YL Ventures expands advisory board with 24 cybersecurity executives
YL Ventures, the Silicon Valley headquartered seed-stage venture capital firm focusing on Israeli cybersecurity innovation, announced a major expansion of its Venture Advisory Board.
The four existing advisors (Tom Baltis, CISO of Delta Dental Insurance; Andy Ellis, CSO of Akamai; Amichai Schulman, co-founder of Imperva Inc.; and Justin Somaini, CSO of SAP) will be joined by an additional 24 CISOs and cybersecurity experts, including:
- Colin Anderson, CISO of Levi, Strauss & Co.
- Tomasz Chowanski, CISO, Community Banking, Consumer Lending and Operations of Wells Fargo
- George Do, CISO of Equinix
- Adam Ely, VP and Deputy CISO of Walmart Labs
- Brooks Evans, Director of Security at Netflix
- Satish Gannu, CSO of ABB
- Rob Geurtsen, Deputy Information Security Officer at Nike
- Jay Gonzales, CISO of Samsung Semiconductors
- Ken Gonzalez, Managing Director of NightDragon Security
- Ryan Gurney, CSO of Looker
- Roger Hale, CISO of Informatica
- Stacey Halota, VP, Information & Security of Graham Holdings
- Dave Hannigan, Head of Security at Spotify
- Kurt Lieber, VP, and CISO of Aetna
- Brian Lozada, CISO of ZocDoc
- Tim Mather, Chief Security Strategist at PatternEx
- Pritesh Parekh, VP, and CSO of Zuora
- Billy Rios, Founder of WhiteScope LLC
- Richard Rushing, CISO of Motorola Mobility
- Sherry Ryan, VP, and CISO of Juniper Networks
- Bradley Schaufenbuel, VP, and CISO of Paylocity
- John L. Sullivan, CSO of Boston Scientific
- David Tsao, CISO of Veeva.
“We are thrilled to announce these incredible new Venture Advisors,” said Yoav Leitersdorf, Managing Partner of YL Ventures. “YL Ventures’ deep U.S. network has always been a unique component of our strategic DNA. Formalizing and expanding these connections by incorporating them into our Venture Advisory Board marks a major but natural evolution of YL Ventures’ core competitive advantage.”
Global cybersecurity spending is forecast to total $96.3 billion in 2018, an increase of 8 percent from 2017. And Israel produces the second-highest concentration of cybersecurity startups in the world after the United States. YL Ventures’ current $75 million fund remains primarily focused on connecting Israel’s top cybersecurity innovations to its extensive network of U.S. and global market-leaders. YL Ventures’ drastically expanded advisory board will help further cement its unique ability to link these two markets in a mutually beneficial dynamic.
“I’m excited to officially join YL Ventures’ growing Venture Advisory Board,” said Sherry Ryan, VP, and CISO of Juniper Networks. “I’ve worked closely with their team for years and have always valued our frictionless, productive partnership. YL Ventures’ excellent track record and relationships with brilliant Israeli entrepreneurs have provided unmatched access to local innovations. I’m confident that this deeper collaboration will only magnify the positive outcomes we’ve already shared.”
Rob Geurtsen, Deputy Information Security Officer at Nike echoed this sentiment. “I’ve known Yoav for many years now, and I appreciate the way YL Ventures operates within a very crowded landscape. They consistently identify great technologies in Israel and have the infrastructure in place to help support those great ideas as they come to market. I’m excited to work more closely with them in the future.”
“YL Ventures’ ability to bring in U.S. cybersecurity experts who can advise on everything from product-market-fit, through messaging, to go-to-market has been amazing. Breadth of perspectives from Venture Advisors allowed us to lock in our strategy early and pursue it with confidence. Their dedication to the portfolio is also incredible. Andy Ellis in particular connected with our product and message right away. In addition to his role as Venture Advisor with YL Ventures, he formally joined Vulcan’s advisory board. YL Ventures and their board of advisors haven’t just been partners with Vulcan — they’ve become part of Vulcan in the process,” said Yaniv Bar Dayan, CEO of Vulcan Cyber.