Leaders of the New Adaptive Access Control Management

Jeff Kukowski, CEO

Jeff Kukowski is the Chief Executive Officer at Secure Auth. His 25 years of experience in growing disruptive and innovative companies span multiple industries, technologies and cultures. Kukowski originally served as SecureAuth Chief Operating Officer, where he extended the solution portfolio by adding Identity-as-a-Service, passwordless authentication and detection-oriented abilities to its award-winning adaptive authentication suite. Having established SecureAuth as the vanguard in next-generation access security, Kukowski will continue to drive the company’s momentum as a world leader in identity and access management.

Kukowski comes most recently from TASER International, where as COO he led the return to growth in revenues and predictability while building the SaaS digital evidence management business from startup to industry leader in three years. Prior to TASER, Kukowski held senior executive positions at high growth, venture-backed companies like Destinator (now Intrinsyc), Cyclone Commerce (now Axway) and RIMS (now Cognizant) as well as sales, marketing and consulting roles at Pansophic (now Computer Associates), SPSS and Cognos (now both IBM.)

Kukowski holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics from Northwestern University and an MBA from the University of Chicago.

Curtis Cain, Chief Financial Officer

With over 20 years of experience in technology and enterprise software companies, Curtis Cain joins Core Security as Chief Financial Officer. Most recently, Curtis was the CFO with iHealth Technologies, the leading player in payment integrity within the healthcare technology space. Prior to that, he served as CFO or in other executive leadership roles with enterprise software companies such as Infor, Intradiem, XcelleNet and A.D.A.M. Software. Earlier in his career, Curtis served as a Captain in the United States Marine Corps. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering from Oregon State University, a Master of Science in Systems Management from USC and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.

Keith Graham, CTO

Keith Graham is the Chief Technology Officer at SecureAuth Corporation. With 17 years in security, product management, product development and consulting, Graham is recognized as an industry leader in developing adaptive identity security and access control solutions. Today as CTO, he leads the product group in creating innovative tools that address evolving business challenges by providing maximum security and a frictionless user experience.

Before joining SecureAuth in 2014, Graham was the Senior Product Manager at Mandiant and managed the Mandiant for Intelligent Response (MIR) product, where he focused primarily on endpoint forensics. Following the acquisition of Mandiant by FireEye, Graham shifted to be the Principle Product Manager in charge of integration of the Mandiant product line in to the FireEye portfolio; and ultimately became responsible for the Endpoint product line.

Prior to Mandiant and FireEye, Graham worked as a Solutions Architect, Product Management and Development Manager, and a consultant at Quest Software for 8 years (now part of Dell). Graham ultimately came to architect security and identity management solutions for some of Quest’s largest customers, including the UK Ministry of Defense, HMRC, HSBC, UBS, and PwC.

Graham holds a Bachelor’s of Science in Computing from the University of Greenwich, UK, and a Master’s of Science in Information Security and Biometrics from the University of Kent, UK. Graham also holds Chartered IT Professional (CITP) status from the British Computer Society.  

Nick Mansour, Chief Revenue Officer

Nick Mansour is the Chief Revenue Officer at SecureAuth. With over 13 years of experience in enterprise software sales, Mansour leads SecureAuth’s global sales organization while overseeing business development operations, including market competitiveness, pricing, distribution and channel strategy. By developing a global strategy that has helped IT leaders protect their organizations with the world’s most advanced adaptive identity access platform, Mansour has steered SecureAuth to the top of the field.

Prior to joining SecureAuth, Mansour spent over four years as the Vice President of Sales at BlueCat, where he was responsible for both sales and pre-sales engineering teams in the U.S., Canada, and Latin America. Mansour built the foundational processes to enable these field teams to execute and drive sales performance. He also developed and implemented their MSP strategy, which attracted marquis providers like Verizon, IBM, AT&T, HP and CSC. Prior to Bluecat, Mansour spent over nine years at Quest Software in a variety of roles, including Director of Sales for North America.

Mansour holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance and Marketing from the University of Southern California.

Mark Zembal, Chief Marketing Officer

With more than 25 years of marketing and advertising experience on the client and agency side serving both B2B technology and B2C brands, Mark brings a well-rounded perspective to modern revenue marketing and a proven track record of building break-out companies and powerful new categories. Mark was most recently Founder and Principal of Parasol Consulting, a brand strategy and marketing services firm focused on positioning B2B tech companies. Prior to that, he served as Senior Vice President of Global Marketing for Trax Technologies – an international supply chain SaaS provider specializing in Logistics Performance Management. Other high impact, client-side roles included marketing leadership positions with Acxiom and Cyclone Commerce (now Axway). Additionally, he worked for top tier advertising and marketing agencies, including Carmichael Lynch Advertising, Carlson Marketing Group, and Mindspace – a leading integrated B2B technology marketing firm he co-founded in 2004. Mark graduated cum laude from The University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN with a BA in Marketing.

Chris Sullivan, Chief Information Security Officer

Chris Sullivan oversees all aspects of Core’s security principals, strategy and posture, and the overall technology strategy across business lines and partnerships. In addition, Chris helps drive CoreLabs, a center for cyber security research and innovation, which maximizes collaboration between developers and cyber defenders across all security domains. Previously, Chris held positions as General Manager of Core Security's Intelligence/Analytics business, and VP of EMEA Operations, Advanced Solutions, Customer Solutions and Professional Services. He also serves as Chairman of the Access Risk Benchmarking Committee for ISACA and is a frequent speaker at industry conferences including the European Identity Conference, the Gartner Catalyst Conference, the MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives (MISTI), the IT GRC Forum, and the ISACA ISRM conference. Chris received a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from Northeastern University.

Rohit Khanna, Chief Customer Officer

Rohit Khanna, Chief Customer Officer at SecureAuth + Core Security, has more than two decades of experience in security, business to business integration and infrastructure management solutions. He is a results-driven leader with a successful track record in solving customer challenges through technological innovation. At SecureAuth, he has guided the business vision in delivering the best possible user experience while maximizing protection, productivity and profitability. In making the digital world a safer place, he has helped SecureAuth reset the standard for what customers deserve from their identity security and access control solutions.

Khanna came to SecureAuth from Trax technologies (Big Data analytics), where as a Chief Customer Success Officer, he led a global customer success (professional services, managed services, technical support and renewals) team.  Prior to that, Khanna served as Executive Vice President of Global Strategy and Corporate Development for SEEBURGER AG, where he led Americas P&L and started a new global channel and alliances group that extended the company’s business integration platform into new vertical markets resulting in three folds annual revenue growth. Earlier, Khanna worked with SecureAuth CEO Jeff Kukowski at Axway as SVP of global services, and he has more than 15 years of additional experience in business-to-business integration, managed file transfer, infrastructure management and enterprise application integration with Cyclone Commerce, Peregrine Systems, Harbinger, and Premenos.

Khanna earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer and Information Sciences from San Francisco State University and an MBA in Telecommunications from the University of San Francisco School of Management. He has continued his executive education with a Product Innovation & Negotiation certification from Harvard Business School. 

Stephen Newman, Senior Vice President of Product Management

Stephen Newman brings over 17 years of technology innovation and leadership to Core Security. He has designed products and product strategies for leading, innovative technologies throughout his career. Most recently as a CTO at Damballa, Stephen’s team successfully built upon the company’s 16 patented/patent-pending innovations to create advanced threat detection solutions that harness big data science. Specific contributions include the creation of contextual-based detection engines; the Case Analyzer, an intelligence platform that makes automatic decisions about the status of infected devices; and Risk Profilers, which prioritize compromised assets so incident responders can take immediate action on incidents. Prior to joining Damballa, Stephen developed a range of security products for companies like EarthLink, MegaPath, Secure Computing, and McAfee. Stephen is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and unique user groups, including the Federal Reserve Bank and the US Embassy in Canada. His passion is to jointly whiteboard with prospects and customers to attack challenges and find solutions. Stephen holds a Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Tech and a Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University. 

Holly Gibeaut, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary

Holly Gibeaut is General Counsel and Corporate Secretary at SecureAuth + Core Security. In her role, she is responsible for providing legal guidance to the company and oversees its global corporate, commercial, intellectual property, and regulatory legal affairs. She is an efficient and detail-oriented problem solver with a demonstrated ability to proactively mitigate risk while carrying out forward-thinking action plans to enhance profitability.

Gibeaut brings over 13 years of legal and operational experience at technology companies, most recently with Aspect Software, a market leader in both premise and cloud-based contact center and customer engagement platforms. Prior to that, she served as Assistant General Counsel at TASER International (now AXON) where she partnered with executive management to shift the company from a weapon manufacturer to a SaaS technology solution provider. While at TASER, Gibeaut oversaw the company’s compliance and regulatory affairs, brand protection, litigation matters and acted as the lead negotiator on large procurement contracts with major public safety agencies across the US and internationally.    

Gibeaut began her legal career with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C. and then later served as an Assistant Attorney General for the State of Arizona under Janet Napolitano before entering into private practice, acting in numerous roles as a skilled commercial litigator. Having a passion for public service, Gibeaut serves as a volunteer Court Appointed Special Advocate for Children in the Maricopa County, Arizona foster care system.  She holds a B.A. from the University of Arizona, and a J.D. from George Washington University Law School.

Mike Desai, Senior VP of Business & Corporate Dev

Mike Desai is a bold, strategic thinker with more than 20 years of leadership experience in the technology and software security industry. As Senior Vice President of Business and Corporate Development at SecureAuth Corporation, Desai is responsible for expanding SecureAuth’s partner ecosystem and leading corporate development. By driving growth through advantageous partnerships, Desai has accelerated SecureAuth’s rise as a leader in the adaptive identity and access management market.

Desai comes most recently from xMatters, where he was instrumental in recruiting, onboarding, and nurturing global partners. Prior to that, he served as Vice President of Global Business Development & Channel Sales for Ping Identity, where he gained deep experience with the identity and access management (IAM) space. There, he architected and operationalized a successful program for recruiting and retaining indirect channel partners, which resulted in 100% YoY growth. He also collaborated with engineering and product management in the design of the company’s first cloud-based solution targeted for large managed security service providers (MSSPs). 

Desai holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from Boston University.

Edgardo Artusi, SVP of Engineering

Edgardo Artusi joins Core Security + SecureAuth from Loyal Solutions, where he was their Chief Executive Officer and was responsible for the turnaround of the company strategy from a Java Boutique Tailor Made Software Factory to a product oriented EQMS Company for LATAM market. He has also held several engineering leadership roles at Sisdam Technologies, where he oversaw every technical matter and strategic decision related to market and product evolution. Under Artusi, his team implemented software development processes for performance and efficiency improvement, managed the capacity planning and costs estimation for change and defined the change management plan and migration strategies. Artusi holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Software Engineering from Universidad de Belgrano in Buenos Aires.

Stephen Cox, Chief Security Architect

Stephen Cox is a technology veteran with over 15 years in the IT industry, including 10 years experience in leading software development teams in the security industry. A key player in some of the most influential IT security firms in the world, he is recognized as an expert in systems architecture, threat intelligence and malware analysis as well as endpoint and network forensics.

As Chief Security Architect, Stephen is a top thought leader in the rapidly evolving security marketplace. Specializing in the unique opportunities represented by the convergence of cyber threat detection and adaptive authentication, Cox’s expertise shapes SecureAuth’s product and technical alliance strategies. With a deep understanding of evolving threats and the technologies that stop them, Cox is a recognized innovator in protecting the increasingly diverse world of VPN, legacy, mobile, on-premise, and cloud applications.

Before joining SecureAuth in 2015, Stephen served as technical lead of the Endpoint and FireEye-as-a-Service development teams at FireEye/Mandiant. These teams specialized in endpoint forensics and endpoint event monitoring as part of the FireEye HX platform.  Before Mandiant, Stephen was at RSA NetWitness, as principal developer of NetWitness Spectrum, served a number of years at VeriSign in support of the DNS Resolution Operations team, and also in various software development roles at Northrop Grumman and America Online.

Stephen holds a Master of Science in Software Engineering and a Bachelor of Science in Integrative Studies, both from George Mason University.

Robert Block, Senior Vice President of Identity Strategy

As a Senior Vice President of Identity Strategy at SecureAuth, Robert Block is responsible for executing on SecureAuth’s strategic vision of preventing the misuse of stolen credentials. Considered a thought leader in IAM with numerous focus areas, Robert will interact with customers, other vendors, and leading industry analysts on the transformation of the authentication industry being led by SecureAuth.  

Robert has over 19 years of results-oriented Information Technology experience - of which 15 years have been focused on Identity Management, Access Management and Access Governance solutions. Robert has an in-depth understanding of various Information Security and IT challenges and requirements across multiple industries, and has worked with a diverse set of clients ranging from Global Fortune 500s to privately held small businesses.

Robert Block has written several industry white papers and a number of blogs addressing a wide range of topics relevant to the Identity & Access Management Industry