Avertium. SHOW NO WEAKNESS™
Avertium is the managed security and consulting provider that companies turn to when they want more than check-the-box cybersecurity. In today’s threat landscape, your not-so-standard processes, workflows, and vulnerabilities require more than just a standard approach to cybersecurity. You need a smarter, stronger, show-no-weakness approach based on more rigor, more relevance, and more responsiveness. That’s why more than 2,500 organizations in every sector from manufacturing to financial services, healthcare to technology and business services to hospitality rely on Avertium for cybersecurity services.
In 2019, Terra Verde, TruShield Security Solutions and Sword & Shield Enterprise Security came together to form the foundation that is Avertium. These award-winning firms wanted to provide enterprise-level security to the many mid-sized and larger organizations that didn’t have access to comprehensive, specialized protection. Now as one of the largest providers serving the mid to large enterprise market, Avertium is changing the cybersecurity landscape.
Mission
Make our customers’ world a safer place so that they may thrive in an always-on, connected world.
CORE VALUES
- Be Collaborative
- Be Your Best
- Be Empowered
- Character Matters
- Build Community
- Continuously Learn & Develop
Meet Our Leadership Team
Jeff Schmidt
Jeff SChmidt
Jeff Schmidt, CEO
Jeff Schmidt is a successful operator who has led high-growth technology companies spanning large global enterprises to startups. He was appointed CEO of Avertium by growth equity firm Sunstone Partners when it acquired founding companies Terra Verde, TruShield and Sword & Shield. Jeff is responsible for establishing and driving the vision for Avertium as well as developing and executing the company’s growth strategy to drive employee, client, and shareholder value.
During his distinguished career spanning almost three decades, Jeff has led companies at the forefront of technology, and specifically, cybersecurity innovation. As chief operating officer of SQS North America, Jeff helped drive significant growth in the US. During his two-year tenure, revenues grew from $2 million to $20 million. Prior to SQS, Jeff led BT’s global security solution practice (BT Assure), which included customized products and managed security solutions for BT’s clients globally. This included the launch of BT’s Assure portfolio which when he left accounted for over $250 million in annual revenue and growth rates north of 20 percent across the portfolio. Under his leadership, BT Assure received accolades and recognition as a market leader in security by key industry analysts. His team developed and deployed “visual analytics” for intrusion detection and the early adoption of cloud-based security solutions, which enabled “bring your own device” capabilities for enterprises globally.
Before to joining Avertium, Jeff was CEO and president of Authomate, an identity and access management technology provider. He held leadership positions with prominent companies such as Home Savings of America, Lucent, California State Automobile Association, Paramount Pictures, InCode Telecom Group, and International Network Services. Additionally, Jeff has worked closely with many industry-leading consultants and has presented at events held by Gartner, RSA, InfoSec, and Cisco.
Steven Marandola
Steven Marandola
Steven Marandola, SVP of Services Delivery
Steven Marandola leads Avertium's services delivery team and is responsible for ensuring that clients receive a consistently rigorous, responsive and relevant experience across the company's services portfolio; from managed detection and response, to compliance assessments and strategy consulting, to penetration testing and staff augmentation services. His leadership style and operational acumen empower the company's team of highly certified professionals to deliver top-notch cybersecurity services to clients.
A seasoned business and cybersecurity professional, Steven has more than 20 years of experience in the cybersecurity and professional services sectors. Previously, he held executive leadership roles spanning service delivery, general management, portfolio development, engineering, and partner and sales management.
Most recently, Steven served as executive services director at Optiv, Inc. where he led a national team focused on driving deeper customer relationships that not only helped grow revenue but increased customer satisfaction and brand loyalty.
Steven holds a Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE) certification.
Ben Masino
Ben Masino
Ben Masino, SVP of Sales
As Avertium's senior vice president of sales, Ben Masino bring more than 14 years of business and sales leadership experience. Equally as adroit in direct and indirect sales channel strategies, Ben has a winning track record of building and growing both enterprise and mid-market-focused revenue organizations, in the cybersecurity, cloud, SaaS, and business services industries.
Prior to this position, Ben ran sales for the Americas at Spotinst where under his leadership, the company almost doubled in size in 2019. Previously, Ben spent more than six years at Alert Logic taking on positions of increasing responsibility and eventually served as vice president of revenue and customer success in the East region. Ben also held positions at Sungard Financial Systems, (now part of FIS), and Sungard Availability Services.
R. Gregory Breetz Jr.
R. Gregory Breetz Jr.
R. Gregory Breetz, CFO
As chief financial officer, Greg Breetz is responsible for Avertium's overall fiscal strategy and direction as well as legal functions.
With more than three decades of experience, Greg has held executive leadership roles in accounting and finance as well as customer service, regulatory and legal, human resources and strategy. He uniquely combines the skills of a seasoned operator and the adaptability of an entrepreneur and has built a reputation for developing world-class teams, aligning financial and business metrics to support high-growth and business strategy while maintaining customer-centricity and organizational culture.
Greg is a strong believer that a business’ financial numbers tell a story, and that the numbers must be accurate to tell the story of a good business. Previous executive positions include the interim chief financial officer at NetSPI, chief financial officer at Dolphin Equity Partners and regional CFO at Nextlink.
Jacqui Chew
Jacqui Chew
Jacqui Chew, SVP of Marketing
Jacqui brings more than two decades of entrepreneurial experience building brand equity and market demand for companies in the internet, information security, SaaS and enterprise software sectors. As Avertium’s senior vice president of marketing, she drives Avertium’s customer acquisition and retention, and brand reputation strategies. Jacqui oversees brand management, demand generation and solutions marketing across all service lines and geographies.
An award-winning marketer, Jacqui previously served as CMO-in-Residence at the Advanced Technology Development Center@Georgia working with more than 170 venture-backed technology companies to increase their annual recurring revenues by between 70 and 100 percent. Prior to that, Jacqui was the owner and operator of iFusion, a go-to-market collective serving high-growth technology and tech-enabled companies nationwide. The firm helped launch more than 3 dozen companies and products and raised more than $100M in venture capital on behalf of clients over its 12-year run. She also served in executive marketing roles at Stonesoft (now part of Forcepoint), PeopleSoft (acquired by Oracle) and Silverpop (now IBM Watson Campaign Automation).
Jacqui is an active member of the Atlanta business and technology communities and has served on the boards of Women in Technology, American Marketing Association and the Atlanta Press Club. She is the current license holder of TEDxAtlanta, the largest TED affiliate in the state.
Jacqui resides in metro Atlanta with her spouse and their two fur kids.
Edward Vasko
Edward Vasko
Edward Vasko, SVP of DevOps & Technology
As senior vice president of DevOps and Technology, Edward Vasko brings more than 30 years of diverse management, technical and information security experience to drive Avertium’s overall technology strategy and platform integrations for target acquisitions. His ability to build high-caliber teams that can tackle the hardest cybersecurity challenges; and identify market opportunities that leverage service-wrapped offerings to provide value to clients have been celebrated by the industry and his peers.
Most recently, Edward was CEO of Terra Verde whose world-class team was known for delivering business value to their clients through state-of-the-art cybersecurity, risk and compliance services and managed security solutions. Terra Verde was one of three cybersecurity companies acquired by Sunstone Partners to forge Avertium.
Edward is a multi-year recipient of the Arizona State “Sun Devil 100” which recognizes excellence in leadership. He received an honorary doctorate from the University of Advancing Technology for his work in cybersecurity and in 2019, served as the NIST NICE Conference Industry co-chair.
Edward is a Certified Information System Security Professional (CISSP).
Bart Erwin
Bart Erwin
Bart Erwin, Talent Services Leader
As Avertium’s talent services leader, Bart is responsible for all strategy and execution of human resources programs and functions to meet both the needs of the business and the team members that make Avertium a great place to work. Bart has 35 years of experience in growing and integrating high tech & professional services firms.
As a relentless champion for driving the culture of an organization through the vision, mission and values, Bart’s experience include serving as chief people officer at Expleo (formerly SQS), director of talent acquisition at Rosetta, and vice president of human resources at BT (formerly INS) Professional Services.
Bart holds a Society for Human Resource Management Senior Certified Professional (SHRM-SCP) certification for senior-level human resources practitioners.
Paul Caiazzo
Paul Caiazzo
Paul Caiazzo, SVP of Security & Compliance
As Avertium's senior vice president of Security and Compliance, Paul Caiazzo oversees technology alliances and strategic initiatives guiding Avertium clients through challenging security problems. He also leads Avertium’s internal security and compliance initiatives working to reduce risk across the organization and for clients.
Most recently, Paul was the co-founder and CEO of TruShield Security Solutions, which earned a reputation as one of the fastest growing companies in the cybersecurity industry. TruShield was one of three companies acquired by Sunstone Partners to forge Avertium.
With more than two decades of experience, Paul has an extensive background in the Federal Government and financial sectors where he supported the Federal government’s cybersecurity needs in a variety of Department of Defense and civilian agency programs across a spectrum of critical missions. He credits his mission-focused background with giving him first-hand knowledge of not only how crippling cybersecurity issues can be, but also the perspective that good security supports the mission, be that through business objectives or government or military initiatives. This sparked his interest in building a career in which he could help clients not only understand the risks they face, but also to combat them with effective mitigation strategies.
Paul serves as the cybersecurity advisor to the Science and Technology Policy Center for Development where he utilizes his expertise to help the nonprofit organization achieve their goal of advancing ICT in developing countries.
Paul is certified information system security professional (CISSP), a certified information systems auditor (CISA) and a certified ethical hacker (CEH).
John McNeely
John McNeely
John McNeely, SVP
As senior vice president, John McNeely supports Avertium’s commitment to continuously mature and improve processes, empowering the organization to move faster and more efficiently in acting in our clients’ best interest. John has more than 30 years of experience in the technology industry and holds the CISSP industry certification.
He co-founded Sword & Shield Enterprise Security, Inc., and under his 22-year leadership, the company won multiple industry accolades in the managed security and consulting firm categories. Designations include being named to the Inc. 500/5000 list of fast growth companies eight years in a row (2006-2013), ranking on the CRN Solution Provider 500 list (2017-2018), appearing on the Managed Security 100 category of the Managed Service Provider 500 (2017), and being named by MSSP Alert to its Top 100 MSSP’s list (2017 & 2018).
Prior to Sword & Shield, John was a software engineering professional for the DOE research and development facilities managed by Lockheed Martin Energy Systems.
John is a native of East Tennessee and places a high priority on giving back to his state and community. He is a passionate supporter of mentoring and advising the next generation of cybersecurity professionals and serves on boards of local and state colleges and universities. He is also heavily involved in the entrepreneurial community, serving on the board of the local Entrepreneurs’ Organization and as a founding member of the local technology council.
Interested in a cybersecurity career? Join us.
