Experienced Enterprise Security Leaders
VMRay is led by a team of highly accomplished corporate leaders and malware analysis experts.
Our Management Team
Investors
Digital+ Partners
Digital+ Partners is a leading technology growth equity investor focused on European and US B2B technology companies with €350 million assets under management. Digital+ aims to support ambitious entrepreneurs build global technology companies, providing them with strategic advice and long-term financial support to help them define and execute their growth plans. The fund focuses exclusively on B2B technology companies, with cybersecurity being a key vertical, and leverages a deep corporate network to help portfolio companies access new markets and build new partnerships. Learn more at http://www.dplus.partners
ECAPITAL
ECAPITAL AG, based in Münster, is a capital management company for alternative investment funds (AIF) under the EuVECA regulation. The company is one of the leading venture capital investors in Germany and since 1999 has actively supported innovative entrepreneurs in future-oriented sectors. The focus is on fast-growing companies in the software / IT, industry 4.0, cleantech and new materials segments. ECAPITAL currently manages six funds with a subscription capital of over 200 million euros and invests in companies in early to later stage phases. Learn more at http://ecapital.de/.
High-Tech Gründerfonds
The High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF) is Germany’s most active and largest early-stage investor. We finance your technology start-up with venture capital – from clean-tech and robotics to drug development, from chemistry to software. Benefit from the experience and the extensive networks of our team with its technological and business know-how. Learn more at http://high-tech-gruenderfonds.de/.
Carsten Willems
Chief Executive Officer
Carsten Willems is a world-renowned cyber security expert and pioneer in the field of malware sandboxing. Carsten earned a master’s degree in computer science from RWTH Aachen University, and a Ph.D. in cyber security from Ruhr University Bochum. His academic work has been honored with multiple awards, and he continues to lecture on computer science at his former alma mater. Carsten also serves as a cyber security and digitization advisor to the federal state government of North Rhine-Westphalia (Beirat Digitale Wirtschaft Nordrhein-Westfalen).
Entrepreneurial by nature, Carsten founded his first company in 2007 when still at university, developing and taking to market CWSandbox, a radical new approach to malware detection. He successfully sold the company and subsequently engaged in several new ventures.
Today, Carsten is CEO of VMRay, a Germany-based cyber security company that offers industry-leading technologies for advanced threat protection. With Ralf Hund he co-founded VMRay in 2013, turning their academic research into solutions that help organizations protect themselves against sophisticated and targeted cyber attacks. Carsten led the company’s growth from early days to its present expansion into global markets, winning the support of leading VC investors, and successfully closing VMRay’s recent Series B funding round.
Ralf Hund
Chief Technology Officer
Ralf achieved his Ph.D. in computer science / IT-security at the Ruhr-University of Bochum in 2013. During his studies, he focused on new analysis methods for software binaries, with a strong focus on malware. His findings were published and presented at many leading academic IT security conferences and received several awards for outstanding work. Furthermore, Ralf has been involved in the design and development of several sandbox technologies. He has experience in malware research for more than 10 years and is an active speaker at various academic and industrial conferences. His special interests lie in virtualization techniques and its application to software analysis.
René Kantehm
Chief Financial Officer
René brings more than 20 years of experience in managing financial strategy, controlling and accounting processes. In recent years he worked as a CFO for IT and E-Commerce companies. Previously René was investment director at WestLB, Düsseldorf. He has extensive finance an controlling experience. He holds an MBA from Suffolk University, Boston and University of Duesseldorf. As CFO he is responsible for all finance, controlling and operational activities.
Abir Kaddor-Isikay
Chief People Officer
Abir brings more than 20 years of experience in Human Resources with focus of international organizations. In recent years she worked as HR Director in different industries/branches and had an excellent overview about HR topics. Previously Abir was HR Director at John Bean Technologies, Bielefeld/Helsingborg. She has extensive labor law and management experience. She holds a master in Law and Business Law. As CPO she is responsible for all employee relevant issues and organizational tasks.
Marcus Conroy
VP Sales
Marcus is a 17-year cybersecurity industry veteran with direct experience scaling high-growth organizations, Marcus most recently served as the Vice President of Sales for the Americas for Cofense, one of the market’s leading providers of phishing prevention and detection solutions, where he led a 40+ person sales go-to-market team. Prior to Cofense, Marcus spent nine years at Mimecast as Vice President of US Central and West Sales, where he was responsible for all aspects of go-to-market strategy and helping the company achieve a successful IPO. At VMRay, Marcus is responsible for leading strategic sales initiatives, building out sales operations and executing against the company’s go-to market strategy.
Alexandra Günnewig
VP Marketing
With over 20 years of experience in B2B Marketing and 5 years in cyber security, Alex is passionate about building strong B2B brands by building unique thought leadership postures, product marketing and lead generation programs. She particularly enjoys helping cyber security start-ups move through the scale-up phase.
Prior to joining VMRay, Alex was Head of Marketing for Utimaco’s business unit focussing on the encryption space and a Product Marketing Manager in the Automotive supply industry (Philips). She served in various Marketing roles including multiple years in a worldwide role focusing on most of the leading Automotive companies in the world, managing a product portfolio with over 6500 SKUs.
Alex is passionate about innovation & technology adoption, quantum secure cryptography, kite surfing and her BMW motorbike. She holds an MBA from the University of Applied Sciences, Niederrhein, Germany and an MA in Media Studies from the University of East Anglia, England.
Uriel Cohen
VP Products
With over a decade in cyber security, Uriel has become passionate about solving enterprise security challenges with technology innovations. Prior to joining VMRay, Uriel served as Director of Product Management for Ifasec GmbH, a German-based company bringing to market an adaptive network access control solution. Prior to that, Uriel was the Director of Products at WireX Systems, a network forensics company based in California and Israel. Prior to WireX, Uriel held a Technical Product Management role at Check Point Software Technologies, where he focused on building a successful roadmap for its FW-integrated Threat Prevention solution. Uriel holds a B.Sc with honors in mathematics from Ben Gurion University of the Negev.
Christopher Martin
VP Customer Success
With over 20 years of experience in enterprise security, Chris is passionate about building strong technical know-how to tackle difficult tasks that security teams face while protecting their companies from threats. Prior to joining VMRay, Chris was in Product Management at Symantec, a leader in enterprise and consumer security products. He came to Symantec via the acquisition of Blue Coat Systems, where he served in diverse Systems Engineering roles including multiple years in a worldwide role focusing on some of the biggest enterprise customers across multiple industries. With his fluent knowledge of the security challenges customers are confronted with and his experience working on product roadmap, Chris is the perfect fit for leading our customer into a successful deployment of our products and services.
Francis Montesino
Head of Labs
Francis brings over 15 years of cyber security experience to VMRay. Prior to joining VMRay, Francis worked at G DATA leading the Automation Team focusing on tooling and automation integration for the security labs. In his earlier years, he worked for TrendMicro’s AV Lab focusing on malware research and incident handling. Francis then worked for Sunbelt in the Philippines where he was instrumental in establishing the company’s AV Lab. He then moved to Florida to work for GFI (formerly Sunbelt Software) where he managed malware collection, processing, and sharing processes.
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