Biography
I'm a serial entrepreneur and company builder, active as an executive, investor, mentor, and Board member with many high-growth companies at the intersection of cybersecurity, AI, and blockchain, a space in which I've built and successfully exited several companies, and in which I hold numerous patents.
I am Executive Chair of dfuse, the leading platform for developers building the decentralized Web 3.0, as well as Chair of Cybeats Technologies, a venture-funded IoT security company building a full-lifecycle immune system for IoT devices.
I'm also Founding Partner at CC Stratus Capital, an innovative investment firm that helps early-stage technology companies succeed in fast-growing markets, with a strategic focus on cybersecurity, blockchain, identity, and IoT (Internet of Things).
I was formerly Chief Technology Officer - Safe Identity in Intel's Security Group, and VP Safe Identity at McAfee. I was President of PasswordBox, the leading digital identity company, leading up to the acquisition of PasswordBox by Intel.
Previously I was Executive Chair of Fluent.ai, a venture-backed company building a revolutionary AI-based speech recognition platform, and Chairman and CEO of Enomaly, a pioneer and leader in the cloud computing and cloud security space, culminating in the acquisition of Enomaly by Virtustream in 2011. Virtustream was in turn acquired by EMC, and then Dell.
Before that I was the founder and CEO/CTO of Assurent Secure Technologies, a cybersecurity SaaS company that was acquired in 2006. Subsequent to the acquisition of Assurent, I served as Chief Security & Technology Officer at TELUS.
Since 2006, I've served on the Boards and Advisory Boards of many highly regarded early-stage companies in the cybersecurity, cloud infrastructure, and SaaS sectors, such as Fluent.ai, Immunio, PasswordBox, Elliptic Technologies, Veracode, Enomaly, NetClarity, Virima, Stonewall Software, and Fonolo.
I'm often quoted by the press, and have appeared on the cover of CIO Magazine, as well as frequent appearances in media such as the New York Times, CBS, NBC, USA Today, etc. and hundreds of technology publications.
I hold a Ph.D. and numerous patents in the fields of cloud and software security.
I also climb the occasional mountain.
Industry Expertise (7)
Security
Computer Networking
Computer Software
Information Services
Computer/Network Security
Information Technology and Services
Computer Hardware
Areas of Expertise (7)
Cloud Computing
Cloud Security / Cloud Computing Security
It Security
Information Security
It Risk
Identity Management
Password Management
Accomplishments (1)
Multiple patents (professional)
Multiple patents in cloud security and software security
Education (3)
McGill University: MA 1989
McGill University: BA 1989
York University: Ph.D. 1993
Links (2)
Languages (2)
- English
- French
Event Appearances (1)
Title
Over 500 speaking engagements since 2001 In over 40 countries
2001-01-01
Sample Talks (2)
Cloud Computing: The Next Generation of IT
Cloud computing has become everyone's favorite buzz word, and almost every product in IT is being repositioned today as "new and improved, with added cloud". But what's behind the hype? In today's computing infrastructure, each business builds its own data centers and fills them with its own servers. Each business has to build a big enough set of data centers, and fill them with enough servers, for the busiest hour of the busiest day of the busiest week of the year in their business. Waste and inefficiency are massive. But computing is a commodity a lot like electricity. You can make your own, or you can buy it from others. Demand is variable (your business moves faster at some times than others) but generation costs are (almost) fixed, because they depend on major capital investments The larger your plant, the more efficient you can be ... but you have to weigh that against the costs of transmission. And today, the economics of computing and data networks have shifted to the point where we can economically deliver computing capacity over the Internet, on a pay-as-you-go basis. That's Cloud Computing. And the benefits are enormous, as we shall see...
Cloud Computing for Secure Workloads
Cloud Computing is economically very attractive, but concerns about security holds back cloud adoption. This talk cuts through the unfocused worry that often afflicts the industry to analyze what new security risks are inherent to the cloud model, and what solutions are available to mitigate these risks and to make cloud computing safe for secure workloads and high-value assets, in the financial services, telecom, and public sectors.
Style
Availability
- Keynote
- Panelist
- Author Appearance
Fees
Patents (1)
Over a dozen patents in cybersecurity and cloud computing
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2015-01-01
Over a dozen patents in cybersecurity and cloud computing
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