Andrew Smeaton has been appointed as the CISO in Residence at Merlin Ventures. Smeaton’s role will be to provide strategic and technical advice to Merlin Ventures portfolio companies, and strengthen alignment between today’s CISOs and Merlin’s portfolio and prospects. He will also be expanding the Merlin Ventures community of over 300 security executives that meet with startups and provide feedback.
Smeaton said, “When I first met Seth and his team at Merlin Ventures, I was impressed by their creativity, expertise, and skill in elevating cybersecurity startups.” “The company already has an incredible community of buyers, investors, and innovators. This is crucial to success in the competitive cyber market today. Their approach to business is very similar to my own philosophy of community-based relationships and how I handle all personal and professional relations. I’m excited to work with Merlin Ventures in order to continue to iterate, grow and develop its community. We will also apply a more data driven methodology to extract feedback and insights from CISOs.”
Smeaton is a security leader with more than 25 years experience in industries like government, healthcare and finance. Since 2006, he has been CISO at companies such as DataRobot (SAIB), MIB Group, and Saudi Investment Bank. Smeaton has the CISSP and CISA credentials, as well as CCISO, CISM and CRISC. He has worked on executive boards, advised government agencies and is an expert in regulatory compliance and privacy.
Shay Michel, Managing Partner, added: “Recently despite the challenges we have met more Israeli entrepreneurs. With Andrew, our ability stand out on the Israeli cybersecurity market will increase and give added value for entrepreneurs.”
Merlin Ventures is a venture capital affiliate of The Merlin Group. The Merlin Group is a network of technology companies that have been supplying technologies to the U.S. Government for more than 25 Years. It scales businesses and introduces solutions to help enterprises tackle today’s most important cybersecurity challenges.