Meet the Anitian Leadership Team

Tom Kelly

Chief Executive Officer

As CEO, Tom applies his extensive experience as a multi-time Board member and C-suite executive from his 30+ year career in enterprise technology. He serves as a strategic advisor to current portfolio companies and before Anitian, Tom most recently served as President and CEO of IDX, stepping down upon the merger of IDX with ZeroFox. As CEO, Tom has led many software and security companies to successful acquisitions including AccelOps, Moxie Software, MontaVista Software, BlueStar Solutions, and Blaze Software. Tom has also held C-Suite leadership roles at several companies including Cirrus Logic, Epicor Software, Cadence Design Systems, and Frame Technology. He previously served as an EIR with Trident Capital and Trident Cyber Security. Tom has served on numerous public corporate boards over his career including at FEI, Epicor Software, and Blaze Software and currently Fabrinet and ZeroFox. He has a BS degree in Economics from Santa Clara University.

Julie Crawford

Chief Financial Officer & Chief Operating Officer

Julie has been in both financial and operational leadership roles for high tech software companies over the past 20+ years and has significant experience in scaling teams and operations within companies including Puppet, Zapproved, Mirador Financial (acquired by CUNA Mutual), and Circle Media Labs. She has strong strategic and operational leadership across all areas of the business with a focus on Finance, Accounting, Business Operations, HR, and Administration.

Maria Crawford

Chief Marketing Officer

A seasoned executive with over 20 years of cybersecurity industry experience, Maria has a proven track record for creating growth and building high performing teams. She has created successful, high growth go-to-market strategies and leveraged customer input to build better sales, marketing, and product experiences leading to increased revenue. Prior to Anitian, Crawford spent 15 years at Tripwire, a leading provider of foundational cybersecurity controls, where she led various functions including marketing, sales development, digital transformation, and customer experience.

Katherine Burgess

Director of Customer Success

Kat has been with Anitian since 2014. After a 15 year career in Human Resources, she made the jump over to Sales after joining Anitian and was part of Anitian’s pivot from Professional Services to our Platform offering. Today Kat focuses her time on bolstering relationships with our customers and providing direct customer feedback to help strengthen Anitian’s service and product offerings.

Emily Cummins

Director of Security and Compliance Services

Emily is a cybersecurity and compliance specialist who has been helping innovative SaaS companies achieve FedRAMP authorization and operations since 2011. She maintains CISSP and CCSP accreditations and advises CISOs, CTOs, and business leaders on FedRAMP best practices and strategies. Emily leads both our compliance advisory and security operations teams. She previously worked at Kratos as a leader in their defense and security solutions teams, and at Phillips as a security system design engineer with hands-on responsibility for Splunk and SolarWinds design and integration, among others. She has a BS in information security and forensics from Rochester Technology Institute.

Alex Degitz

Director of Product Management

Alex leads product strategy, design and roadmaps for Anitian’s compliance automation platform and technologies. As our senior strategist, he merges market requirements, fast-moving technology trends like AI, and Anitian’s unique compliance automation capabilities so we can deliver continuous value to our customers. He sets roadmap priorities and defines our release plans. Prior to Anitian he held product leadership roles at Satisfi Labs and Itential, and he holds a Master of Science degree from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.

Jay Christopherson

Senior Director of Software Engineering

Jay manages all aspects of Anitian’s engineering and development efforts including design, build, test and service delivery. He leads the engineering managers, principal engineers, and individual developers whose efforts transform Anitian aspirations and customer goals into value-driven products and services. His 26 years of engineering experience include previous leadership roles at Mercedes-Benz R&D, Spaceflight Industries and Apptio, all focused on continuous value delivery and customer-focused innovation. A northwest native, Jay holds a BS degree in computer science from the University of Washington and a BS in business from the University of Oregon.  

Tom Kelly

Chief Executive Officer

As CEO, Tom applies his extensive experience as a multi-time Board member and C-suite executive from his 30+ year career in enterprise technology. He serves as a strategic advisor to current portfolio companies and before Anitian, Tom most recently served as President and CEO of IDX, stepping down upon the merger of IDX with ZeroFox. As CEO, Tom has led many software and security companies to successful acquisitions including AccelOps, Moxie Software, MontaVista Software, BlueStar Solutions, and Blaze Software. Tom has also held C-Suite leadership roles at several companies including Cirrus Logic, Epicor Software, Cadence Design Systems, and Frame Technology. He previously served as an EIR with Trident Capital and Trident Cyber Security. Tom has served on numerous public corporate boards over his career including at FEI, Epicor Software, and Blaze Software and currently Fabrinet and ZeroFox. He has a BS degree in Economics from Santa Clara University.

Rakesh Narasimhan

Chairman of the Board

As Chairman of the Board, Rakesh brings Anitian more than 25 years of experience as a global executive with a demonstrated track record of value creation through technology innovation, revenue growth, customer experience and operational excellence. He is recognized for his success in helping high-growth technology and Software-as-a-Service companies scale globally and innovate, most recently as President and Chief Operating Officer at SpaceFlight Industries, a global disrupter in the Space Industry delivering value in software and rocket launches to the Small Satellite industry. Previously he served as Group Vice President of the $1.8B Enterprise business at Citrix and prior to that he served as the General Manager for Azure Data, Security and Storage infrastructure businesses at Microsoft Corporation. At Anitian, Rakesh will support the company’s continued leadership and growth in security and compliance solutions for today’s diverse technology environments.

Sean-Cunningham

Sean Cunningham

Managing Director, Forgepoint Capital

Sean is renowned as a top tier cybersecurity investor for over 25 years and has invested in 18 cybersecurity startups during his career, leading 13 to exit. He is well respected by entrepreneurs, co-investors, board members and go-to-market partners and was cited as one of the top cybersecurity investors by market analyst firm CB Insights. He is listed in their “Board of Directors: Who’s Who in Cybersecurity.” Prior to ForgePoint, Sean was focused on Cybersecurity investments with Intel Capital. Sean holds an MBA from Gonzaga University and is a huge Zag basketball fan.

Ned-Gilhuly-Founding-Partner-Sageview-Capital

Ned Gilhuly

Founding Partner, Sageview Capital

Ned Gilhuly is a Founding Partner of Sageview Capital. He is responsible for all aspects of Sageview’s business and sits on the firm’s Investment Committee as well as the Portfolio Committee. Prior to founding Sageview Capital, Ned was at Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co (KKR) for 19 years. He joined KKR in 1986 in San Francisco, became a partner in 1994, and from 1998 until 2004 he established and oversaw all aspects of KKR’s business in Europe. He also served on KKR’s Investment Committee from its inception in 2000 until his departure in 2005. Prior to KKR, Ned worked in mergers and acquisitions within Merrill Lynch Capital Markets.

Richard Stiennon

Chief Research Analyst, IT-Harvest

He has presented on the topic of cybersecurity in 29 countries on six continents. He is a lecturer at Charles Sturt University in Australia. He is the author of Secure Cloud Transformation: The CIO’s Journey and Surviving Cyberwar (Government Institutes, 2010) and Washington Post Best Seller, There Will Be Cyberwar. He writes for Forbes and The Analyst Syndicate. He is a member of the advisory board at the Information Governance Initiative and sits on the Responsible Recycling Technical Advisory Committee, the standard for electronic waste. Stiennon was Chief Strategy Officer for Blancco Technology Group, the Chief Marketing Officer for Fortinet, Inc. and VP Threat Research at Webroot Software. Prior to that he was VP Research at Gartner, Inc. He has a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering and his MA in War in the Modern World from King’s College, London.

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