About Us

Ram Varadarajan is a serial entrepreneur and executive for over 25 years. Ram is co-Founder and CEO of Acalvio Technologies, an innovator in advanced threat defense solutions. Ram was the co-founder and CEO of Arcot Systems, which co-invented today’s eCommerce security solutions “Verified by Visa” and “MasterCard Securecode Arcot was acquired by CA Technologies. Ram served as SVP and GM at CA and established both the company’s New Business Innovation unit and its Silicon Valley R&D center. Prior to founding Arcot, Ram held senior R&D positions at Informix where he pioneered development of Multilevel-Secure and high-performance Databases.

Ram is an author on over a dozen patents and is an advisor to multiple Silicon Valley start-ups. Ram is an unabashed cricket fanatic and has established the New Inning Foundation to support youth in the US.

Arthur Patterson founded Accel with Jim Swartz in 1983.

As the lead investor, Arthur has helped management teams develop companies into market-defining leaders for over four decades.

IPOs of such companies include: Actuate, AMCC (Applied Micro Circuits Corporation), iPass, MetroPCS, PageMart, Portal Software, SCO, UUnet/MCI-WorldCom, and Veritas.

Private exits include: Arcot Systems (acquired by CA), Centrify, Coremetrics (IBM), Counterpane (BT), IronPlanet (Richie Bros.), Krux Digital (Salesforce), NextG (Crown Castle), Noosh (HH Global), Rapt (Microsoft), and Savi Technology (Lockheed Martin), and numerous passive investments.

Arthur currently serves on the boards of several private companies including: Aalyria, Acalvio, govini, Integral Development, and QMC.

Prior to co-founding Accel, Arthur was a General Partner of Adler & Company. His career in venture capital began at Citicorp Venture Capital. Arthur earlier worked in Washington for the International Office of the U.S. Treasury Department – International Monetary, Trade and Development Policy.

Arthur served as the President of the Western Association of Venture Capitalists and as a Director of the National Venture Capital Association, receiving their ‘22 Lifetime Achievement Award (Remarks).

Arthur graduated from Harvard with AB, MBA and lives in San Francisco with his wife and their four children.

Gerhard Eschelbeck, former Google Vice President Security & Privacy Engineering (CISO) is a well-regarded information technology executive with strong operational and strategic experience. He has launched innovative and successful companies and has built high-performance multi-national teams in the U.S. , Europe and Asia. Gerhard has a passion for championing new technologies and is a trusted advisor and board member to several early stage startup companies. He published the “Laws of Vulnerabilities” and is one of the inventors of the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS), and holds numerous patents in the field of managed network security.

Gerhard Eschelbeck is currently the Chief Information Security Officer at Kodiak Robotics. He was CISO at Aurora and Google prior to joining Kodiak. Earlier, Gerhard was CTO and Senior Vice President at Sophos and Qualys, and served in senior product and technology roles at companies including Network Associates and McAfee. Gerhard has a Ph.D in computer science from University Linz, Austria.

Ram Varadarajan is a serial entrepreneur and executive for over 25 years. Ram is co-Founder and CEO of Acalvio Technologies, an innovator in advanced threat defense solutions. Ram was the co-founder and CEO of Arcot Systems, which co-invented today’s eCommerce security solutions “Verified by Visa” and “MasterCard Securecode Arcot was acquired by CA Technologies. Ram served as SVP and GM at CA and established both the company’s New Business Innovation unit and its Silicon Valley R&D center. Prior to founding Arcot, Ram held senior R&D positions at Informix where he pioneered development of Multilevel-Secure and high-performance Databases.

Ram is an author on over a dozen patents and is an advisor to multiple Silicon Valley start-ups. Ram is an unabashed cricket fanatic and has established the New Inning Foundation to support youth in the US.

Alexander Harstrick is a Managing Partner at J2 Ventures. Alexander began his career as a healthcare consultant at Booz & Company in Chicago and was later recruited to help build the internal strategy group and eventually the enterprise venture investing arm at Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS) of New Jersey, the largest payer in the state.

While at Horizon, Alexander enlisted and earned his commission in the U.S. Army Reserve as a Military Intelligence Officer. While in intelligence training, Alexander was recruited for an intelligence role in a special operations joint task force, deploying in 2017 to Afghanistan and Iraq. Upon his return, Alexander joined the Secretary of Defense’s Defense Innovation Unit, where he led Human Systems (healthcare & human performance) and joint command investment efforts in the U.S. Department of Defense. As a reservist he managed the unit’s investment efforts in deep technology through its early-stage funding mechanism, National Security Innovation Capital (NSIC).

Alexander also held roles working for the leadership of KKR & Co. Inc. and strategic finance efforts for the U.S. Air Force under AFWERX – an Air Force program with the goal of fostering a culture of innovation within the service – in total helping deploy approximately $2 billion in national security-related investment efforts.

Alexander holds a B.A. from Columbia University in the city of New York and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

He was formerly an EMT in New York City (where he met his business partner, Jon), Certified Rescue Diver and Ski Patroller.

Katie Gray is the lead investment partner for the Cyber Practice at In-Q-Tel (IQT) where she is responsible for identifying technologies that address challenges faced by the U.S. Intelligence Community. She has led investments in venture-backed startups in the areas of application security, cryptography, cloud security, threat intelligence, security operations, Industrial Control System security, and more. Gray has been on the IQT investment team since 2011 and has led investments in more than 30 companies during her tenure.

Before joining IQT, Gray spent more than ten years in product management for mobile consumer electronics products, including the Treo line of smartphones at Handspring and Palm. Prior to joining Handspring, Gray was a member of the founding team and Vice President of Marketing for Bluelark, a pioneer in mobile web software that was acquired by Handspring. Before moving into the technology industry, Gray worked in Washington, D.C. as professional staff for the U.S. Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee.

Gray earned both a bachelor’s degree and an MBA from Stanford University.

Nat Natraj is the co-founder and CEO of AccuKnox. Nat was previously the co-founder and President of Acalvio Technologies. Natraj has over 25 years of experience in Enterprise Software, CyberSecurity in growing companies to achieve market leadership. Natraj has a MS from University of Virginia, Charlottesville and B. Tech from IIT Bombay, both in Chemical Engineering with high distinction.

Four-Star Admiral James “Sandy” Winnefeld is the former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the second highest-ranking officer in the entire United States Armed Forces. A highly decorated leader, his nearly 40-year, celebrated military career includes extensive time as a fighter pilot and as an instructor at TOPGUN before he led at the Pentagon. He was one of the Navy’s best pilots before taking on larger leadership roles and commanding at every level, including serving as an aircraft carrier commander during 9/11.

Winnefeld is one of the nation’s preeminent experts on leadership in the 21st century, national security, and making sense of the current global landscape – including what’s at stake for American business. He shares the fascinating leadership stories that guided his incredible military career, offering audiences a look inside what it takes to lead change and be “combat ready” in today’s business environment.

As vice chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, Winnefeld’s responsibilities included strategy and policy, operations, investment, training, and personnel management. He previously served as the commander of both the U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). Prior to that, he was director for strategic plans and policy on the Joint Staff, while he concurrently served as the senior member of the U.S. Delegation to the U.N. Military Staff Committee. He commanded the Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group, the United States Sixth Fleet, NATO Joint Command Lisbon, Striking and Support Forces NATO, and the USS Cleveland. During 9/11 he commanded the aircraft carrier the USS Enterprise, and under his leadership, it was one of the first to arrive in the theater of war.

Winnefeld served as an instructor at the Navy Fighter Weapons School (TOPGUN), the premier fighter pilot school, and flew the F-14 Tomcat on several deployments to the Western Pacific and Arabian Gulf. He also advised Paramount Pictures during the production of the movie Top Gun.

Winnefeld chairs the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board and is a frequently published author and a director or advisory board member for public and private companies operating in a broad spectrum of business sectors. He is a Distinguished Professor at the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at Georgia Tech, where he is also a member of the Engineering Hall of Fame. He is a senior non-resident fellow at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. Winnefeld co-founded SAFEProject.US, a national nonprofit dedicated to helping prevent drug overdose fatalities in the United States. He is co-host of the podcast “The Adrenaline Zone” and the author of Sailing Upwind: Leadership and Risk from TopGun to the Situation Room.

Andrew (Andy) Makridis is an advisor to Acalvio Technologies, the leader in cyber deception technology.

Andy retired from the Central Intelligence Agency at the end of 2022 after four years as its Chief Operating Officer—the number three position at CIA–culminating a thirty-seven year career at the center of the key national security challenges facing our nation.
Andy started his career as a graduate fellow in the Directorate of Science and Technology. He spent four years in the Directorate of Operations and over a decade in the Directorate of Intelligence working and then leading the technical analysis of Russian, Chinese, Iranian, and North Korean strategic weapons and space capabilities.

After 9/11 Andy was selected by CIA Director George Tenet to be President Bush’s daily intelligence briefer, serving in that capacity for three years. In 2004 he was chosen to lead the Agency’s worldwide nuclear threat analysis. Andy held senior positions for both Director Michael Hayden and Director David Petraeus; first leading the Agency’s East Asia, Africa and Latin America analysis office and then running the Agency’s foreign weapons analysis center.

Andy served on Director John Brennan’s Agency modernization panel, leading to the most sweeping CIA reorganization in fifty years. He became the first Director of the Weapons and Counter Proliferation Mission Center—one of the largest and most complex organizations at CIA and the Intelligence Community’s premier center for the analysis of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons threats.

In 2017 Director Mike Pompeo asked Andy to run the investigation into the CIA WikiLeaks data breach (aka Vault 7)—the largest and costliest security breach in Agency history. His work led to a significant restructuring of CIA’s cybersecurity posture. Later that year he was named CIA Associate Deputy Director for Science and Technology.

In 2018 Director Gina Haspel selected Andy to be the Agency’s Chief Operating Officer. In that role Andy led the day-to-day running of an agency equivalent to a Fortune 200 company. His responsibilities included planning and managing CIA’s budget, personnel, resources, security, information technology, and its multi-year strategy. Andy successfully navigated CIA and its workforce through the complexities of COVID while maintaining the Agency’s primary mission as the US first line of defense. As a result of Andy’s work CIA was the first federal Agency to acquire vaccine for its workforce.

Andy is known within CIA for being an outstanding leader and mentor. He was the first recipient of CIA’s George H.W. Bush award for leadership. Andy received the John A. McCone award for engineering excellence. He is a recipient of the CIA Intelligence Medal and three CIA Directors each honored him with the Director’s award. Andy is a three-time recipient of the Presidential Rank Award— the nation’s highest honor for civilian service.

Andy is from Rochester New York, the son of Greek immigrants. He has a B.S. in engineering from the University of Buffalo. His computer science M.S. work was done at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Andy will serve as a Kissinger Senior Fellow at Yale’s Johnson Center for the Study of American Diplomacy in 2023. He is involved in charity work and is on the board of the Council for Intelligence Issues. Andy is married and has two children.

Brigadier General (Retired) Scott Stapp is the Chief Technology Officer and Chief Revenue Officer at DEFCON AI. Gen. Stapp joined DEFCON AI after more than nine years at Northrop Grumman, where he previously served as Corporate Vice President and Chief Technology Officer. While at Northrop Grumman, Gen. Stapp also held roles that included Corporate Lead and Vice President of Joint All-Domain Command & Control (JADC2), Vice President of Space Resiliency and Rapid Prototyping, and Vice President of Applied Research and Technology Development.

Prior to joining Northrop Grumman, Gen. Stapp worked with the Department of Defense serving in a variety of positions including Director of Special Programs within the Office of the Secretary of Defense, leading governance, acquisition oversight, and protection of DoD Special Access Programs. A 30-year veteran of the Air Force, Gen. Stapp is a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s Department of the Air Force, Science and Technology Roundtable; an Advisory Council Member of the Space Force Association; and an Advisory Board Member of the Hume Center for National Security and Technology at Virginia Tech.

Gen. Stapp holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical and electronics engineering from the University of Wyoming, a master’s degree in electrical and electronics engineering from the University of New Mexico, and a master’s degree in national resource strategy and policy from the National Defense University, Industrial College of the Armed Forces.

Bill Bender is a seasoned board member, tech industry executive, former USAF CIO, and retired three-star general with extensive expertise in IT, cybersecurity, and governance. As CIO, he oversaw a $17B IT spend and a 54,000-person workforce. At Leidos, his leadership of Government Relations & Customer Account Management supported growth from $10B to $15B. An innovation driver, Bender is also an experienced board member, advisor to startups, and a published writer and speaker.

As a prominent technology leader, Bender currently serves on multiple boards including Tangram Flex, GrammaTech, Anametric, Vislink, and formerly served as Board Chair for AFCEA International. He is a strategic growth advisor to Keeper Technology, focused on data management and storage solutions, to IT Cadre, focused on enterprise data visualization, and to numerous other data-centric and cybersecurity companies. He is a Principal with Deep Water Point & Associates, providing consulting services and thought leadership.

He held a distinguished career in defense and technology. As SVP at Leidos, he led customer-facing business development, supporting defense, intelligence, civilian, and health sectors. His leadership supported the growth of Leidos’ revenue from under $10B to over $15B. He established a company-wide Account Management program and implemented the Leidos Technology Exchange, enhancing customer engagement.

Previously, as CIO of the USAF, he spearheaded IT modernization and cybersecurity, establishing the first roles for CISO, CDO, and Chief Innovation Officer within the Department of Defense. He also envisioned a first of its kind initiative to leverage the Silicon Valley entrepreneurial and innovation ecosystem, establishing the Air Force Innovation Unit, which led to today’s Defense Innovation Unit with the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He also developed key initiatives like Agile Software Factory and USAF’s Cloud First strategy.

As a USAF officer, he served as Deputy Chief at the Office of Security Cooperation in Baghdad, leading the development and implementation of foreign military sales to Iraq. He served as Commander of the USAF Expeditionary Center and dual-hatted as AMC Numbered Air Force Commander, responsible for all enroute operations of sustainment. He also led communications training and global deployment efforts for 21,000 personnel.

Throughout his distinguished military career, he held multiple global leadership roles including, Director of Warfighting Integration, and as Commander of the 86th Airlift Wing. He has also held key positions on various executive and advisory boards, including AT&T, Leidos, Samsung, Cylance, Symantec, Tanium, Dun & Bradstreet, and Brown University.

Bender is an accomplished speaker and award recipient, recognized for his contributions to information technology and defense. He holds degrees and certifications from prestigious institutions like Harvard Kennedy School, the Center for Creative Leadership, Army War College, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, and Manhattan College. Bender has been married for four decades, is a father to two adult children, and enjoys reading, golfing, and cooking. He has visited six continents and is set to explore Antarctica in 2025.