Leadership

Saryu Nayyar is an internationally recognized cybersecurity expert, author, speaker and member of the Forbes Technology Council. She has more than 15 years of experience in the information security, identity and access management, IT risk and compliance, and security risk management sectors.

She was named EY Entrepreneurial Winning Women in 2017. She has held leadership roles in security products and services strategy at Oracle, Simeio, Sun Microsystems, Vaau (acquired by Sun) and Disney. Saryu also spent several years in senior positions at the technology security and risk management practice of Ernst & Young.

She is passionate about building disruptive technologies and has several patents pending for behavior analytics, anomaly detection and dynamic risk scoring inventions.

Nilesh Dherange is responsible for development and execution of Gurucul’s technology vision. Nilesh brings a wealth of experience in inventing, designing, and building software from inception to release. Nilesh has been a technologist and leader at three startups and at one of the largest software development companies in the world. Prior to founding Gurucul, Nilesh was an integral member of a company that built a Roles and Compliance product acquired by Sun Microsystems. Nilesh was also a co-founder and VP of Engineering for BON Marketing Group where he conceptualized and created BON Ticker — an innovative patented bid management system which used predictive analytics to determine advertising bids for PPC marketing campaigns on search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN etc. Nilesh holds a B.A in Social Science, B.E in Computer Engineering from University of Mumbai and M.S in Computer Science from University of Southern California.

Craig is an established security practitioner, with over 30 years of experience in the industry. Craig has been with Gurucul for over 13 years, leading Customer Success as well as acting as CISO. Prior to Gurucul, Craig has held numerous security leadership positions for Thrivent Financial, Lutheran Brotherhood, Stanton Group and Pohlad Financial Group. Craig went to the University of Minnesota and has a degree in Computer Technology.

Kevin Kirksey has more than 35+ years of experience building and leading high-tech enterprise sales teams in IT Security, data networking, and cloud solutions. He has successfully led regional and global teams for well-known companies, ranging from start-ups to large corporations such as Securonix, Exinda, BlueCoat, ADC, and NetFRAME. He is passionate about people, winning, leading, motivating by example, and fostering a cooperative, energetic, and competitive culture. Kevin is a Computer Science graduate of the University of Houston.

Julie Preiss has more than 25 years of experience in B2B high-tech marketing. For the last decade, she has led full-stack global marketing for high-growth cybersecurity companies including Secureworks, Damballa, Rsam and Appgate. As a senior marketing leader and CMO, she has managed organizations through successful acquisitions, a public stock offering, and large geographic expansions. Julie is a frequent contributor to blogs and podcasts and is passionate about mentoring the next generation of marketing leaders. She is a graduate of the University of Georgia’s award-winning Grady College of Journalism & Mass Communications.

David Wagner has over 30+ years of experience building MSSP/GSI programs from scratch. Those efforts were a major contributor to the acquisition of companies including LogLogic, LogRhythm and Securonix, where his Group accounted for adding more than 120 MSSP/GSIs in less than 4 years and accounted for over 50% of the ARR.

Amol is a distinguished security professional with a strong consulting, implementation and leadership experience. As a part of the executive leadership team, he drives product strategy, marketing campaigns, solutions development, APAC technical sales and global customer success program. Amol brings over 15 years of experience in delivering security and risk management solutions for Fortune 500 customers across the globe. Prior to Gurucul, he played an important role in building security practice for one of the major global system integrator. He achieved exponential business growth as a practice lead with focus on innovative solutions and delivery excellence. Amol graduated from University of Mumbai with B.E. in Electronics.

As VP Threat Research and Principal Architect, Naveen Utilizes his 10+ years of industry experience in Analytics and Information Security Products to drive technical enablement of Gurucul’s Award Winning Security Analytics and Operations Platform by strategizing technical pre-sales, deployment, and training programs. Naveen also plays an active role in Gurucul’s initiative for cybersecurity research and contributes to product innovation and development efforts.

Before joining Gurucul Naveen held various technology and lead positions at Sun, Oracle and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC). Naveen holds B.E in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Anna University, India and M.S in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Virginia Tech.

Vikram Mathu is a technology leader with 20+ years of experience in Cyber security, Customer Success, Product delivery and management, Infrastructure management, Identity & Access Management. He is a strategic thinker and planner, skilled in the design, implementation and management of highly effective product development, security architectures. Vikram possess outstanding leadership and team building strengths that generate optimum productivity and performance excellence from organizational staff. He is committed to achieving corporate objectives with a history of successful delivery of project and services. Specialties: Customer Success, Cyber Security, Identity & Access Management, Infrastructure Management.

Akshay Oza has over 17 years of experience with product development at product companies. He manages software development teams spread across multiple locations and is responsible for Product Architecture, Solution Architecture, and Relationship Management. Akshay has experience in working with startups, small and large companies, setting the teams and processes up for growth. He is responsible for 5+ year’s engagements for small to medium size teams (10 to 35+), managing team performances and career growth.

Akshay works with all stakeholders across the business: CEO, CTO, Product Owners, Project Managers, Sales, Marketing, Usability Teams, Customer Success, Customer Support and Engineering Teams for different phases of Product Life Cycle. He runs India Development Center from Operations to Engineering Teams.

Chris has been aligning people, processes and technology to drive companies forward for over 20 years. He has a decade of cybersecurity experience in product marketing and product management. His passion is helping businesses succeed through the strategic use of technology. Most recently he was helping customers accelerate their Zero Trust journey at Appgate, Inc. His background also includes experience in operations, sales, and new business development.

Gary conceives, implements, and leads technology solutions that protect corporate assets, increase organizational capability, and advance productivity for Fortune 100 companies. He is recognized globally as a highly valued resource with an exceptional ability to build and develop IT teams that deliver critical business objectives in companies within transformation. Ranked 24th in xec’s “Top Security Executive Rankings”, Gary is an active speaker on IT and Cyber Security, while helping numerous companies as a valued board advisor.

A proven security leader with over 19 years of experience in the Information Security domain (21 years of overall IT experience) that includes roles at multiple global fortune 500 companies, as well as public sector experience with the US Department of Defense. Gary’s background has included technical experience, strategy and architecture focused roles, cyber and threat experience, and various leadership roles focused on building highly performing teams to drive the strategy and direction for Information Security while partnering with his customers to enable key business objectives. He has a track record of developing security and risk management programs built to evolve with changing business needs and evolving threats.

Jim is currently an advisor for Gurucul and Agari, a board member for the University of Cailifornia Berkeley Center for Long Term Security. Jim Routh is the former Board Chair for the Health Information Sharing & Analysis Center (H-ISAC) where he served for five years and former Board member for the Financial Services Information Sharing & Analysis Center (FS-ISAC). He presented to Boards and Board Committees (Technology & Governance, Audit Committees) for many public and private companies as the CISO or CSO providing cyber security updates and education for board members for the past twenty years. Jim Routh is currently on the Board of ZeroNorth and Acceptto, two early stage cyber security software companies. He serves in an advisory capacity and investor for three cyber specific venture funds including: ClearSky, CyberStarts and Rain Capital.

Jim has along history in technology and cyber security as a leader and management consultant. Mr. Routh was formerly a cyber security leader for many large companies including MassMutual CISO, CVS Health/Aetna CSO, JP Morgan Chase- Global Leader for Software & Mobile Security, KPMG CISO, Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) CISO, and American Express CISO. At Aetna, he developed one of the most mature converged security programs in the private sector. Prior to that Mr. Routh served as an IT leader at American Express and a management consultant for over a decade for financial service firms.

Jim is recognized as an industry leader in digital transformations and innovation in cyber security practices using data science as a foundation for unconventional cyber security controls and enterprise resilience. He is a known icon in the cyber security industry, among the awards he has received is the Santa Fe Group/Shared Assessments Lifetime Achievement Award, CSO Hall of Fame, ISE Luminary Award, Evanta Break Away Leadership Award, Information Security Executive of the Year Award (twice), BITS Leadership Award.

As CSO of a major financial services company, Mr. Archer’s responsibilities include securing and protecting all of organizations systems and offerings, and for security initiatives across the company. He has more than 30 years of experience at other leading companies and government agencies, including Intuit, Visa, and the CIA. He is a founder and board member of the Cloud Security Alliance; a fellow at the Ponemon Institute, the premier consumer privacy research institute; a member of the Advisory Board, George Mason University International Cyber Center; on the Security Innovation Network Showcase steering committee; and a member of numerous industry and corporate advisory boards. Mr. Archer was also named the 2011 North American Information Security Executive of the Year.

Teri Takai is a Senior Advisor with the Center for Digital Government and was previously the CIO and EVP of Meridian Health Plan, Teri Takai also served as the Department of Defense Chief Information Officer (DoD CIO) from October, 2010 through May, 2014. In this capacity, she served as the principal advisor to the Secretary of Defense for Information Management/Information Technology and Information Assurance as well as non-intelligence space systems, critical satellite communications, navigation, and timing programs, spectrum and telecommunications.

She provided strategy, leadership, and guidance to create a unified information management and technology vision for the Department. Prior to this federal political appointment, Ms. Takai served as Chief Information Officer for the State of California. As California’s CIO, Ms. Takai led more than 130 CIOs and 10,000 IT employees spread across the state’s different agencies, departments, boards, commissions, and offices.

William Scandrett is an accomplished information security leader with a proven track record of establishing successful security programs across retail, finance, and healthcare industries. As CISO for Allina Health, William is responsible for the Security Governance, Identity, and Cybersecurity programs as well as technology compliance and risk management.

Prior to Allina Health, William served as CISO for HealthEast, and held the Information Security Director role at Ameriprise Financial where he led the Identity Management and Governance, Risk, & Compliance (GRC) programs. William also led the IT Compliance program at GMAC ResCap and consulted at Best Buy through Accenture to help establish their global technology compliance program and software development methodologies.

William is recognized in the information security community for his knowledge, vision and leadership in the areas of Identity, Compliance, and Risk Management. He has been asked to attend a number of CISO forums and roundtables and is an active member in many professional security organizations.