By Barbara Massa, Partner, Chief Operating Officer, NightDragon
When I concluded the integration of Mandiant into Google earlier this year, I had every intention of retiring and focusing the ‘second chapter’ of my career serving as a board member and working within the community. As it happens, Dave DeWalt, my friend from nearly 25 years of working together in executive roles from Documentum, McAfee, FireEye, Mandiant, and more, gave me a call.
He had a vision for NightDragon and wanted me to join the team as more than an Advisor to help drive the next phase of growth across the firm and portfolio.
His compelling vision resonated with me and spoke to my long-standing passion for the cybersecurity, safety, security, and privacy (CSSP) market, coming from my decades in the space, as well as my desire to make a positive impact on the world. This is especially true as artificial intelligence and other new technologies emerge, driving remarkable innovation possibilities at a pace we haven’t seen in a very long time. An incredible inflection point for entrepreneurs and founders.
For that reason, I am excited to announce that I am joining NightDragon as Partner and Chief Operating Officer. In this role, I’ll work closely with our many leading portfolio companies to ensure they are setting themselves up for responsible growth and long-term scalability by advising on a myriad of operational best practices around talent, operations, IT, cybersecurity, global expansion, and more. Additionally, I’ll help the firm with investment decisions, advancing its own processes, operations, and Advisor network around the globe.
To accomplish this, I will leverage my more than 30 years spent driving talent strategies, global business operations and executive leadership coaching to help the next generation of organizations. Most recently, I served as Executive Vice President and Chief of Business Operations at Mandiant, overseeing the cybersecurity organization’s global IT infrastructure, people, and places operations, as well as helping transition the company through its recent acquisition by Google, one of the largest cybersecurity acquisitions in history.
As I now step into this role, I look forward to giving back to the next generation of cybersecurity leaders in the NightDragon portfolio and helping them build organizations with operational best practices that set them up for long-term growth. In doing so, we can ensure not only scalability but responsible scalability that is sustainable over the long term as they work towards successful IPOs and exits.
On a more personal level, I am elated to join a team that I highly respect, trust, and enjoy working with. Dave, Ken, Morgan, Amy and the rest of the NightDragon team are leaders who I have worked with for decades, and I am excited to rejoin them and lend my experience and skills to the team as it continues to grow.
Contributing to NightDragon’s mission to secure our world for tomorrow has never been more critical. Cyber and national security threats across CSSP are at an all-time high, driving a rapidly rising risk landscape and new opportunities for innovators and investors with strong technology and organizations to combat those threats. The advent of AI is a great example of this, opening up massive opportunities in addition to a multi-billion dollar market opportunity that a firm like NightDragon is exceptionally well-positioned to succeed in.
I look forward to connecting with the many members of the NightDragon community as we work together to drive incredible impact and scale. Please reach out at barbara@nightdragon.com if you’d like to connect.
To view the full NightDragon team, please visit our Team page.
