Plano, TX, July 11, 2023 – Critical Start, a leading provider of Managed Detection and Response (MDR) cybersecurity solutions, today announced the additions of Clifford Chiu and Edna Conway to its Board of Directors. Chiu and Conway’s extensive corporate and technical executive leadership experience will support Critical Start’s continued growth and commitment to reducing cyber risk and securing customers against cyber threats.
Chiu is a corporate director and private investment firm senior advisor, as well as a retired partner at Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co (KKR). Conway served until recently as Vice President, Security & Risk Officer, Cloud Infrastructure at Microsoft.
“Both Clifford and Edna are distinguished, well-respected industry leaders. We are thrilled to welcome them to our Board of Directors,” said Rob Davis, CEO and Founder of Critical Start. “Their expertise will be invaluable as we continue to drive our business forward, expand our product portfolio and explore new and innovative ways to help our customers reduce their cyber risk and prevent business disruptions.”
With a Wall Street career spanning 42 years, Chiu is a corporate director and private investment firm senior advisor, as well as a board or committee appointee to government and civil society organizations located in the United States and Hong Kong. He currently sits on the boards of Finastra, Apptio, Allvue Systems, Acquia, and Securonix, and was a past director of seven public and private companies. Since 2015, he has served as a Senior Advisor to Vista Equity Partners and now to its Executive Committee. Chiu is a member of the National Committee on United States-China Relations, including participation in its U.S.-China Track II Dialogue on the Digital Economy. On July 15, 2022, President Joe Biden announced his intent to appoint Chiu to serve as a member of the Commission on Presidential Scholars. Chiu founded and led capital raising and investor relations at KKR for the Asia Pacific region. He previously served as a Managing Director and Head of Asian Institutional Business at J.P. Morgan Asset Management and Managing Director and Head of Hong Kong Investment Banking, and beforehand as Co-Head of Tokyo Investment Banking at Salomon Smith Barney/Citigroup, and its predecessors in New York, Hong Kong, and Tokyo.
Conway brings deep public and private sector cybersecurity leadership experience to Critical Start. At Microsoft, Conway was responsible for the security, resiliency, and governance of the cloud infrastructure upon which Microsoft’s Intelligent Cloud business operates. Prior, she served as Cisco’s Chief Security Officer, Global Value Chain, driving a comprehensive security architecture across Cisco’s third-party ecosystem. Conway is recognized domestically (U.S. Presidential Commissions) and globally (NATO) as the developer of architectures delivering value chain security, sustainability, and resiliency. She currently serves on the Executive Committee of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Task Force on ICT Supply Chain Risk Management, has been tapped to testify at U.S. Presidential Commissions, and is actively involved in other public-private initiatives. Prior to Microsoft and Cisco, Conway was a partner in an international private legal practice and served as Assistant Attorney General for the State of New Hampshire. She has been recognized for her industry leadership through membership in the Fortune Most Powerful Women community and has received numerous security, operations, government service, and technical awards.
Chiu and Conway’s roles were sourced through the external board program operated by Vista Equity Partners, a global investment firm focused on enterprise software, data, and technology-enabled businesses and a strategic investor in Critical Start. Launched in 2017, the board program leverages Vista’s ecosystem and additional resources to identify, train, and appoint qualified board candidates for its portfolio companies. The program works to create a diverse pipeline of qualified board candidates through programs and partnerships that advance diversity for all boards and drive impact for the corporate world at large.
About Critical Start
Today’s enterprise faces radical, ever-growing, and ever-sophisticated multi-vector cyber-attacks. Facing this situation is hard, but it doesn’t have to be. Critical Start simplifies breach prevention by delivering the most effective managed detection and incident response services powered by the Zero-Trust Analytics Platform® (ZTAP®) with the industry’s only Trusted Behavior Registry™ (TBR) and MOBILESOC®. With 24x7x365 expert security analysts, and Cyber Research Unit (CRU), we monitor, investigate and remediate alerts swiftly and effectively, via contractual Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for Time to Detection (TTD) and Median Time to Resolution (MTTR), and 100% transparency into our service. For more information, visit criticalstart.com. Follow Critical Start on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram.
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