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Get To Know Bob Meindl, Our New CEO! 

In May of this year, we announced that well-known cybersecurity expert, Bob Meindl, joined Binary Defense as the new Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Meindl has successfully guided the strategic growth of midsize and enterprise cybersecurity companies and brings a wealth of industry experience, a proven playbook of business practices, and in-depth technical knowledge to our company. He replaces CEO and co-founder, Mike Valentine, who will remain at Binary Defense as Chairman of the Board. We sat down with Bob to ask him some questions about his thoughts on the security industry and his vision for the future of Binary Defense. 

What is your background in cybersecurity? 

Over the past 20 years, I have helped lead, build, and grow cybersecurity businesses that scaled significantly to about 1,000 people on and offshore. I’m excited to leverage that experience and apply it to Binary Defense to help the company build upon the success that has already been achieved.   

In my past roles, I was the Global Head of Sales of Lockheed Martin commercial cyber. They came to the realization that they had the people, process, and technology in place that other Corporate America and Global Fortune 1,000 businesses did not. At Lockheed Martin, we built and scaled that business quickly from under $20 million dollars to $100 million in a year.  

In 2016, the company wound up being divested and sold to Leidos Corporation. As a result, we became Leidos Cyber Inc., and I became the president and CEO of Leidos Cyber. We wound up selling the business in 2019 to Capgemini. Through that acquisition, I became the head of North American Cybersecurity and we integrated into the international regions and the North American Capgemini platform. We built and continued to grow and scale that business to about 1,000 people.  

When it comes to the future of the cyber security landscape and MDR, what are your thoughts?   

If you start at the macro level, the challenges in the global landscape are a big driver for security demand. From a geopolitical perspective, from a threat perspective, and from a macroeconomic perspective, all the elements are coming together now to continue to ramp up the threat landscape. That, coupled with the challenge and shortage of qualified security talent for organizations to go out and hire and build their own security operations center, is really exacerbating the need for outsourcing managed detection and response capabilities.  

The threat landscape is just going to continue to be more of a risk, especially as the economy potentially goes where it looks to be heading, which is not into positive territory. And you don’t know what’s going to result from the geopolitical landscape and the threats coming out of Russia, China, and other parts of the world. It’s been interesting to see that about eight to ten years ago, there was a lot of nation-state-sponsored activity. Nation-state-sponsored activity had subsided a little bit and was replaced by ransomware through independent threat actor groups. Now that nation-state activity and threat actor group activity is really ramping up, this positions Binary Defense very well with our TTPs (tactics, techniques, and procedures) to leverage our experience and help reduce our client’s risk associated with cyberattacks.  

What were the key factors that drew you to Binary Defense?   

When I looked at Binary Defense, it caught my eye that the company was able to get into the upper right-hand quadrant of the Forrester MDR Wave report. However, the company didn’t have the same market presence as some of the competitors. This piqued my curiosity.  

When I researched more about the business I said, OK, there is product, market, and timing fit. There’s a go-to-market execution opportunity to leverage.  There is a fit with my background in growing and scaling cyber security organizations in the same exact space that Binary Defense is in with Threat Hunting, Managed Detection and Response, managed SIEM (Security Information & Event Management), and Counterintelligence. I’m excited about how far we can go in the future as we continue to grow in this fast-paced market. We have a significant role in making the world a safer place for our clients, but as we grow, we will continue to have a culture of accountability to one another and to our customers in the marketplace.   

As the new CEO, of Binary Defense, what is your vision for the future of the company?   

Most importantly, my vision for the future of the company is to build upon the success that Binary Defense has had to date. The team has led the organization to this point. Now we can take our experienced cyber leaders to really build upon the ‘Next Generation’ solutions that we bring to the market and can continue to be security innovators and trailblazers. I believe that there’s an incredible opportunity to grow our business with our existing services, as well as the ability to add other services. This will enable us to use our core solutions like MDR as the tip of the spear to gain new customers and then land and expand that customer base as their security maturity progresses. I do believe that we have a great portfolio today, but we will be adding more capability to the portfolio as we progress and mature.   

Do you have a message you would like to give to current clients and partners and the marketplace?   

The message that I would love to deliver to our customers, our partners, and the marketplace is THANK YOU! Thank you for trusting in Binary Defense. We have tremendous talent at Binary Defense, and we’ve created a lot of success. We’re going to build upon that success and we’re going to demonstrate our thought leadership in the marketplace. We are an MSSP (Managed Security Solutions Provider) that you can trust to secure your enterprise and somebody you want to partner with going forward. At the end of the day, this is all about trust and handing over the ‘crown jewels’ to Binary Defense to ensure that your business is secure. Whether you’re in manufacturing, financial services, healthcare, or other industries you need to be able to go to bed at night and be comfortable that your business is secure, and that you trust your security partner. We are that trusted partner. I look forward to expanding our customer base and our partner ecosystem and earning our client’s trust on a daily basis.