Leading the charge
to Secure from Within

Rick Fitz is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at Contrast Security. Prior to joining Contrast, he served as Senior Vice President and General Manager of Splunk’s IT Operations & Application Development Market Group. He helped lead the company through multiple acquisitions, launch new products, develop new capabilities and develop new go-to-market strategies. Rick has over 25 years of experience building software for the enterprise and a proven track record of scaling high-growth companies. He received his undergraduate degree in Computer Engineering from the University of the Pacific and his Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Golden Gate University.

Peter Daley is the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) at Contrast Security. Prior to joining Contrast, he served as Vice President of Strategic Finance and Investor Relations at CrowdStrike. He was instrumental in applying SaaS metrics to manage the company through its hyper-growth stage to achieve profitable growth at scale. Daley helped lead the execution of various private and public financing rounds, including CrowdStrike’s record setting IPO and debut bond offerings. He went on to lead the investor relations program for CrowdStrike as a public company. Daley has over 25 years of experience in enterprise SaaS, cybersecurity, and financial services. He received a BSE degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of the Pennsylvania and a BS degree in Economics from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Jeff brings more than 20 years of security leadership experience as Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Contrast. Previously, Jeff was Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Aspect Security, a successful and innovative application security consulting company acquired by Ernst & Young. Jeff is also a founder and major contributor to OWASP, where he served as Global Chairman for eight years and created the OWASP Top 10, OWASP Enterprise Security API, OWASP Application Security Verification Standard, XSS Prevention Cheat Sheet, and many other widely adopted free and open projects. Jeff has a BA from the University of Virginia, an MA from George Mason, and a JD from Georgetown.

Brian Chang is based in New York, first joined Warburg Pincus in 2005 and returned in 2009. He focuses on investments in the Technology, Software, Information, and Financial Technology sectors. Prior to joining Warburg Pincus, Mr. Chang worked at Merrill Lynch in the Media and Telecommunications Investment Banking Group focusing on Corporate Finance and Mergers and Acquisitions transactions.

He is currently on the Board of Directors of Businessolver, Cyren, eSentire, Neogov and Procare and also works with BitSight, CrowdStrike, and RS Energy Group. Mr. Chang received a B.S. with Distinction in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and an M.B.A. from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar.

Dharmesh joined Battery Ventures in 2015 to focus on early-stage venture and growth-equity investments in areas including cloud infrastructure, big data, security and next-generation enterprise applications. Previously, he was a managing director at Intel Capital, where he led the firm’s global cloud and big-data practice and made early and later-stage investments in companies globally. He also assisted in long-range strategic planning for Intel’s $14 billion datacenter group. Before joining Intel Capital, Dharmesh worked as an enterprise-focused venture capitalist at Advanced Technology Ventures, and before that spent almost a decade working in the enterprise software industry in go-to-market and channel-expansion roles, including at Keynote Systems. In 2016, Dharmesh was named to the Forbes Midas Brink list of up-and-coming venture capitalists. He is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, where he received a BS in Electrical Engineering, Dharmesh also holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business.

Jeff brings more than 20 years of security leadership experience as Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Contrast. In 2002, Jeff co-founded and became Chief Executive Officer of Aspect Security, a successful and innovative consulting company focused on application security. Jeff is also a founder and major contributor to OWASP, where he served as the Chair of the OWASP Board for eight years and created the OWASP Top 10, OWASP Enterprise Security API, OWASP Application Security Verification Standard, XSS Prevention Cheat Sheet, and many other widely adopted free and open projects. Jeff has a BA from the University of Virginia, an MA from George Mason, and a JD from Georgetown.

Julie Giannini is the Chief Customer Officer (CCO) at Contrast Security. In this role, Giannini is responsible for accelerating the adoption of the Contrast Secure Code Platform, while driving top- and bottom-line revenue.

Throughout her career, she has transformed organizations by achieving notable revenue milestones, scaled high-growth SaaS technology companies from startup through IPO and led international expansion opportunities leading to multiple billion-dollar acquisitions.  

Giannini holds a Bachelor's degree from UCLA in Economics & Business. In addition, she studied at the Sorbonne in Paris during college and completed an Economics seminar at the University of Oxford while working at TIBCO Software. Giannini is the proud mother of two sons and resides in San Francisco Bay Area.

John M. Jack (JJ)  has worked in the software industry since 1980 in sales, marketing, and executive management. Highlights include Chief Executive Officer at Fortify Software (sold to Hewlett-Packard) and Chief Executive Officer at Covalent (sold to VMware); Chief Operating Officer at The Vantive Corporation (public, sold to PeopleSoft); and, executive positions at Sybase, Inc.

Since leaving Hewlett-Packard in January of 2012, he has served as a consultant to start-up companies and their Chief Executive Officers. JJ currently serves on a number of venture-backed company boards in the cyber-security and other segments. He is also a board partner at the VC firm Andreessen Horowitz.

David is an experienced application security professional with over 20 years in cybersecurity. In addition to serving as the chief information security officer, David leads the Contrast Labs team that is focused on analyzing threat intelligence to help enterprise clients develop more proactive approaches to their application security programs. Throughout his career, David has worked within multiple disciplines in the security field—from application development, to network architecture design and support, to IT security and consulting, to security training, to application security. Over the past decade, David has specialized in all things related to mobile applications and securing them. He has worked with many clients across industry sectors, including financial, government, automobile, healthcare, and retail. David is an active participant in numerous bug bounty programs.

Get to know David Lindner on our Code Patrol podcast >

Get to know our CISO: The fearless, fishy, phish-fighting David Lindner >

Rami is a general partner at Acero Capital, a venture capital firm focused on investments in business software (mobile, cloud, security, infrastructure). Until its acquisition by Oracle, Rami also served as director on the board of Bitzer Mobile (enterprise mobility). Prior to Acero, Rami was General Partner at Southeast Technology Funds where he focused on IT infrastructure software investments, and served on the boards of several investments including Pixel Magic (acquired by Dai Nippon), Waveguide Solutions, Elumens Corporation & Arsenal Digital (acquired by IBM). Rami is a graduate of Purdue University where he earned a BS in Computer & Electrical Engineering and a graduate of M.I.T. where he earned an MBA in Finance and was named the Henry du Pont III Scholar.

Faya Peng is the General Manager of Application Detection and Response at Contrast Security. She oversees the global strategy, product vision, and go-to-market execution of ADR, the fastest growing emerging cybersecurity category. She was previously at Splunk where she led major product launches and managed a data platform used by tens of thousands of companies to power and enable their security teams. Before that, Peng helped lead Cisco’s long-term strategy and M&A. Peng was integral in the evolution of Cisco's strategy in cybersecurity. She received a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Texas and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.

Michael D’Ambrosio serves as Managing Director for Liberty Strategic Capital, where he focuses primarily on the cybersecurity sector and other investment opportunities with a security dimension. Prior to joining Liberty, Michael D’Ambrosio served as Assistant Director of the Office of Investigations in the U.S. Secret Service. In his role at the agency, Mr. D’Ambrosio was the senior executive leading all of the 162 field offices of the Secret Service, which fights cybercrime and protects the U.S. financial system. Mr. D’Ambrosio was responsible for the administration and resourcing of Cyber Task Force consisting of 40 Electronic Crime Task Forces (ECTF) and 46 Financial Crimes Task Forces (FCTF). Mr. D’Ambrosio planned and oversaw major domestic and international criminal investigations into cyber fraud, ransomware attacks, and other high-profile network intrusions, among other cybercrimes. He also played a leading role in training private industry partners on cybersecurity preparedness and incident response.

Mr. D’Ambrosio began his Secret Service career in 1997, as a Special Agent assigned to the New York Field Office, after serving five years as an Infantry Officer in the United States Marine Corps.

Mr. D’Ambrosio received his BA in Business Administration from Siena College, a MS in National Security Strategy from the National War College, and a MS in Criminal Justice from the University of Cincinnati. Mr. D’Ambrosio is also a Senior Fellow at the University of Auburn McCrary Institute for Cyber and Critical Infrastructure Security.

Tom Kellermann is the Senior Vice President of Cyber Strategy at Contrast Security. Previously Tom held the positions of Head of Cybersecurity Strategy for VMware and Chief Cybersecurity Officer for Carbon Black Inc.  In 2020, he was appointed to the Cyber Investigations Advisory Board for the United States Secret Service. On January 19, 2017, Tom was appointed the Wilson Center’s Global Fellow for Cyber Policy. Tom previously held the positions of Chief Cybersecurity Officer for Trend Micro; Vice President of Security for Core Security and Deputy CISO for the World Bank Treasury. In 2008 Tom was appointed a commissioner on the Commission on Cyber Security for the 44th President of the United States. In 2003 he co-authored the Book “Electronic Safety and Soundness: Securing Finance in a New Age.”