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iStock 1329557677
iStock 1329557677

CovertSwarm appoint Operations Director and Head of Engineering


Louis Blackburn joins from Lloyds Banking Group to lead day-to-day operations while Rishikesh Bhide has been hired to develop the organization’s engineering capabilities

March 2024 – London, UK – CovertSwarm, the leading global red team, and cybersecurity solution provider, has made further appointments to its senior leadership team after recruiting an Operations Director and Head of Engineering.

Louis Blackburn joins the organisation from Lloyds Banking Group with an extensive background in commercial cybersecurity and red-teaming. He joins the company as Operations Director and will oversee the day-to-day operations of the Hive team.

He will also play an integral role in the identification of new and growing attack vectors to support the ongoing development of CovertSwarm’s game-changing Offensive Operations Center (OOC).

With a wealth of over 13 years of experience in the engineering sector, Rishikesh Bhide has been recruited by CovertSwarm to accelerate its engineering capabilities and product strategy. He previously led cyber intelligence engineering at Anomali, while he has also held senior engineering and consultancy posts globally, including at PwC.

Speaking about joining as Operations Director, Louis Blackburn said: “Transitioning from a specialist area within a larger entity to a significant facet of an already substantial organisation is a captivating opportunity.

“Despite CovertSwarm being a startup, it doesn’t feel like one with its abundance of experts and the impressive trajectory it has achieved in a remarkably short timeframe.

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“My primary goal is to optimise the Swarm’s functionality. This involves not only maintaining excellence in our current strengths but also exploring innovative approaches to external attacks that shape our broader product landscape, especially the Offensive Operations Center (OOC).”

Rishikesh added: “The Offensive Operations Center is going to be central to that as we continue to develop a world-leading efficient and effective constant attack delivery platform providing meaningful and actionable business insights.

“Our vision is to redefine enterprise security risk discovery. The OOC, as our core piece, serves as the glue connecting all these dots. Thinking about Attack Surface Management or Red Teaming alone is no longer enough. Organisations need a cohesive platform for efficient constant attack delivery and that’s what the OOC is going to deliver.”

CovertSwarm’s latest senior hire comes very shortly after the company had announced that Neil Jeffries, Ronan McCrory, and Santi Quintana had joined as Finance Director, Head of Product, and Head of Marketing respectively.

These strategic hires coincide with CovertSwarm’s ongoing efforts to disrupt the conventional Attack Surface Management (ASM) market. Following a highly successful 2023, the company is set to expand its operations into North America over the next 12 months.

During 2023, the London-based company announced it had become the youngest organisation to join the Beech Tree Private Equity portfolio after receiving investment earlier this year (ranging between £10 million – £30 million), enabling its ambitious organic growth strategy and accelerating the development of its proprietary Offensive Operations Center software.

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