SBN

Why I Joined ZeroNorth as CEO

Every once in a while, you meet a talented and committed team that is solving a problem nearly every organization faces, and their first-mover advantage has put them way out in front. ZeroNorth is exactly that. Over the past few years, they built a platform that gives cybersecurity and risk leaders the ability to view, prioritize and remediate application and infrastructure vulnerabilities better and faster than ever. On top of that, scanning tool orchestration capabilities help reduce companies’ reliance on hard-to-find cyber security talent. Impressive!

How do you say “no” to the opportunity to lead a team like that? I couldn’t, and I’ve now taken on the role of CEO at this great company.

If you aren’t familiar with ZeroNorth, here’s the short story: ZeroNorth delivers risk-based vulnerability orchestration across applications and infrastructure, enabling stronger security – especially for businesses embarking upon digital transformation initiatives.

If this sounds different, it’s because it is. No other company delivers these capabilities across the entire SDLC, from code commit to build to deployment, including microservices, the cloud and beyond. No other company can help their customers secure DevOps as well as ZeroNorth can. And no other company has a platform that bridges AppSec and SecOps to deliver a comprehensive and continuous view of risk across the enterprise.

Companies like ZeroNorth don’t spring up overnight. They are built “brick by brick” by a team with a clear vision. In our case, ZeroNorth’s founder and chairman, Ernesto DiGiambattista, led the team to where we sit today. Ernesto was a security and risk executive in the financial services industry for many years – he founded this company in 2015 to address the challenges that he and his teams were living with.

One of the best parts of my new role is that I will be working very closely with Ernesto, moving forward. Beyond technology and the market, Ernesto built a culture of trust, respect, innovation and customer focus that makes ZeroNorth a very special place. While it’s not normally the case, I can speak from experience—I joined the team earlier this year to consult as the company headed into its Series A launch. Since then, I’ve had the chance to get to know my colleagues, the technology and the market. The team here is smart, creative and committed, particularly to our customers.

Ernesto is going to be an incredible partner in this journey. We’ve built a strong relationship and are ready to take this company to the next level. There will be bumps in the road, of course, but we have a foundation of technology, culture and opportunity that will see us through the tough times. I’ll be focused on helping to ensure that as we grow, we do so with outstanding execution across all functions. And, most importantly, while we keep firing on all cylinders, we must maintain the customer focus and company culture that has been at the heart of ZeroNorth since its founding.

When (not if) we do this, customers are going to have an amazing opportunity to bolster security in a manner that delivers real, tangible and measurable results. To put real-world context around the problems ZeroNorth is tackling, consider this: as companies move to quickly deliver new applications and capabilities, vulnerabilities must be discovered and possibly remediated at every stage of the lifecycle. Currently, however, these efforts are done in isolation, as disparate tools are employed to discover vulnerabilities across applications and infrastructure, which takes time, expertise—and money.

ZeroNorth tackles this problem head-on with a platform that gives customers:

  • the ability to consistently test, select and onboard scanning tools across the software lifecycle, from applications to infrastructure.
  • a single platform for managing all vulnerability scanning tools, including identifying scan targets, scheduling scans and executing scans.
  • a continuous and consolidated view of risk to critical business assets, whether on-premises, in the cloud or deployed as microservices.

In short, we solve a tough cybersecurity problem that nearly every company is grappling with, and help our customers save time and money at the same time. It’s a powerful value proposition.

When we share our story with CISOs and their AppSec and vulnerability management teams, they get it immediately. For example, at the AWS re:Inforce show in June, a team from a healthcare company stopped by our booth. The comment that stood out after the team heard our story: “I think we’ve been doing application security backwards. We should have started with you all.”

This type of I need that! response is precisely what has fed our incredible growth. This year, we’ve grown both our customer base and ARR exponentially. We’ve expanded the team as well, adding leadership in sales, marketing and technology. We’ve made significant investments in our engineering team and locked in Series A funding while also welcoming in new Board members. All signs point in a positive direction—and it’s not even September. While I certainly don’t wish the summer away, it’s safe to say the fall is looking pretty good!

There is a lot of work to be done, but the potential is enormous. ZeroNorth brings huge value to our customers. I’m honored to have the opportunity to lead the company in the next stage of this adventure.

Stay tuned! There are great things to come. And, by the way, we are always looking for great people to join the team. Drop me a line if you are interested!


*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from Blog | ZeroNorth authored by John Worrall. Read the original post at: https://www.zeronorth.io/blog/why-i-joined-zeronorth-as-ceo/