TrueFort Leadership

Bob invests in seed stage security-related startups that protect enterprise and cloud infrastructure, data, applications and users. He also advises Canaan on later stage security related investments. Bob spent 20 years as an entrepreneur starting database and networking companies and had three IPOs and an acquisition. He entered the venture business as a partner at Bay Partners, and previously established the security practice for EMC/Dell Ventures, working closely with RSA and VMWare on infrastructure security deals. Bob holds an A.B. from Dartmouth College and an MBA from the Stanford Business School.

Marios Damianides, CISA, CISM, CPA, is a retired partner in the advisory practice of EY and former Northeast Cyber Security Leader. He has over 35 years of experience leading transformation initiatives in security, finance, governance and risk, and advising Fortune 500 companies on agile security programs and architectures. Marios has served as Chair of the International Board of ISACA and IT Governance Institute (ITGI) where he implemented several new certifications and grew the Association and its fundraising by over 100% during his tenure. 

As CEO, Founder and Board Member, Sameer makes TrueFort happen. Drawing from his vast customer-side experience, he also serves as our company spokesperson and cultural TrueNorth.

Prior to TrueFort, he held senior IT executive roles in the world’s top financial institutions, including JP Morgan & Chase, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs. Sameer frequently appears as a speaker at conferences and in media and has been granted multiple patents. He has a Master of Science degree in Technology Management from the Stevens Institute of Technology.

Nitin is passionate about enterprise software and invests in infrastructure software as well as leads Shasta’s security investments. He serves as a board director of Banyan Security, Cequence Security, ISARA, and Kubit AI, and is actively involved with Shasta Ventures’ investments in Lucidworks, Data.World, ValiMail, Lightbend, Aquera and Macrometa. Nitin regularly holds executive roundtables with enterprise IT executives, CISOs and venture-backed start-up CEOs. Nitin holds an M.B.A. from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical Engineering from McMaster University, where he is a member of McMaster University Faculty of Engineering Dean’s Advisory Board.

Maha spots technology trends early and partners closely with her companies to drive growth and exits. She focuses on e-commerce and enterprise / cloud, and was one of the first investors to recognize the potential of social gaming. She was also the first investor in The RealReal (REAL) and sat on the company’s board through the 2019 IPO. A champion of women in technology, Maha is passionate about funding and raising the profiles of female entrepreneurs and is a founding member of All Raise. She is also a trustee for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Maha holds a B.A. in Economics and an M.A. in Sociology from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in Economics from MIT.

Naz is at the center of TrueFort’s architectural vision, engineering creativity & development brilliance.

He brings extensive experience managing IT organizations and developing solutions for global investment banks and the Fortune 100 including NEC, InfoCom Technologies, JP Morgan & Chase, Bank of America Merrill Lynch & Goldman Sachs. Recognized by the American Financial Technology Awards, Naz holds several US patents including app modeling, deployment, monitoring, event correlation, and a scalable ITaaS/DBaaS solution. He has a B.S. degree in Electronics and Communications Engineering from the University of San Carlos.

Paul Ciesielski serves as TrueFort’s Chief Revenue Officer overseeing global sales/marketing, and sales operations. Mr. Ciesielski is an accomplished leader with a track record of driving predictable revenue with enterprise companies, and managed services providers (MSPs). He has extensive security, application and infrastructure management experience. 

Prior to joining TrueFort, Mr. Ciesielski was CRO at ReversingLabs, a leading provider of explainable threat intelligence solutions where he led go to market strategies for sales, marketing, channel, field engineering and customer success. He also was CRO at SevOne (acquired by Turbonomic), served as Vice President of Sales at Chef Software, and held senior sales and leadership roles at AppDynamics (acquired by Cisco), Mazu (acquired by Riverbed Technology), and Mercury (acquired by HP).  

As CFO, Eileen’s responsibility spans financial, HR and legal strategy and functions for our rapidly growing company.

Working with TrueFort since 2017, she was instrumental in achieving the company’s Series A funding and early stage business traction. Previously in her career, she served as vice president of finance for Aperture Technologies, a division of Emerson Network Power (now Vertiv), and in several financial and operations leadership roles at other companies.

Eileen has a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration & Management from Iona College, and achieved CPA certification in the State of Connecticut.

Deepak is a successful serial entrepreneur who oversees our operational functions, ensuring TrueFort is a productive, functional, well-run ship.

Prior to joining TrueFort, he was instrumental in building several companies like CloudCreo and E-Zing Technologies from inception to acquisition, including people management and extending world-class partnerships.

Deepak has a Master of Science degree in Environmental Systems Management from the Pratt Institute.

Jill is an award-winning marketer with a track record of growing enterprise technology brands to market leadership positions. Prior to joining TrueFort, Jill was Chief Marketing Officer for mobile security innovator Appthority (acq. by Symantec) and served as CMO for disruptors in the philanthropy, e-commerce and big data spaces including Fluxx, Stitch Labs (acq. by Square) and Terracotta (acq. by Software AG). Jill also co-founded and was Managing Director of boutique strategy and marketing consultancy Gray Wolf Partners, was as Vice President of Marketing at Visto Corporation (acq. by Blackberry) and directed member acquisition and product marketing at Netscape Communications and America Online. Jill holds a BA in International Relations from Pomona College and an MBA from The Anderson School at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Keith Grant leads the Global Sales Office at TrueFort, responsible for customer acquisition, sales enablement and partnerships.  He brings more than 20 years of experience driving revenue growth in the competitive cybersecurity market-space at companies like Signal Sciences, MobileIron, CA Technologies.  His approach revolves around understanding each customer’s unique business objectives with the goal of solving complex issues and driving mutual value.  This central philosophy is the cornerstone of his ability to develop trusted and unshakable business relationships with the clients he serves.

Keith holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from University of Hartford.

Marvin has been with TrueFort from shortly after inception. He is a leader in business development and oversees all customer engagements, implementation, and support.

With over 25 years of experience spanning executive roles, consulting and Board membership, he brings strong expertise in operations, services, customer success, solutions planning and enterprise software delivery. He’s worked with top brands like Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, Emerson Network Power, Standard Chartered, Verizon, AT&T and NTT. Marvin has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science/Sociology from George Washington University.

At TrueFort, Shang leads the engineering team that delivers products, testing and ecosystem integration.

Before joining, he served in executive and technical leadership roles at IAC and Mindspark. During his over 25 years in system engineering and business intelligence, he has been responsible for building and managing some of the most complex infrastructures in the world, developing next-generation data-warehousing products and architecting webmail platforms.

Shang attended the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

Lane is a proven technology company builder who has built three billion-dollar companies in Internet security. His prior successes and roles include CEO of Palo Alto Networks (PANW) leading to its IPO, COO of Zscaler (ZS), and President, Trend Micro. He is also currently a member of the Board of Directors of Carnegie Mellon University.

Vinay serves on the TrueFort Board bringing extensive experience in investment and prior senior executive roles at companies like Avaya, Salomon Smith Barney, and CRISIL, a subsidiary of Standard & Poor’s.

Karthik built his cybersecurity chops through investments in leading companies including OpenDNS, Elastica, Exabeam, Skyport, ThreatQuotient and Hytrust. He also played a significant role in the consolidation of the cybersecurity market in his role as head of cybersecurity M&A at Cisco, where he drove marquee transactions such as OpenDNS, Lancope, Duo Security and Cloudlock.

With a long career investment starting with Cohen & Co., Chuck also serves on the Boards of Cyware and the American Rock Salt Company, and is a former CFO and CPA.

Steve is a Partner at Lytical Ventures and a member of its investment committee. Prior to Lytical, He was the General Partner of Antecedent Ventures and was part of the RTP Ventures investment team. Steve has held positions in strategy and corporate development at Emulex (NYSE: ELX) and as a sell-side analyst covering technology at Punk, Ziegel & Co.

TAG Cyber is a global cyber security advisory, training, consulting, and media services company.

Recently a retired Fellow from AT&T, Ed also served for many years as SVP/CSO, Bell Labs. He has also been an Adjunct Professor, Computer Science at the Stevens Institute of Technology, a Distinguished Research Professor, Center for Cyber Security at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering, Senior Advisor, Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University and on the Board of Directors for M&T Bank and the U.S. NSA Advisory Board.

LPL Financial is the largest independent broker-dealer in the United States. Prior to LPL Financial, Scott served as CIO at American Express, CIO and Vice President, Information Technology at eBay, and held senior technology roles at Bank of America and GE.

Articulate is a global leader in online learning software and an award-winning company recognized by Deloitte as one of the fastest-growing tech companies in North America. Adam is also an active angel investor in more than 100 innovative tech companies and serves on the boards of many of them.

In addition to leading Security Risk Solutions LLC, Steve is currently on many advisory boards, including H-ISAC. He is known as the ‘world’s first CISO’, having served at Citi, Merrill Lynch and JP Morgan. He has also testified before Congress, mentored Fortune 50 CISOs, and was appointed as the first financial services sector coordinator for critical infrastructure protection by the US Secretary of the Treasury.

Motti Finkelstein is a Senior Advisor at McKinsey, Advisor for Capri Ventures, and several startups. Previously, he was CTO for the Americas and the Global head of Strategy & Planning at Citi/Citigroup, creating a culture of innovation and agility in Cloud, Big Data, Software Defined Data Centers, Robotics Process Automation and User Experience. As the CTO for Americas, Motti was responsible for the local delivery of global standards and addressing local requirements within the Americas region. He was also the chairman of the CTO council and has held multiple operational, engineering, architectural, and compliance roles at Citi/Citigroup.

Rob Strickland’s executive leadership spans decades in the telecom, wireless, and cable industries. As a CTIO, he led organizations such as EchoStar/Dish, T-Mobile and Leap Wireless (acquired by AT&T) through periods of strategic and dynamic growth. He has over $15B of career technology budget management experience.

Today, Rob runs M37 Ventures, a tech-focused consulting firm based in Austin, TX which combines executive management consulting practices with forward-thinking technology expertise. The firm engages with cutting-edge tech startup, enterprise tech, and telco companies around the world.