Maria Cirino: Meet the VC's

Black Hat Briefings, USA 2007 [Audio] Presentations from the security conference.

2007 held numerous watershed events for the security industry. Innovation is needed and the money is there. Come to this session and meet the VCs actively investing in security, web, and mobile applications. Learn how VCs see the future, what they are looking for, and how best to utilize them to further your innovations. This session will conclude with a announcement about the Black Hat/DEFCON Open, a business plan competition focused on innovations in security; winners will be announced at Black Hat 2008 and DEFCON 16.
Brad Stone, New York Times technology correspondent
Brad Stone joined the New York Times in December 2006. He covers Internet trends from the newspapers San Francisco bureau. In addition to writing for the paper, he contributes to the Times technology blog, Bits.
>From 1998 to November 2006, Stone served as the Silicon Valley Correspondent for Newsweek magazine, writing for the technology and business sections of the magazine and authoring a regular column, Plain Text, on our evolving digital lifestyles.
He joined the Newsweek writing staff in 1996 as a general assignment reporter and covered a wide range of subjects. He wrote about Mark McGwire's home run chase during the summer of 1998, the jury deliberations in the Timothy McVeigh trial, and profiled authors such as Kurt Vonnegut. He is also a frequent contributor to Wired magazine, and has written for publications such as More magazine and the Sunday Telegraph in London.
Brad graduated from Columbia University in 1993 and is originally from Cleveland, Ohio.
Patrick Chung, Partner, NEA
Patrick joined NEA as an Associate in 2004 and became Partner in 2007. Patrick focuses on venture growth equity, consumer, Internet, and mobile investments. He is a director of Loopt and Realtime Worlds, and is actively involved with 23andMe, Xoom and the firm's venture growth activities. Prior to joining NEA, Patrick helped to grow ZEFER, an Internet services firm (acquired by NEC) to more than $100 million in annual revenues and more than 700 people across six global offices. The company attracted over $100 million in venture capital financing. Prior to ZEFER, Patrick was with McKinsey & Company, where he specialized in hardware, software, and services companies. Patrick received a joint JD-MBA degree from Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School, where he was the only candidate in his year to earn honors at both. He also served as an Editor of the Harvard Law Review. Patrick was one of only nine Canadian citizens to be elected a Commonwealth Scholar to study at Oxford University, where he earned a Master of Science degree and won both class prizes for Best Dissertation and Best Overall Performance. Patrick earned his A.B. degree at Harvard University in Environmental Science. He is a member of the New York and Massachusettsbars.
Maria Cirino, Co-Founder and Managing Director, .406 Ventures
Maria is co-founder and managing director of .406 Ventures, a new VC firm focused on early stage investments in security, IT, and services. She serves as an active investor, director and/or chairman in one public company and four venture-backed companies including Verecode and Bit9. Maria brings 21 years of entrepreneurial, operating and senior management experience in venture-backed technology companies. Most recently, she served as an SVP of Verisign following its 2005 $142 million acquisition of Guardenta Sequoia, Charles River Ventures and NEA-backed IT security company that she co-founded and led as CEO and Chairman. In this role, Maria received several industry honors and awards, including "Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in 2003." Prior to Guardent, Maria was Senior Vice President responsible for sales and marketing at i-Cube, an IT services company, which was acquired in 1999 by Razorfish for $1.8 billion. Prior to Razorfish, she was responsible for North American sales at Shiva, the category creating network infrastructure company from 1993 to 1997.
Mark McGovern, Tech Lead, In-Q-Tel
Mark McGovern leads the communications and infrastructure practice for In-Q-Tel, the strategic investment firm that supports the U.S. Intelligence Community. He has extensive experience developing, securing and deploying data systems. Prior to joining In-Q-Tel, Mr. McGovern was Director of Technology for Cigital Inc. He led Cigital's software security group and supported a Fortune 100 clientele that included Microsoft, MasterCard International, CitiBank, Symantec, CheckFree, the UK National Lottery and the Federal Reserve Banks of Richmond, New York and Boston. Earlier in his career, Mr. McGovern worked for the Central Intelligence Agency. Mr. McGovern holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and an M.S. in Systems Engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute.
Dov Yoran is a Partner at Security Growth Partners (SGP). Prior to joining SGP, Mr. Yoran was Vice President for Strategic Alliances at Solutionary, Inc. a leading Managed Security Services Provider. He was responsible for all partnerships, global channel revenue and marketing efforts.
Previously, at Symantec Corporation, Mr. Yoran managed the Services Partner Program, having global responsibility for creating, launching and managing the partner re-seller program. This program generated over 50% of Symantec Services revenue, with a partner base expanding across six continents.
Mr. Yoran came to Symantec as part of the Riptech, Inc. acquisition, in a $145 Million transaction that ranked in the top 2% of all technology mergers in 2002. Riptech was the leading managed security services firm that monitored and protected its client base on a 24x7 basis. At Riptech, he spearheaded the channel strategy, marketing and sales operations, growing the reseller program to over 50% of the company's revenue.
Prior to that, Mr. Yoran has worked in several technology start-ups as well as Accenture (formerly Anderson Consulting) where he focused on technolog and strategy engagements in the Financial Services Industry.
Mr. Yoran has also written and lectured on several Information Security topics. He holds a Masters of Science in Engineering Management and System Engineering with a concentration in Information Security Management from the George Washington University and is a cum laude Bachelor of Science in Chemistry graduate from Tufts University.