Leadership

A leader in growth and change, Kerry Bailey is an industry veteran with over 28 years experience in the information technology services sector. As CEO of eSentire, Kerry is driving the company's market acceleration and its evolution as the industry's leading Managed Detection and Response (MDR) service provider.

His executive experience spans security, managed services, and cloud computing at Fortune 50 and early-stage growth companies. Most recently, Kerry served as SVP, GM of Cloud, and Channel Chief at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE). In these roles, he led the growth of private, public, and hybrid clouds and the worldwide indirect channel.

Prior to Hewlett Packard, Kerry held various senior executive roles at Verizon Enterprise including CEO and president of Terremark, a Verizon company, and leader in global managed security services, data center colocation, and cloud. Earlier roles include CEO of Betrusted and Security Assurance Group and various senior executive level positions at Cybertrust and the United States Intelligence Community (IC).

J.Paul Haynes was drawn to eSentire with a vision to create a disruptive cybersecurity company. He successfully partnered with growth capital firms to invest in and scale eSentire to become the world’s largest pure-play Managed Detection and Response (MDR) provider and market leader. J.Paul is a professional engineer with a 25-year entrepreneurial track record of success. His business acumen, in-depth understanding of technology, and strong leadership have made him a respected and reliable voice on the topic of cybersecurity in North America and Europe.

J. Paul holds both a B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Engineering from the University of Guelph. He is also a proud alumnus serving on the Industrial Advisory Board for the University of Guelph’s School of Engineering and is a Board Director for Innovation Guelph and Technation (formerly ITAC).

Eldon Sprickerhoff is the original pioneer and inventor of what is now referred to as Managed Detection and Response (MDR). In founding eSentire, he responded to the incipient yet rapidly growing demand for a more proactive approach to preventing and investigating information security breaches. Now with over 20 years of tactical experience, Eldon is acknowledged as a subject matter expert in information security analysis.

Eldon holds a Bachelor of Mathematics, Computer Science degree from the University of Waterloo.

Dustin Rigg Hillard is responsible for leading product development and technology innovation at eSentire. His vision is rooted in simplifying and accelerating the adoption of machine learning for new use cases.

Prior to eSentire’s acquisition of Versive, he was CTO at Versive, where he focused on automating security expertise and understanding normal network behavior through machine learning. Dustin was also an early data scientist for Microsoft’s Cortana and worked in ad-revenue and relevance at Yahoo! He has deep ML experience in speech recognition, translation, natural language processing, and advertising, and has published over 30 papers in these areas.

Dustin holds a Bachelor of Science, Master of Science, and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Washington.

As Chief Portfolio Officer at eSentire, Chris Gesell has accountability for the full life cycle of services offerings and direct oversight of the marketing, product, and experience teams. Chris is a results-focused executive who brings more than 20 years of global leadership experience in IT services, including consulting, cloud, security, data center, and managed services. His experience in corporate strategy and executing mergers and acquisitions, along with setting the company's direction, will be critical to the next phase of eSentire’s growth.

Chris has a passion for IT transformation, distilling complex business challenges into innovative product strategies, and sales enablement. Most recently Chris served as VP of Worldwide Partner Strategy at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and CMO at Terremark, a Verizon company.

As Chief Administrative Officer, James Yersh leads the finance and sales functions of the business, as well as human resources, and risk/compliance. Over his 20+ year career, James has transformed financial strategies, revenue growth models, and led more than 30 merger and acquisition deals for leading technology and telecommunications companies, including BlackBerry and Cognos Incorporated. While serving as Chief Financial Officer at BlackBerry, James successfully guided the company through a strategic transformation from a hardware to a software company and created the financial models and structures to enable the pivot.

James graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Commerce (Honors Accounting) from the University of Ottawa. He also holds several certifications including Chartered Accountant (ICAO), Certified Information Systems Auditor (ISACA), and Certified Information Systems Security Professional (ISC2).

As Chief Marketing Officer, Angela Rizzo leads eSentire’s global marketing and communications functions, including integrated marketing, events, brand, creative design, corporate communications, analyst relations, media relations, business development, and marketing operations. Over her 30+ year career in technology she has led teams in multi-billion dollar organizations to consistently exceed objectives.

Prior to joining eSentire as VP of Marketing in 2018, Angela held various executive marketing and operations roles at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), HP, Electronic Data Systems (EDS), Loudcloud and Sprint.

Angela serves as the vice-chair on the board of directors for Save, Inc. a Kansas City, Missouri based non-profit focused on providing comprehensive housing solutions that empower socially and medically disadvantaged people to improve their health and lead stable lives.

Angela graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Business Administration from Baker University. She also earned a Certificate for Innovation and Entrepreneurship from Stanford University.

Charles "C.J." Spallitta is eSentire’s Chief Product Officer responsible for product vision, strategy, and execution. Prior to joining eSentire, C.J. held senior leadership roles with Trustwave as Senior Vice President of Strategy and Corporate Development, and Head of Product Management. C.J.’s extensive experience in the enterprise security services space includes leadership and management roles with Hewlett Packard Enterprise (Executive Director of Worldwide Portfolio Management), Verizon Enterprise Solutions (Executive Director, Global Security Product Management), PricewaterhouseCoopers, Cybertrust, Betrusted and Security Assurance Group. In these roles, C.J. gained experience in the areas of product lifecycles, service developments, go-to-market strategies and pricing.

C.J. holds a bachelor's degree in business administration in information systems and a master's degree of business administration from Loyola University Maryland, where he also serves as an advisory board member to the Information Systems and Operations Management department and volunteers as a Cybersecurity club mentor at Loyola Blakefield High School.

Kathryn is a passionate people leader, keenly focused on organizational collaboration that drives innovative and positive employee programs. With more than 20 years of experience, Kathryn has led global HRBP teams primarily in R&D environments supporting software development, quality, product management, project management, and product marketing. She is tirelessly committed to driving enriched employment experiences.

Kathryn has led corporate-level HR Centres of Excellence focused on Talent Management, Global Learning, HR Communications, and Corporate Citizenship. Kathryn has held senior-level roles with companies including WellPoint Health, BlackBerry, and Nortel.

Amit Mital is a senior executive in the technology industry and a recognized leader in disruptive innovation. He is currently the founder and CEO of Kernel Labs, an incubator that is creating startups in the machine learning and big data space. His prior role was EVP/GM and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Symantec Corporation, the worldwide leader in cybersecurity. In his role as CTO, Amit was responsible for driving the company’s technology strategy with a focus on accelerating innovation, product development, and R&D. Amit joined Symantec after 20 years with Microsoft, most recently as the corporate vice president for the Startup Business Group, where he was responsible for managing strategic product development along with identifying and executing new innovation opportunities. He holds 43 patents. Amit earned an MS in Engineering from the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College.

Shane Sharpe is a proven sales leader with extensive success and experience in early-stage, high growth managed service companies.

In his current role as the Vice President, Sales North America, he is responsible for eSentire’s North American sales team overseeing a scaling team of enterprise sales reps. With focus and strategic execution, Shane manages consistent quarter over quarter growth in a highly competitive marketplace.

Shane has spent more than a decade of growing Managed Service companies. He studied Computer Engineering at Texas Tech University.

As Vice President, Global Sales Engineering, Tia Hopkins is focused on leading the team in providing pre-sales engineering support. She has held various technology roles, including Senior Solutions Architect and Director of IT Services at services organizations. She is an adjunct Professor for Yeshiva University’s Cybersecurity Masters program, and a Career Mentor for Cybrary and Built by Girls. Tia is also an SC Media Reboot Leadership Award recipient for 2019 in the Outstanding Educator category.

Tia is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), Certified Ethical Hacker (C|EH) and Certified Hacking Forensics Investigator (C|HFI). She also holds a BS in Information Technology, MS in Information Security and Assurance and MS in Cybersecurity and Information Assurance and plans to continue her education in pursuit of an MBA in IT Management.

Chris Braden is a veteran sales and channel executive, bringing over 20 years experience building, leading, and executing successful programs around the world. In his current role as the Vice President, Global Channels and Alliances, he is responsible for eSentire's global channel program, overseeing strategic partner recruitment, international expansion, and growth with current partners through an improved enablement program. He is a 2019 CRN Channel Chief recipient. Chris also oversees strategic partnerships with key partners Carbon Black, Sumologic, and Cyxtera.

For the decade prior to joining eSentire in 2018, he built notable global channel and alliance programs for companies such as Akamai, Exceda, and FocalPoint. Chris holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Virginia and a Master of Business Administration from George Mason University.

As Vice President of Go-To-Market (GTM) Programs and Enablement, Megan leads the collaborative process that aligns efforts across the GTM, Sales Operations and Sales Enablement teams. She is responsible for unifying the planning and execution process across the GTM team and enabling and supporting the operational needs of the Sales organization. With 15 years experience in enterprise strategic account management, customer advocacy, customer experience and service management, Megan is fiercely committed to building and ensuring consistent growth across the organization.

As a member of the LegalSec Council with the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA), Mark Sangster is a cybersecurity evangelist who has spent significant time researching and speaking to peripheral factors influencing the way that legal firms integrate cybersecurity into their day-to-day operations. In addition to his passion for cybersecurity, Mark's 20-year sales and marketing career was established with industry giants like Intel Corporation, BlackBerry, and Cisco Systems.

Mark's experience unites a strong technical aptitude and an intuitive understanding of regulatory agencies. During his time at BlackBerry, Mark worked on the first secure devices for government agencies. Since then, he has continued to build mutually beneficial relationships with regulatory agencies in key sectors.

Mark holds a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of Western Ontario and a Business Diploma from Humber College.

As Director of Customer Success, Leslie leads the Customer Success organization dedicated to providing an exceptional customer experience. Her organization is responsible for the successful onboarding of our customers, ongoing reviews and renewal of services. Leslie has been with eSentire for 5+ years and was the very first resource hired to onboard customers. She has continued to enhance the foundational strength of the Customer Success team to scale the business and market demands. With a history of always putting the customer first, Leslie continues to drive excellence throughout the organization.

Leslie is a graduate of Brock University where she studied International Business and really discovered her passion for connecting with people and companies across the globe.

Matthew is responsible for product engineering, delivery, and quality at eSentire. His expertise is in leading high-impact engineering teams to deliver enterprise-scale products.

Prior to eSentire’s acquisition of Versive, Matthew was VP of Engineering at Versive where he built the engineering organization that automated security expertise and the understanding of normal network behavior through machine learning. He has also held engineering leadership roles at Parsable. Here, he led the ground-up development of the company’s industrial collaboration and workflow solution. In a leadership role at Castlight Health, he drove the innovation of the company’s machine-learning healthcare pricing engine and led the application engineering department.

Matthew holds a Master of Science in Computer Science from the University of Michigan and a Bachelor of Science in Computation and Neural Systems from Caltech.

As Chief Information Security Officer, Peter Romano is responsible for the enterprise security and compliance vision, strategy, and roadmap to ensure eSentire information assets are protected and compliant with various privacy and statutory requirements.

He is a security officer and people leader with expertise in the areas of mobile and cloud computing in high growth technical organizations. Over the course of 20+ years in security, he has overseen the creation of organizational capability that dramatically increased the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of internal IT and cloud service offerings. Peter has held various security leadership roles at BlackBerry, D2L, and TELUS, and has taught Information Security at Conestoga College.

Peter holds a Bachelor of Applied Science in Civil Engineering from the University of Waterloo and a Master of Science in Information Security from the University of London at Royal Holloway. He also holds the Certified Information Security Manager (CISM) designation from ISACA.

Michael Corbin is responsible for leading the design, deployment and management of eSentire’s Core IT Infrastructure and client-based signal generation platform. His focus is on the efficient and scalable solutions that deliver reliable, secure and cost effective internal and external customer experiences.

Before coming to eSentire Michael led Verizon’s Global Cloud and Security Solutions Engineering team where he focused on the customers’ business drivers to improve their security posture and deliver efficient computing platforms. He has also led the Verizon Business Client Care organization to become an extension of the customer’s IT organization insuring seamless planning and deployment of various IT initiatives.

Michael holds a Bachelor of Science in Information Technology and Business Management from Columbia Union College.

As Grand Poohbah of Data, Art is responsible for the application of machine learning across eSentire's technologies. Art's expertise is in combining machine learning (ML), statistics, large-scale data processing, and domain knowledge to find relevant results. He architected and built the core of the Versive automated ML platform, which was acquired by eSentire.

At Sandia National Laboratories, he researched the reliability of machine learning tools and developed novel algorithms to efficiently learn from massive data on Hadoop.

Art’s dissertation work at Cornell investigated practical modeling problems in the context of ecological modeling — specifically, the domain of modeling continent-wide populations of bird species using citizen science data. This work helped build the tools used in creating the U.S. Department of Interior’s State of the Birds reports. Art has 241 bird species on his life list.

As eSentire’s Vice President of Strategy and International Marketing, Alex is responsible for corporate strategy, corporate development, M&A, strategic partner business development as well as driving thought leadership internationally. A disciplined senior business strategist and strategic marketeer, Alex brings 25 years of experience in the ICT service sectors in a range of functions including corporate, product and channel strategy, M&A identification and execution, and commercial partnership development.

Prior to joining eSentire in 2018, Alex was Director of Worldwide Partner Strategy at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), and Director of Corporate Strategy at Verizon Communications. Alex holds a BA in Russian Language and Literature from the University of London, an MA in International Relations (Distinction) from the University of Reading, and a Certificate in Market Driving Strategies from the London Business School.