Last time, I had fun speaking with my friend, red team-minded student/teacher Alana Staszczyszyn.

This time, I had the privilege of speaking with cybersecurity and intelligence industry veteran Theresa Payton. She’s always had tons of responsibility. She went from the White House to start her own private sector firm, Fortalice Solutions.

Kim Crawley: Hi, Theresa! Please tell me about what you do.

Theresa Payton: I’m blessed to be the CEO of Fortalice Solutions, which allows me and my team the opportunity to defend our clients (nations, businesses, and people) from behind a keyboard. I’m also a wife, soccer/cross country/basketball/karate mom to three great kids and the proud mom of two wonderful rescue dogs (Great Pyrenees) named King Seamus and Princess Leia.

KC: So, you helped found Fortalice. What led to the birth of your company? What are some major accomplishments your company has achieved so far?

TP: When I left the White House, I was pregnant with my third child and was reflecting upon my time in the federal government. I felt that the country had invested significant time and training in me during my tenure, and I felt called to honor that.

I searched high and low for a security and intelligence operations company that designed first for the human, trained to think like the adversary and tackled offensive security and incident response the way I felt it needed to be done.

My husband and I discussed this calling, and he encouraged me to launch my own company.

We joke at Fortalice that we are professional secret keepers. My team thinks it’s hilarious that our clients often refer to our team and the work that I do as the Olivia Pope of Cyber since we never discuss our clients or projects we’ve worked on without (Read more...)