LEADERSHIP

Steve Soukup has served as Chief Executive Officer since 2020 and in that role is responsible for leading all aspects of the company’s business. He is passionate about building a community of trust among our teams and with our customers while also enabling our customers to do the same with their accountholders. Steve joined us as Chief Revenue Officer in May 2017 with a charge to drive growth for the business while leveraging his extensive experience serving the banking vertical. He was promoted to President in October 2019 and then to CEO in April of 2020. Under his leadership, DefenseStorm has set the standard for enabling banks and credit unions to achieve cyber risk readiness.

Steve has built world class customer-focused sales teams that have delivered double-digit year-over-year profitable revenue growth in fast paced and competitive environments. His background includes shaping a 100+ sales organization at e-banking leader Q2 to deliver 30% year-over-year revenue growth, as well as leadership positions at Intuit, S1 Corporation and KPN. Steve also has direct banking experience through management positions at Key Bank, BankBoston and State Street Bank. Steve is a graduate of Boston College and earned a Master of Business Administration degree from Boston University. A native of Cleveland, Ohio, Steve and his family have called the Atlanta area home for over 10 years.

Paige joined DefenseStorm in 2019 as Vice President of Strategic Partnerships, with more than 20 years of consistent success serving the technology needs of financial institutions. Prior to joining DefenseStorm, she held executive positions at S1 Corporation and Fiserv. Paige has held leadership roles in Operations, Client Services, and Product Management, with a background in setting service and delivery strategies, implementing customer satisfaction and retention programs, and establishing performance metrics to improve productivity. She currently leads all post-sales, client-facing teams for DefenseStorm with a specialized focus on Onboarding, Platform Support, Cybersecurity Operations, and Threat Intelligence teams. Named by Cyber Magazine as one of the Top 10 Female Leaders in Cybersecurity, Paige consistently demonstrates a powerful commitment to the clients she serves and the employees she leads. She enjoys a passion for the mentoring and development of young adults, technology and security training for seniors, and investment in emerging leaders at DefenseStorm.

David is responsible for crafting and telling the DefenseStorm story. He’s on a mission to ensure that banks, credit unions and fintechs understand the full extent of the cyber risk they face and how DefenseStorm’s Built for Banking solutions uniquely address these challenges. As “glue” across the organization, he’ll help unite Product, Customer Solutions and Sales to ensure clients get the full value of DefenseStorm.

David’s experience ranges from start-ups to the Fortune 100, with his marketing knowhow built at The Coca-Cola Company and The Procter & Gamble Company. Most recently, he has lead marketing for several high-growth B2B technology companies. David earned his MBA from the Goizueta Business School at Emory University and a Bachelor of Philosophy in Interdisciplinary Studies from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. He has called Atlanta home for more than 25 years.

Matt has more than 15 years of Customer Success leadership experience. Over this time Matt has led the rapid development and growth of several customer success, support, services, and other operational groups spanning industries including security, big data, telecom, and HR technology. As a leader he is known for his passion for people and talent development. This passion results in teams that work with customers to provide a trusted, value rich partnership. Matt holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from the University of Southern Maine.

Alex has more than 20 years of experience providing security solutions and expertise to some of the largest companies in the world. He regularly speaks at regional and national IT and security conferences, and frequently is a featured expert at cybersecurity association meetings around the country. Alex has worked with several leading security solutions providers, including Barracuda Networks, Purewire, Secure Computing, CipherTrust, S1 and SecureWare. Alex holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Florida.

Edgardo is a 25-year technology industry veteran, executive and product innovator. He previously co-founded Delve Networks, a cloud-based online video platform that was purchased by Limelight Networks. While at Limelight, he served as General Manager of the company’s Video Platform business unit, and later as Senior Vice President of Product. Edgardo was also Group Program Manager for Isilon System, a company later purchased by EMC. In the past Edgardo has held Product Manager positions at Aventail Corporation, a pioneer in the SSL VPN market, and RealNetworks, an early Internet media company. He holds a degree in Biology from Yale University.

Mike Shah serves as the Chief Financial Officer of the Company. He has over 25 years of accounting and finance experience, with his last 10+ years primarily focused in the financial technology software arena.

Mike has a notable track record of performance leading early and mid-stage growth companies. Most recently, these include a payroll software company and a payments enablement and security technology company. Mike managed the financial operations of the companies and played a key role in the strategy and execution of operational and financial initiatives leading to value creation.

Mike began his career at Deloitte as a Certified Public Accountant, where he served in the Financial Services Audit group. He left public accounting to follow his passion for business and founded and managed a successful office products company for 16 years. During his tenure as CEO/CFO, Mike was responsible for its record growth and profitability.

Mike graduated summa cum laude from Louisiana State University, where he earned a BS degree with a concentration in accounting and finance.

William is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and Certified Information Security Manager (CISM) with extensive training, background, and experience in various aspects of IT systems and applications. He has over 27 years of IT experience, almost a third of it directly in cybersecurity.  William was previously the Director of Cybersecurity Operations and now is the Chief Information Security Officer at DefenseStorm. William was previously the Chief Information Security Officer at the University of North Carolina in Wilmington (UNCW) where he built and managed their Information Security Program.

Jeff is a technology industry veteran who serves in a number of thought leadership positions throughout the industry, including CEO and board member of Tealium, a leader in enterprise tag management and digital data distribution platforms; chairman of nCino, a banking industry SaaS enabler; and board member of EngineYard, an innovative provider of cloud-based application management solutions. Jeff previously served in a variety of tech leadership roles, most recently as chairman and CEO of Limelight Networks, where he led the company through its 2007 IPO and six years of growth. He holds a B.S. in Information and Computer Sciences from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and served as a U.S. Naval Aviator between 1988 and 1994.

Harold Brewer (H.B.) is one of DefenseStorm’s founders and has served on its Board of Directors since the Company’s inception. For more than 40 years H.B. has been an entrepreneur driving banking technology innovation. He has shepher numerous banking technology advancements that have become best-in-class solutions, including having developed the first fully integrated, object-code-only community banking system, which proved to be a game-changing technology in bank data processing. As an expert advisor to the banking industry, H.B. helped banks of all sizes in markets across the country understand how to optimize their operations and profitability through high-quality technology and human resources. H.B. also was one of the founders of Brintech, a leading strategy, performance improvement and profit enhancement advisory services company focused on the community bank marketplace and its challenges, technology, and regulatory changes.

Jim has more than 30 years of information technology, strategic planning and business process management experience, much of it focused on banking. Jim served as DefenseStorm’s Chief Operating Officer throughout 2019. Prior to that Jim spent 15 years as the Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Washington Trust Bank, a full-service commercial bank with $10 billion in assets operating in Washington, Idaho and Oregon.

Jim’s background includes serving as President and Chief Operating Officer at Brintech, a leading banking advisory services company, as well as 12 years as a consultant delivering strategy and technology advisory services to banks ranging from $500 million to $24 billion in assets.

Jim holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Information Technology from Baylor University, has completed post-graduate work at the University of North Florida, and attended Harvard Business School’s Executive Education program.

Mr. Hood was appointed to the National Credit Union Administration Board by President Donald J. Trump in January 2019, and served as its 11th Chairman until January 2021. He served as a member of the NCUA Board until January 2024. In these roles, he provided regulatory oversight for over 4,600 institutions with assets exceeding $2 trillion and representing the savings of over 138 million credit union member-owners. Additionally, Mr. Hood chaired the NeighborWorks America Board of Directors and served as Vice Chairman of the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council. A proponent of financial technology and inclusion, he drove creation of the NCUA Office of Financial Technology & Access. Prior to the NCUA, Mr. Hood spent nearly three decades in the private sector with management roles in financial services with organizations such as JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and G.E. Capital. A Charlotte native, he is actively engaged in the local community. He also serves as an independent board director for Zest AI, Posh AI, and ModernFi.

Mark is a General Partner at TTV Capital, a venture capital firm specializing in fintech investments. Mark’s 15 years of venture capital experience is augmented by 30 years of operating experience growing one of the most successful bill payment systems, CheckFree. While there, he invented CheckFree’s consumer direct online bill payment solution, and developed and launched the company’s commercial and consumer electronic funds transfer services as well as the electronic bill payment and presentment businesses. Mark oversaw CheckFree’s growth from a pre-revenue start-up to a public corporation with over $1 billion in annual revenue, and spearheaded more than 20 acquisitions during his tenure. CheckFree executed an IPO in 1995 and was acquired in 2007 by Fiserv (NASDAQ:FISV) for $4.4 billion in cash. Mark’s experience also includes key positions at the Federal Reserve Bank and Bank One. Mark was one of the first to identify advances in B2B payments, card linked marketing, alternative loan origination, multi-channel digital banking and specialty payments. Mark also serves on the Board of Directors at Cardlytics, SmartAsset, Ensemble, FleetCor, Monit, and Springbot. Mark earned a B. S. degree in Business from Miami University and an MBA degree from the Ohio State University.

Justin LaFayette is a Lead Investor at Georgian, a fintech company that he co-founded in 2008. At Georgian, Justin oversees the firm’s investments in leading technology companies in the U.S. and Canada. Investments led by Justin have included 41st Parameter, Bluecore, IEX, Kinnser, PrecisionLender, Shopify, Tealium and Top Hat. Prior to founding Georgian, Justin led IBM’s analytics acquisition strategy, having joined IBM through the acquisition of DWL, a big data analytics firm he co-founded in 2005.Justin is also an active board member of Canada Learning Code, a non-for-profit organization with the mission to provide 10 million Canadians access to meaningful technology education experiences by 2027.

Doug serves as Chief Financial Officer for Tealium, a leader in enterprise tag management and digital data distribution platform. His more than 25 years of experience as a senior global financial executive in the technology industry includes eight years as a public company Chief Financial Officer and board member. Doug previously served as a Senior Vice President and CFO at Limelight Networks (NASDAQ: LLNW), where he completed several M&A transactions and raised capital in the public markets. Prior to that, he was the Senior Vice President, CFO, and board member at Bakbone Software, which was acquired by Quest Software. From 2003-2006, he was the CFO and a board member at Memec Group which was sold to Avnet, Inc. Doug is a CPA and received a B.A. in Business Administration from San Diego State University.

Chip Mahan has built his career revolutionizing the banking industry. He founded and currently serves as CEO and Chairman of Live Oak Bancshares, headquartered in Wilmington, NC. Its commercial banking subsidiary, Live Oak Bank, is the nation’s leading SBA lender. Chip is also a managing partner and co-founder of Canapi Ventures and serves on several fintech and financial services boards including Apiture and the American Bankers Association. Prior to Live Oak, Chip was the CEO and chairman of S1 Corporation and founder of Security First Network Bank, the world’s first internet bank. He was involved in the founding companies including nCino, Finxact, and Payrailz, and also launched Cardinal Bancshares, where he served as Chairman and CEO. Additional banking experience includes Citizens Union National Bank & Trust Co., which was sold to BankOne Corp. Chip began his career in 1973 at Wachovia Bank & Trust Co. in Winston-Salem, NC, after graduating with a bachelor’s degree in economics from Washington & Lee University in Lexington, Virginia.