Management Team

Carolyn Merritt

Vice President, Customer Experience

Carolyn Merritt is the Vice President of Customer Experience at Cofense. In this role she is responsible for facilitating ownership of customer experience excellence throughout the company and leading the customer onboarding, customer success, professional services, and global technical support teams at Cofense. Carolyn draws on 20+ years of experience leading operational and customer-facing teams in Managed Services, Cloud Hosting, and SaaS Solutions. She is uniquely equipped to drive successful outcomes for Cofense customers and will ensure the voice of the customer is considered in all decisions across the business.

Prior to joining Cofense, Carolyn held various executive level roles across several technology companies – all focused on helping customers utilize technology to help them meet their business objectives. Carolyn is known as a true “customer champion”.

Carolyn is ITIL and Net Promoter certified and holds a bachelor’s degree in Historic Preservation.

Mark Small

Senior Vice President, Global Sales

Mark is the SVP of Global Sales responsible for Cofense’s global sales, pre-sales, customer success, sales enablement and channel partners. With over 20 years of cybersecurity leadership experience, he brings an entrepreneurial mindset combined with a strategic approach in order to achieve business objectives, build high-performance sales teams, exceed revenue targets, and ensure customer success.

Mark’s most recent experience was for Proofpoint’s Digital Risk worldwide sales and technical teams. His prior experience includes senior leadership/company officer roles at Websense and McAfee, where he helped define and implement go-to-market and product strategy and ran a myriad of customer-facing organizations including direct sales, channel, customer experience and professional services.

Mark holds a Bachelor’s of Arts in Political Science from the University of California at Davis.

Brandi Moore

Chief Operating Officer

Brandi Moore is the Chief Operating Officer of Cofense, responsible for driving operational excellence across the company. Brandi has over 20 years of experience in cyber security, managing technical, strategy and sales teams.

Brandi started her career in cybersecurity at America Online (AOL) in the late 1990’s, as AOL brought the internet into the fabric of everyday life, working in a variety of technical and privacy roles to secure networks and customer’s finanical information. After leaving AOL, Brandi took her cyber background to the revenue generating side of the business, driving sales inside Mandiant (acquired by FireEye), Ounce Labs (acquired by IBM) and Trustwave (acquired by Singtel).

Brandi has a Masters of Forensic Science from the George Washington University and a Bachelor of Science from Michigan State University.

Angela Olson

Senior Director, Technical Operations Center/Customer Support

Angela Olson has over 20 years of Engineering and Customer Service experience across multiple technology companies. As Senior Director of the Technical Operations Center, Angela leads the Customer Support and Community teams in providing excellent customer experiences and interactions across global operations. Through effective leadership, Angela has transformed the Support organization into an award winning “best in class” service organization.

With a priority on fostering a service-oriented work environment with an emphasis on quality, accountability, transparency, collaboration and innovation, Angela brings a depth of customer support expertise to the team. Prior to joining Cofense (formerly PhishMe), she served as Customer Support Manager at Surescripts, LLC, an information technology company that supports e-prescription, the electronic transmission of prescriptions between health care organizations and pharmacies. Angela also has experience as a Senior Systems Engineer at Verizon.

Angela is a member of the National Customer Service Association (NCSA) and HDI, the leading events and services organization empowering the technical support and service management industry.

Kevin Fliess

Senior Vice President, Marketing

Kevin has more than two decades of marketing leadership experience, driving growth agendas at SaaS and internet-based companies. As SVP of Marketing, he is responsible for facilitating Cofense’s global growth by overseeing the planning, development, and execution of Cofense’s marketing strategy across all channels.

Kevin’s unique blend of experience spans every organization stage — from early-stage start-ups to global organizations and across a variety of technology verticals including ecommerce, search, mobility, hospitality, online travel, and aviation.

Most recently, Kevin led the commercial organization at ATPCO – the industry-standard platform for airline pricing distribution and retailing. Prior to ATPCO, he led marketing for the Hospitality Cloud at Cvent during a period of hyper-growth, culminating in the sale of the company to Vista Equity Partners for $1.6 billion.

Earlier in his career, Kevin spent 17 years in Silicon Valley as a founder and co-founder of 2 start-ups including Room 77, which was acquired by Expedia in 2016 and held leadership positions at SAP and HP in both product management and product marketing. Kevin is a named inventor on 6 technology patents and holds a Bachelor’s degree from the Williams School of Commerce, Economics, and Politics at Washington and Lee University.

Keith Ibarguen

Chief Product Officer

Keith Ibarguen has more than 25 years of diverse technical and managerial experience, most recently serving as the Chief Engineer for the Law Enforcement and Domestic Security Division at the MITRE Corporation. He has worked to develop and enable novel solutions across a number of MITRE Sponsor and internal programs throughout his career, leveraging his expertise in cyber operations and enterprise cyber security, software development, enterprise IT design and deployment. Throughout his years of service, he has led activities with the DoD, the Intelligence, and Law Enforcement Communities as well as partnered with numerous not for profit and commercial firms.

Keith is a leader in building and running agile teams. He also worked closely with MITRE’s corporate leaders to evolve and advance MITRE’s brand, strategic direction and future roles as a leading manager of Federally Funded Research and Development Centers.

As Chief Product Officer, Keith brings his extensive experience working with customers, setting strategic direction, executing advanced solutions, as well as building and leading dynamic teams to the Cofense family.

Brian Stone

Senior Vice President, Global Sales

Brian Stone has over 20 years of experience in sales leadership and operations in the technology and information security industries. He serves as SVP, Global Sales at Cofense, responsible for leading go-to-market strategies for sales, channel and partnership programs worldwide.

Brian has been with Cofense since 2014, serving as VP of North America in the sales organizations. He brings a deep passion for building high-velocity, world-class sales organizations. Previously, he was an early-stage investor and driving force behind sales growth at three successful technology companies, resulting in one IPO and two successful exits.

Mark Zigadlo

Vice President, IT

Mark oversees IT operations, including IT strategy, data, security, compliance, support, identity management, and cloud services across the global reach of Cofense (formerly PhishMe).

He has over 25 years of experience in the cyber security and information technology sector and brings a deep understanding of computer and network security, rapid scaling, availability, and IT operational excellence to his role.

Since joining Cofense, Mark has helped to establish an industry-leading IT organization by identifying and operationalizing the latest technologies to build a secure global and mobile workforce.

Mark previously held technical and leadership positions for various organizations including, federal, start-ups, and internet service providers. He has also successfully led compliance campaigns for SOX, SSAE16 / SAS70, HIPAA, PA, and PCI certifications.

Mark holds a Master’s in Information Technology Security and Management, and CCSP, CISSP, MCSE, VCP, ITIL and AWS certifications.

Mel Wesley

Chief Financial Officer

Mel has spent his career in finance and accounting, and for the past sixteen years has served as the Chief Financial Officer for both publicly traded and private technology companies. In the last seven years, Mel was instrumental in the sale of three companies for a total of $2.5 billion. During this time, Mel was also involved in the purchase and integration of several companies totaling over $900 million. As Chief Financial Officer, Mel has managed investor relations, directed IPO-readiness efforts, raised debt and equity, and partnered with both internal and external stakeholders to support fast-growing organizations.

Since February of 2017, Mel has served as the Chief Financial Officer of Cofense, Inc. (formerly PhishMe). His initial focus was supporting the Company’s growth initiatives. In the fall of 2017, Mel became involved in a market check process due to in-bound strategic interest. The process resulted in the sale of the Company to a group of private equity firms for $400 million. Mel’s focus continues to be supporting the Company’s growth initiatives.

Prior to his current role, Mel served for two years as the Chief Financial Officer of comScore, Inc., a publicly traded company. During his tenure, Mel’s focus included merging with another publicly traded company to strengthen customer offerings in the media measurement space.

Starting in January of 2013, Mel served as the Chief Financial Officer of Mandiant Corporation. His initial focus included IPO-readiness efforts. In the summer of 2013 his focus shifted to reviewing strategic alternatives, which ended with a sale of the company to FireEye, Inc. in December of 2013 for over $1 billion. Mel remained at FireEye as Chief Financial Officer of Global Services and Cloud Solutions until August of 2014.

Prior to joining Mandiant, Mel served as the Chief Financial Officer of OPNET Technologies, a publicly traded company, for eight years. During Mel’s tenure as CFO, OPNET’s revenue grew from approximately $50 million to $175 million before it was sold for over $1 billion in December of 2012.

Prior to joining OPNET, Mel held positions with increasing responsibility at various public and private technology companies where his focus included partnering with stakeholders, building teams, and implementing systems to support growth. Mel began his career as an auditor in public accounting.

Mel holds a B.S. in Accounting and an MBA from George Mason University. He is also licensed as a Certified Public Accountant in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Profile: /mel-wesley/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Mel_Wesley_CFO

Blog: http://www.melwesley.com/

Shane McGee

General Counsel and Chief Privacy Officer

Shane is an attorney, policy professional, and privacy and security expert. He has almost 20 years of experience guiding security and other technology companies and helping navigate the legal and policy environments they operate in.

As General Counsel, Shane is responsible for all of Cofense’s (formerly PhishMe) legal affairs. Shane is a member of Cofense’s management team, and acts as a strategic business partner by providing advice and oversight in several areas including compliance, privacy and ethics.

Prior to Cofense, Shane was Chief Privacy Officer and VP of Policy at FireEye, Inc. There, he managed FireEye’s global privacy program, working to safeguard and ensure proper treatment of FireEye’s customer information. Shane also led FireEye’s government affairs team, engaging with governments around the world to promote policy change in ways that makes the world more secure against cyber-criminals and state-sponsored attackers. Shane acted as General Counsel for FireEye’s Global Services and Cloud division before becoming Chief Privacy Officer.

Shane was Mandiant’s General Counsel from 2011 through January 2014 when Mandiant announced that it had been acquired by FireEye. He handled legal and government affairs for the company, and negotiated and finalized the sale of Mandiant to FireEye for more than $1 billion.

Just prior to joining Mandiant, Shane was a partner with SNR Denton (now Dentons) a large international law firm, ending his time there as chair of the firm’s U.S.-based Data Protection Group. Prior to that, he was an attorney at Hogan & Hartson (now Hogan Lovells) representing startups and counseling large technology companies on all types of privacy, security, intellectual property and corporate governance issues. He represented several clients in privacy-related FTC inquiries, counseled clients on transactions involving large volumes of consumer data, and joined litigation teams on cases involving technology rights and advanced electronic discovery issues.

Shane enjoys technology almost as much as he does the law, having worked as a programmer, consultant and instructor prior to and during his college years. In addition to his privacy credentials, Shane is also a Certified Information System Security Professional (CISSP), and frequently speaks on issues at the intersection of law, privacy and security.
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Wade Weeks

Senior Vice President, Engineering

Wade Weeks has more than 20 years of product development, quality management, and information technology experience spending the last 17 years focused on building and delivering complex solutions to address dynamic network and computer security challenges. Most recently Wade was a Director of Engineering in the Security Business Group at Cisco Systems leading teams on the Network Security suite of products.

As Senior Vice President of Engineering, Wade is responsible for the strategic and tactical execution of Cofense’s (formerly PhishMe) Engineering and Systems Operations organizations.

Prior to joining Cofense, Wade held several executive and management positions in Engineering for industry leading security companies, including Cisco Systems, Sourcefire, IBM, and Internet Security Systems. In these roles, Wade led multiple teams of Engineers in the US and several countries across Europe and Asia to build, test, and deliver solutions spanning network, desktop, email, and vulnerability scanner security products. Previously, Wade held System Admin, Network Admin, IT, and Server Deployment roles as a contractor working on classified and unclassified systems for the US Department of Defense and the US Postal Service.

Wade holds a Bachelor’s of Science degree from Auburn University.

Karen Chiappetta

Vice President of Human Resources

Karen Chiappetta has over 20 years of progressive Human Resources experience across a range of industries. As the Vice President of Human Resources, Karen leads the HR function including talent acquisition, retention, systems, employee relations, engagement, benefits, compensation and international HR. She strives to align the HR strategy to effectively achieve targeted business objectives while safeguarding an exciting and vibrant company culture.

Before joining Cofense (formerly PhishMe), Karen was the Director of Human Resources at Latisys where she led the human resources organization for a fast-paced managed hosting service provider with datacenter facilities across the United States. She directed cross-functional teams to develop, implement, and manage innovative programs to support corporate strategy, employee development, and company culture. Karen also has experience as an HR leader at GridPoint Inc, and NeuStar Inc.

Karen holds a Senior Professional Human Resources Certification and a Bachelor’s of Science degree from George Washington University.

Josh Nicholson

Senior Vice President, Professional Services

Josh is our Professional Services leader with over 20 years of Cyber Security and IT experience. He brings many years of hands on Information Security engineering, consulting, operations, and management expertise. Over his career he has personally managed, designed, and built cyber security defense and monitoring systems, coordinated countless real world cyber security incidents, conducted security assessments of Fortune 1000 companies, and presented on cyber threats to executive management clients for large financial services companies.

As Sr. Vice President of Professional Services, he is responsible for the strategic and tactical execution of the company’s global professional services, consulting, and managed services functions.

Before joining Cofense (formerly PhishMe), Josh served in many technical and managerial roles within the Information Security industry with over 10 years in Financial Services. Most recently he served as the Group Information Security Officer (GISO) and Information Security Consulting Manager for a major division of Wells Fargo. Prior to this leadership position, he worked for Ernst & Young (EY) as a Manager and leader in their Cyber Security team conducting assessments and providing consulting and advisory services for some of the largest financial institutions in the world.

Before EY he served for 7 years as V.P. Information Security Manager for a $20B commercial bank and spent 5 years as a U.S. Marine working on classified and unclassified military networks.

He earned a B.S. in Computer Information Systems with a minor in Telecommunications from Tulane University in New Orleans. He also obtained a number of technology and security certifications to include:

Certified Information Security Manager (CISM)
Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP)
SANS GIAC Certified Web Application Defender (GWEB)
SANS GIAC Certified Incident Handler (GCIH)
SANS GIAC Certified Windows Security Admin (GCWN)
SANS Cloud & Virtualization Security (SEC579)
Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP)

Susan Warner

Vice President, Marketing

Susan Warner brings more than 22 years of experience in driving marketing strategy in all types of high-tech and security environments, private and public, big and small. Prior to joining the innovative team at Cofense (formerly PhishMe), Susan held leadership roles at several technology companies and helped organizations define and drive their go-to-market plans as a strategic consultant.

With experience in threat intelligence, advanced threat protection, and DDoS mitigation, Susan brings a broad base of knowledge in security in addition to her deep well of marketing experience to the Cofense management team. Through working with such companies as iSIGHT Partners, ThreatTrack Security, Neustar, SoftwareAG, and Deltek, Susan understands the global security and technology buyer across multiple industries.

As a data enthusiast, Susan’s passion is in understanding the market and the impact of security events. In 2011, she launched Neustar’s popular Annual DDoS Report and has presented at industry events such as InfoSec Europe. She’s been interviewed, quoted, and published in industry publications like BankInfoRisk, Dark Reading, SC Magazine and others. As a data enthusiast, Susan’s passion is in understanding the market and the impact of security events.

She holds a BA in Communications from Mansfield University but asserts that education never stops. She seeks to learn something new every day – much to her children’s dismay.

Gordon Lawson

Senior Vice President, Global Sales

Gordon Lawson serves as the Senior Vice President of Global Sales for Cofense (formerly PhishMe). He has fifteen years of experience in the security sector with a focus on critical infrastructure support, US Government contracting, and International business in Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East. Prior to joining Cofense he held sales leadership roles with DRS Technologies and Pictometry International, serving as the Managing Director of Pictometry’s UK subsidiary.

As a naval officer, Gordon conducted operational deployments to the Arabian Gulf and Horn of Africa as well as assignments with the U.S. Southern Command, U.S. Marine Corps, and Special Operations Command. He is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and holds an MBA from George Washington University. In addition, he is a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Command and Staff College, DOD Anti-Terrorism Course and Army Airborne School.

Roger Watts

Vice President, Quality Management

Roger Watts has over 20 years in Software Development and is a known leader in the realm of Quality Managment. He has uniquely deep and broad experience in Agile/Scrum development methodologies and frameworks, Project Management, Software Development, Process Improvement, Software Quality Assurance, Test Management, Configuration Management, Change Management, and Release Management.

Doug Hagen

Vice President, Engineering

Doug Hagen has over 15 years of experience in the technology field, specializing in web application development, custom service development, and system administration. In his role as Vice President of Engineering, Doug has built a team of engineers who develop and oversee the ongoing growth of PhishMe’s service offerings.

Allan Carey

Vice President, Business Development

Allan brings more than 15 years of information security industry experience with progressive marketing, sales, and partner development expertise. As Vice President of Business Development, he is responsible for the global strategy related to strategic business alliances, mergers and acquisition opportunities, as well as relationships with the analyst communities.

Prior to joining Cofense (formerly PhishMe), Allan has served in various executive and management roles at leading security technology and services companies and industry research firms, including Tenable Network Security, RSA, The Security Division of EMC, NetWitness (acquired by RSA in 2011), IANS, and IDC. He frequently presents at industry conferences and forums domestically and internationally. Previously, Allan has advised and consulted to Fortune 1000 organizations, providers of security technologies and services, and the financial community on information security and compliance market trends, program development, and vendor intelligence.

Allan holds an MBA in Finance from Bentley University and a BS in Engineering from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Sam Hahn

Vice President, Finance

Sam Hahn brings over 25 years’ experience in finance and management, specializing in implementing and managing financial and accounting operations for technology and software startups. Sam manages Cofense’s (formerly PhishMe) Finance and G&A departments, including company-wide accounting policies and procedures, financials statements, and audits.

Prior to joining Cofense, Sam served as VP of Finance and Global Controller at Parallels, Inc., where he led a global accounting team with staff in North America, EMEA, Russia, and APAC. Sam has also worked with a number of software companies in a consulting role, providing services such as analysis and implementation of revenue recognition methods, and preparing startups for external reviews and audits.

Sam holds a Bachelor’s of Science in Accounting from the University of Virginia.

Scott Gréaux

Vice President, Product Management

Scott Gréaux has over 18 years of diverse information technology experience spending more than a decade developing solutions to address complex information security problems. Most recently Scott served as General Electric’s Deputy Chief Information Security Officer where he led key global initiatives such as Advanced Threat initiative coordination, spear phishing mitigation, Policy, Policy Frameworks, and Information Security metric reporting.

During his tenure at GE he was uniquely positioned to see the threat of advanced phishing techniques and developed a multi-faceted program to address the phishing risk in a large enterprise.

Scott brings his extensive experience to Cofense (formerly PhishMe) where he works with customers and industry thought leaders to align Cofense’s solutions with the ever changing threat landscape.

Jim Hansen

President and Chief Operating Officer

Jim has over twenty-two years’ experience in sales, operations and executive management primarily focused in information security. His eleven years as a federal agent provided the opportunity to work a variety of highly publicized cases both in the United States and globally. Jim specializes in helping early to mid-stage companies develop revenue though services and product sales, build effective sales organizations and manage explosive growth.

Most recently, Jim was one of the founders and the Chief Operating Officer of Mandiant (acquired by FireEye, Inc.), an information security start-up focused on incident response and computer forensics. He drove corporate strategy, initial revenue development and delivery, as well as building the sales program, which resulted in an average of 90% annual revenue growth over four years.

Previously, Jim held executive and management positions in both sales and consulting organizations to include Trident Data Systems (acquired by Veridian), Veritect (acquired by General Dynamics), Foundstone (acquired by McAfee) and Oakley Networks (acquired by Raytheon). Jim’s last Law Enforcement position was serving as the Deputy Director of Computer Crime Investigations for the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. In this role, he provided oversight and onsite investigation into the penetration of the Department of Defense’s systems around the globe. He appeared as an expert witness in both the United States and the United Kingdom on highly publicized cases. Jim’s field experience includes numerous undercover operations in counter-narcotics and specialized operations as a part of the national surveillance team.

Jim holds a B.S. in Computer Science from St. Michael’s College and is a regular presenter and guest lecturer on proactive information security and incident response. Jim authored a chapter in Hacker Challenge and numerous articles in IT security publications.

Aaron Higbee

Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder

Aaron is the Co-Founder and CTO of Cofense (formerly PhishMe), Inc. directing all aspects of development and research that drives the feature set of this market leading solution. The Cofense method for awareness training was incubated from consulting services provided by Intrepidus Group, a company that Aaron Co-Founded with Rohyt Belani in 2007.

Aaron remains on the board of directors for Intrepidus Group to ensure it focuses on forging new service lines and attracting motivated researchers and consultants.

Before Cofense and Intrepidus Group, Aaron served as Principal Consultant for McAfee’s Foundstone division where he was a lead instructor and known for his ability to mentor and develop junior consultants into expert penetration testers. Prior to his seven years of consulting experience, Aaron worked for large Internet Service Providers handling security and abuse incidents, subpoena compliance, and datacenter security. Aaron’s biggest achievement is building industry recognized Intrepidus Group and incubating Cofense out of it.He enjoys the diverse personalities in the information security community and is known for building creative environments needed to promote rich personal and professional development. His creative touch is evident in the unique way he recruits and retains talent and his style further extends itself into his leadership role at Cofense. Aaron is a speaker at regional conferences and associations as well as large conferences such as BlackHat, DefCon, Shmoocon, etc. His expert opinion is a valuable resource for many media outlets interested in security.

Rohyt Belani

Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder

Rohyt Belani is an industry veteran with over 18 years of experience in technical and senior management roles at leading cyber security companies. Prior to founding Cofense (formerly PhishMe), Rohyt served as the CEO of Intrepidus Group (acquired by NCC Group PLC), Managing Director at Mandiant (acquired by FireEye, Inc.) and Principal Consultant at Foundstone (acquired by McAfee).

At Cofense, Rohyt has led the company’s growth from concept to over 400 employees globally, serving over 2000 enterprise customers including half of the Fortune 100. During his tenure, Cofense has established itself as a global leader in phishing defense and was acquired in February 2018 by BlackRock Private Equity Partners. The company has also been honored with several accolades including being featured on the Deloitte Fast500, Inc. 5000, and the Washington Business Journal’s best places to work in the Washington DC area lists. Rohyt has been honored with the 2017 EY Entrepreneur of the Year and Washington Business Journal’s 40 Under 40.

He has also served as an Adjunct Professor at Carnegie Mellon University and been invited to speak at various industry conferences including the RSA Conference and Black Hat. He is also often called upon to provide commentary and analysis on cybersecurity issues for national print and broadcast media including CNBC, The Wall Street Journal, BBC World News, The Washington Post, The Harvard Business Review, and ABC News.

Rohyt holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree from Bombay University, and a Master of Science from Carnegie Mellon University.

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