Who's Who at M.A.D.
M.A.D. Partners has assembled some of the best technical and marketing security minds in the industry, with more than 100 years of experience.
Rob Smith, CEO/CTO
Rob Smith, as the Chief Technology Officer of Mobile Application
Development (M.A.D.) Partners LLC, brings over two decades of
technology design, support and management experience to the company. He
oversees daily operations of product design and development and sets
the strategic direction of the company's technology and engineering
endeavors.
In his most recent role, before founding M.A.D. Partners, Mr. Smith
was the Chief Executive Officer of MSS Security Services GmbH, one of
the largest managed security services firms in Europe. Prior to MSS,
Mr. Smith was the CEO for SNC Secure Networking Company AG which was
Germany's first dedicated managed services provider. While at SNC, Mr.
Smith designed the industry's first Unified Threat Management (UTM)
device to protect consumers and small business from viruses, SPAM,
Phishing attacks, and malicious hacking from the Internet. From this
invention, Mr. Smith currently holds 7 patents.
In June 1998, Mr. Smith came on board as a product manager of
VeriSign, Inc. During his time at the company, Mr. Smith designed
several industry-first applications including the first ever reporting
and diagnostic tools for Check Point firewalls. He also designed Go
Secure!, a program that enables secure communications over the Internet
by creating a Virtual Private Network (VPN), for both Cisco Systems and
Check Point. In addition, he worked on several large-scale projects for
such organizations as European Bank, Coca-Cola, AT&T, First Union
and NASA.
Winn Schwartau, Chairman, Board of Directors
As a world-renowned author, lecturer, and information security
architect, Winn Schwartau brings to this management team, a lifetime of
achievement and notoriety that few senior executives can ever hope to
match. His vast experience in start-up companies included the creation
and successful sale of his own company, American Computer Security,
Inc. (ACSI, Inc.), which produced the first hardware encryption device
for PCs, in the late 1980s. Since then he has helped launch and has
served on the boards of numerous highly successful information security
companies.
Winn Schwartau thinks asymmetrically; some would say "Out of the
Box". If it's originality in thought, writing, presentations or
training, call Winn. He balances his time between writing, lecturing,
teaching and building corporate and national security-awareness
programs, as well as consulting on cyber-conflict and Infowar to
organizations and government agencies, worldwide.
In addition to being called, "The Civilian Architect of Information Warfare,"
he is one of the most sought after leading experts, on information
security, infrastructure protection and electronic privacy. In 2002, he
was honored as a "Power Thinker" and one of the 50 most powerful people
by Network World; he was named one of the Top 25 Most Influential
People for 2008 by Security Magazine and voted one of the Top 5
Security Thinkers for 2009 by SC Magazine.
Read his complete bio.
Spencer Cobb, Board of Directors Member
Spencer Cobb is an award winning strategic sales and marketing
professional with over 10 years of successful experience providing
Internet security and technology products and services to the Fortune
1000. Mr. Cobb was an early employee of SecureIT, a pioneer Internet
security start up that was purchased by VeriSign in 1999. Since then,
he has held business development and strategy positions at Air Defense,
Inc. (recently acquired by Motorola), Electronic Lifestyle Integration
and Wave Systems Corporation working with customers like AT&T,
Earth Link, Coca Cola, Home Depot and Texas Instruments.
In 2001, Mr. Cobb founded Whirling Dervish Productions LLC, which
provides production services and consulting for audio, video and
Internet content projects for corporate clients as well as Internet
marketing and brand consulting to content production companies. Mr.
Cobb is an award winning content producer and video editor with
experience in both large and small budget film, video and audio
productions. He is also an experienced marketer in the web 2.0, social
media, mobile and location based services arenas. Mr. Cobb advises the
company's executive team on sales, marketing and product strategy and
execution with the goal of increased sales and market share.
Daniel Ashby, CEO and Board of Directors Member
Mr. Ashby has over 20 years of highly successful management
experience in building high-tech companies with successful exits. His
background in managing domestic and international (both EMEA and APAC)
sales, marketing and business development teams has proven to be highly
valuable to the companies that he has been involved with during his
career. Most recently, Mr. Ashby served as the Senior Vice President of
Fast Data Technology. During his involvement with the company, Mr.
Ashby successfully turned a struggling company into a global company
and personally orchestrated the acquisition of the company by Cisco
Systems.
Previously, Mr. Ashby was responsible for all sales, business
development and marketing activities at Mail-Filters; building the
company into the worldwide OEM anti-spam market leader (per IDC,
Gartner). Prior to joining Mail-Filters, Mr. Ashby was Senior
Vice-President of Worldwide Sales & Business development at
Cerberian, Inc. a leader in the content security industry. Mr. Ashby
was responsible for managing all sales and business development
activities in North America, Europe, and Asia. Mr. Ashby successfully
participated in the acquisition of Cerberian by Blue Coat Systems
(NASDAQ: BCSI) in late 2004. Mr. Ashby was an original founder and
President of CyberVista, Inc., Vice President of Business Development
for ProSolutions, Vice President at Network Financial (NASDAQ), and
Vice President of Channel Sales at Touch Industries (NASDAQ). Mr. Ashby
has also held key management positions with Sector Group and
Interactive Healthcare Systems.
In addition to his successful career with the above mentioned
companies, Mr. Ashby is currently a senior advisor to NetSTAR, Inc. (a
Japanese company, joint-venture between Trend Micro Systems and ALSi),
Cymphonix, and Perfect Search. During the course of his career, Mr.
Ashby has been directly responsible for establishing revenue generating
partnerships with companies such as Microsoft, Trend Micro, Cisco,
Linksys, Clearswift, Buffalo Technologies, Vodafone Global, T-Mobile,
02, Telefonica, and DoCoMo, to name just a few.
Mr. Ashby studied advertising, marketing, and economics at Brigham
Young University where he received his degree in Advertising. Mr. Ashby
has been a frequent speaker at trade events and conferences as well as
quoted in numerous industry publications.
Christopher Breceda, EVP of Sales and Marketing
Recipient of the Frost & Sullivan Award for International
Broadband Distribution and Marketing Strategies, Christopher is a
highly successful sales and business development executive, who is best
known for his multi-channel distribution strategies in the data com,
broadband, and security related markets.
With over 25 years experience, in the high tech data com industries,
his most recent accomplishments include, taking a new division within a
multi-national manufacturer of data com and broadband communication
equipment, from early start up stages to a two hundred million dollar
plus range - in 21 months, with minimum staff. In the process, he and
his team took number one market share and he was the first non-Japanese
executive to win their President's Award in the 100+ year history of
the company. Few sales and business development executives can bring
this level of marketable experience to our organization.
As a member of the MAD Partners management team, Christopher's main
responsibility is to provide astute strategic planning and practical
implementation of initiatives for direct and indirect distribution
channels. His ability to enhance corporate creditability and increase
market penetration, while maintaining significant profit margins will
be utilized throughout our efforts to launch both on-line distribution
channels, as well as the highly competitive enterprise level market(s).
ADVISORS
Richard H.L. Marshall, CEO, X-SES Strategies
There are a handful of professionals who have worked to dramatically
shape the information security environment - whether through
regulations, technological innovation, policy and standards creation
and more. Rich Marshall, the CEO of X-SES Strategies, is recognized by
his peers and SC Magazine as one of those rare individuals. He was the
leading legal and policy architect of a national cyber exercise that
elevated information warfare to the attention of the president. He has
influenced legislation and policy at the highest national levels. He is
an ardent advocate in promoting innovation and entrepreneurial efforts
that advance security technologies through strategic investment in
cutting edge cyber security technology startups.
Kirsten Bay Francissen, Principal, KBF-LTD
As the principal of KBF-LTD, Kirsten Bay Francissen develops and leads investment,
policy, and thought leadership projects for national security initiatives.
As a subject matter expert in financial services and risk management, Ms. Francissen
leverages 15 years of strategic process and organizational policy experience through
management positions held in financial institutions such as the Northern Trust
Bank, Merrill Lynch and as a private fiduciary, and has managed over a billion
dollars in assets.
Eric S. Green, President of ELG Consulting
Eric has been closely involved in the security industry for a
decade. He has helped shape the marketing strategies of numerous
security businesses and FORTUNE 1000 companies. His expertise and
network of high-level contacts in both the public and private sectors
make him an extremely effective business development and marketing
leader in both the security and technology sectors. www.elg-consulting.com