SoSafe Announces New Executive Advisors as Company Expands Category and Product Leadership

COLOGNE, Germany–(BUSINESS WIRE)– SoSafe, Europe’s largest security awareness and human risk management vendor, has appointed four new Executive Advisors. The advisors, comprised of industry experts and technology investors, will provide advice and strategic counsel to the SoSafe leadership team on its ambitious plans to expand their category and product leadership.

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New hires Ilona Simpson, Carsten Thoma, Christian Karam, Sean Catlett (Photo: Business Wire)

With Forrester predicting that 90% of data breaches in 2024 will involve the human element, reducing human risk is what organisations need to prioritize for business continuity. SoSafe offers a technology-driven solution based on psychology and human-centric design. While SoSafe is committed to empowering digital self-defence around the world, the company is currently leading the category evolution from security awareness and training to human risk management. The Executive Advisors will support this transformative process from both an industry and organisational perspective to increase the company’s speed to scale.

The following Executive Advisors will join:

Sean Catlett: Sean is the Chief Information Security and Trust Officer at Bumble. He also served as the Chief Security Officer at Slack, and as Chief Information Security Officer at Reddit and is an advisor to Balance Theory and Hampton North.

“It is clear that cybercriminals are effective at focusing on the human layer of security. AI-powered tools offer them solutions that scale attack success rates, intensifying cyber threats, and I believe the full potential is yet to be seen. We need comprehensive and effective solutions that counter these rising threats by sustainably empowering a strong security culture and reducing human risk – and SoSafe delivers just that in a new and innovative way”, states Sean Catlett.

Christian Karam: Christian is an investor and senior advisor on technology investments, previously serving as the Deputy Group Chief Information Security Officer at UBS and the Head of Research & Innovation at INTERPOL.

“Cybercriminals continue to innovate rapidly, outpacing many organisations’ ability to keep up. Mere compliance training videos are no longer enough to overcome this challenge. We must rethink security awareness by building effective and robust security cultures that embrace continuous learning and treat mistakes as key drivers of resilience. SoSafe is leading this transformation towards holistic, people-centric human risk management, and I look forward to contributing to this journey”, says Christian Karam.

Ilona Simpson: Ilona is a trained psychologist and a long-standing CIO across a range of industries and companies, having worked at Netskope, adidas, EON, Aston Martin, DHL, and Porsche.

“We’ve made a lot of progress over the last few years in terms of the attention that senior management and boards are giving to the human layer of cybersecurity. For CIOs, the human factor and reducing human risk is top of mind. Now, they need effective and simple solutions to help them reduce human risk in a sustainable way”, states Ilona Simpson.

Carsten Thoma: Carsten is the President of Celonis. He has co-founded and scaled Hybris, sold to SAP and became President of SAP CX and member of the Global Executive Team. He serves as an advisor to La Famiglia/General Catalyst, and has been a long-standing investor and entrepreneur.

“SoSafe has the most promising foundation a young company can have: They are solving one of the most important business problems of our time in a fundamentally different way than their competitors. It’s my ambition to help them succeed and, together with SoSafe’s leadership team, build a global champion from Europe”, states Carsten Thoma.

“We are very honoured that some of the best minds in business and technology have agreed to serve as critical advisors to SoSafe. At this pivotal time in our development, their expertise will enable us to grow even faster, smarter, and more focused. I know I speak for the rest of the executive team when I say that we will value their experienced counsel as we look to accelerate our growth as a company”, states Dr Niklas Hellemann, Psychologist and CEO at SoSafe.

About SoSafe

SoSafe, founded by a team of behavioural scientists and technology experts, is the largest security awareness and human risk management vendor based in Europe. SoSafe is empowering over 4700 customers worldwide to effectively mitigate cyber risk. With a unique human-centric approach grounded in behavioural science, SoSafe enhances secure behaviour across organizations, making it intuitive and second nature. The platform is designed to strengthen digital self-defence by creating robust security cultures that actively involve employees in mitigating human risks. By leveraging psychology and advanced technology and AI, it enables security professionals to effectively identify, prioritize, manage, and ultimately reduce their human risk. The SoSafe team now consists of more than 450 employees in seven locations: Cologne (headquarters), Amsterdam, Berlin, London, Paris, Lisbon, and Munich.

Website: www.sosafe-awareness.com/

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/sosafe-cyber-security/mycompany/

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240529386435/en/

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