Building the team for success at Noetic
Today is an important milestone in the Noetic story, as we’re announcing significant additions to our leadership team to take the company on to the next level. Being able to recruit talented executives of the caliber of Karen Higgins, Mike Rogers and Charlie Howe is a major win for a start-up such as ourselves and reflects the level of interest we’re seeing in our technology and approach.
For me personally, this is an exciting moment as I’ve had the opportunity over my career to work with all three leaders and consider them to be some of the most talented people I’ve ever worked with.
Karen Higgins and I worked together at Resilient Systems, a pioneer in the SOAR market, and at IBM after we were acquired in 2016. Karen was instrumental in Resilient’s successful acquisition and was key to the integration into the wider IBM Security business, where she stayed and contributed in several financial and operational executive roles before deciding to move back to the cybersecurity startup space.
Karen’s financial expertise is considerable – in establishing company structures, raising funding rounds and scaling companies from early stage to IPO, but she provides so much more than that. Her wider experience as an operational executive, responsible for business strategy and execution, makes her such an important hire for Noetic as we continue to grow and I’m excited about the chance to work together again.
Mike Rogers and I first worked together in the mid 2000s at an encryption software vendor, PGP Corporation. Mike and I have always shared a similar philosophy about having a customer-centric approach to enterprise sales and partnering with security leaders to ensure successful projects and develop collaborative customer communities. Since Mike and I last worked together, he has gone on to build and lead sales organizations successfully at a range of different security vendors.
Mike is unique in that he has the experience of being one of the first hires at early-stage, seed funded start-ups, but he has also managed sales teams at some of the larger, well-established cybersecurity vendors such as RSA Security and Varonis, giving him a depth and breadth that many of his peers lack. Mike’s grasp on technology also means that he is a good partner for Product and Engineering groups, and I know that my co-founders will enjoy his input into the future development of the Noetic platform. His passion for customer success will help to build and drive our sales organization worldwide.
One of the things that makes Noetic different is our Anglo-American origins. We were born in the pandemic in Boston and London in 2020 and we are committed to growing our team and business across both markets. This is why we are, compared to most other venture-funded startups, investing early in the UK and we are incredibly fortunate to have recruited the best possible leader for the EMEA region into our team.
Charlie Howe has consistently delivered throughout his career as a cybersecurity sales leader, building diverse, high-performing teams across the UK, Europe and the Middle East. He would be a top target for any well-funded startup looking to establish itself in Europe, and for good reason. He has built that success on understanding what CISOs and security teams need and partnering with them to deliver tangible results. This is based on a highly ethical and consultative approach which means that many security teams have trusted him to deliver projects at multiple different vendors.
I’ve known Charlie personally for more than 17 years, since we worked together as part of a small EMEA sales organization, and I am delighted to partner with him again to make Noetic’s European team the huge success that I know it will be.
2022 has started well for Noetic, as well as bringing in these 3 incredible executives into my leadership team, we’re adding high caliber individuals across the board. Sales, marketing, engineering, DevOps and customer success have all been strengthened as we continue our mission to fix some of cybersecurity’s foundational challenges. I am reminded of Bill Gross’s famous Ted Talk on why startups succeed. Of all the many factors that can contribute to a startup’s success, the most important two are timing and team. From our engagement with customer, partners and investors, it’s clear that the time for Cyber Asset Attack Surface Management (CAASM) is now, and we are building the team to deliver the best possible solution for our customers.
It’s a tremendous opportunity and I couldn’t wish for a better team to take us there.
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