations.

“My top priority right now is to make sure that we have all the right tools, technology and infrastructure in place, not only to match our growth, but help accelerate it,” said Mr. Johar, the former CIO at mobility management company MobileIron Inc.

Mr. Johar succeeds Yousuf Khan, who left last year to pursue a career in venture capital. Mr. Johar will report to James Budge, the company’s chief financial officer.

Automation Anywhere CIO Sumit Johar.

Automation Anywhere CIO Sumit Johar.

Photo: Automation Anywhere Inc.

San Jose, Calif.-based Automation Anywhere develops robotic-process-automation software, also called bots, designed to automate manual and repetitive tasks. It has deployed nearly 3 million bots for its customers in 90 countries, the company said.

Demand for bots took off during the pandemic as offices shut down and hiring slowed, said Maureen Fleming, program vice president at market research firm International Data Corp.

“It became really important to be able to leverage robotic-process- automation to simulate worker behavior effectively,” Ms. Fleming said.

To that end, Mr. Johar said he plans to automate at least 40% of all the company’s manual repetitive business processes in information technology, security, human resources, legal and finance operations. The company currently uses about 500 of its own bots, covering around 135 business processes.

“My goal is in the next few quarters, I want to…bring more automation and make our employees more productive,” Mr. Johar said.

Helping drive the automation push is the fact that many of the company’s own employees continue to work remotely, a company spokesperson said.

The company will deploy its bots in Google Cloud, with which the company has partnered on software automation for customers.

Mr. Johar said his role also will include securing IT infrastructure. He is a proponent of a security model called zero trust, which sets up internal defenses that constantly verify whether a device, user or program should be given permission to do what it is asking to.

The remote process automation software market is expected to reach $2.4 billion in 2021, up 37.2% from 2020, according to IDC. UiPath Inc. was the largest vendor in the sector during 2020 with a 32.2% market share, followed by Automation Anywhere at 17.9% and Blue Prism Group PLC with a 10.5% share, according to IDC.

Write to Agam Shah at agam.shah@wsj.com