Absolute Leadership
Meet the team whose proven ability to innovate and execute is delivering self-healing, intelligent security solutions to our customers around the globe.
Charles Blauner
Charles Blauner is an internationally recognized expert independent advisor on Cyber Resiliency, Information Security Risk Management and Data Privacy.
Charles is a Partner and CISO in Residence at Team8 Ventures and a Venture Advisor at the Cyber Mentors Fund. Charles is also the President of Cyber Aegis, a boutique cyber risk management consultancy.
Previously, Charles had a distinguished career working on Information Security for over 30 years, 25 years in Financial Services, including being the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank, and most recently the Global Head of Information Security at Citi.
During this time, Charles held numerous industry leadership roles including Chair of the Financial Services Sector Coordinating Council (FSSCC), founding Director of the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FS-ISAC), and the Chair of the OpenGroup’s Security Program.
Charles has worked closely with banking regulators around the world (OCC, FRB, BoE, MAS, and HKMA) to help reduce the risk posed by cyber threats to the financial sector at large.
Charles is a regular conference speaker and has had the honor of appearing in front of US House and Senate committees.
In 2015, Charles was recognized by his peers, winning the Wasserman Award, which recognizes outstanding career achievement and contribution to the Information Systems Audit, Control, Security, Risk Management, and/or Governance professions.
Charles has a M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Southern California (USC) and a B.S. in Computer Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI).
Arthur W. Coviello, Jr.
Security investor and advisor
Executive Chairman (retired)
RSA, The Security Division of Dell technologies (EMC)
Art Coviello is an active investor and advisor in the security industry, guiding a number of security startups as a private investor and in his roles as a Venture Partner at Rally Ventures (an early stage investor in business technologies), as an adviser to ClearSky Security Fund, and as a Senior Advisor to Blackstone’s Tactical Opportunities Group.
Art Coviello served as Executive Chairman of RSA and Executive Vice President of EMC. Mr. Coviello has been a central figure within the information security industry for more than 25 years. His vision and strategic and financial management as long-time head of RSA helped drive the company’s growth to revenues of over $1 billion in 2014 when he retired. Under his leadership, he built the most respected, vendor agnostic event in cybersecurity, RSA Conference. His expertise and influence have made him a recognized leader in the industry. He is frequently a featured presenter at conferences and forums around the world, and he has played key roles in several national cyber-security initiatives.
Mr. Coviello serves on the Board of Directors at Synchrony Financial, Bugcrowd, Tenable, Capsule8, ZeroNorth, and SecZetta.
Prior to RSA, Mr. Coviello had extensive executive management experience in several technology companies. He started his career as a certified public accountant at Deloitte, Haskins & Sells (Deloitte.)
Mr. Coviello graduated magna cum laude from the University of Massachusetts in 1975 with a BBA, concentration in accounting.
Paul F. Deninger
Paul Deninger is an experienced Board Director, accomplished CEO, recognized expert in strategy and innovation management, and acknowledged thought leader in the B2B technology, venture capital, and private equity communities.
Over the past 30 years, he has advised hundreds of CEOs and boards on shareholder value creation, including how to leverage technology to achieve transformation and growth. He also has deep capital markets experience, having completed over 150 IPO, M&A, and financing transactions with the world’s leading technology companies and top-tier investment firms.
Since 2010, Paul has been a Board Member for Iron Mountain (NYSE: IRM), a $10B market cap company dedicated to protecting and managing information and assets, and a leader in document and media storage. He has served on the Finance, Compensation, CEO Search, and Risk & Safety Committees, as well as a special committee to manage issues related to an outside activist.
In 2018, he was named to the board of Resideo Technologies (NYSE: REZI) - a spin-out of Honeywell (NYSE: HON). Residio has $4.5B in revenue and is a leader in the emerging Connected Home space, with products and solutions in residential comfort, security, and fire safety. In 2019, he was also named to the board of EverQuote, (NASDAQ: EVER), the leading U.S. online marketplace for consumer auto, home and life insurance.
Paul’s additional board experience includes: former Lead Director and Member of the Compensation Committee for Netegrity (NASDAQ: NETE), former Board Member for The Boston Globe, former Member of the Board of Trustees for Match Charter Public School. He is a Member of the Presidential Advisory Council for Berklee College of Music, and former Board Chairman and current Board Member for the Berklee City Music program.
Earlier in his career, Paul served as CEO and Chairman of Broadview from 1996 to 2003 where he grew the business from $50M to $300M and established Broadview as the leading technology M&A advisory firm. In 2003, he led the company’s sale to Jefferies, where he subsequently served eight years as Vice Chairman and spearheaded the firm’s entry into the tech IPO market, achieving a #2 ranking in IPO covers in just four years. Paul currently serves as a senior advisor to Evercore, a highly reputed investment bank, having previously been a Senior Managing Director there since 2011.
Paul has been a keynote speaker at many technology industry events and was a 14-year attendee at the World Economic Forum at Davos, a member of the US Treasury IPO Task Force that led to the 2012 JOBS Act, and a member of the Executive Council of TechNet - a national network of technology CEOs and senior executives.
Paul earned his MBA from Harvard Business School and his BS from Boston College.
Ann S. Johnson
Corporate Vice President, Cybersecurity Solutions Group
Ann Johnson is Corporate Vice President, Cybersecurity Solutions Group for Microsoft. She oversees the team responsible for helping organizations become operationally resilient on their digital transformation journey, and to unlock the security, compliance and identity capabilities of Microsoft’s intelligent cloud and next generation AI. She is a member of the board of advisors for FS-ISAC (The Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center), an advisory board member for EWF (Executive Women’s Forum on Information Security, Risk Management & Privacy), and an advisory board member for HYPR Corp. Ann recently joined the board of advisors for Cybersecurity Ventures. For more about Microsoft’s Cybersecurity Solutions, visit the Microsoft Security Site, or follow Microsoft Security on Twitter at Msft Security Twitter or Msft WDSecurity Twitter.
John Zangardi
John Zangardi is an executive with over three decades of experience as a leader in transforming and implementing information technology, and strengthening business initiatives and partnerships. As the President of Redhorse, John is responsible for streamlining daily operations for efficiency and growth. He is creating a path to center Redhorse as an industry leader in information technology and digital and data services. He also serves on the Board of Directors at Qualys and Symetrica. Previously, John worked at Leidos as a senior vice president responsible for business initiatives and strategic partnerships on key strategic areas such as digital transformation, security products/services, and logistics.
John has a track record of implementing information technology efficiently across his time in government service. His distinguished career includes Chief Information Officer for the Department of Homeland Security, where John led multiple initiatives to implement cybersecurity technology, cloud computing, and data analytics, and identity management and telecommunications. His work for DHS garnered recognition by Federal Computer Week for his work in transforming DHS into, “one of the federal government’s top IT performers.”
Prior to his appointment as CIO of DHS, John was the Acting CIO at the Department of Defense (DoD) – a position he assumed from his role as Principal Deputy Chief Information Officer. During this time, John represented the Department at NATO’s C3 Board. He previously served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Information Operations, and Space, the Department of the Navy Chief Information Officer, and Director of Program Integration on the staff of the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Information Warfare. John began his time in government service in the US Navy as a Naval Flight Officer where he served in various staff and command assignments.
A native of Scranton, Pa., he graduated from the University of Scranton. He earned a Master of Science degree from the Naval Postgraduate School and a Doctor of Philosophy degree from George Mason University, where his dissertation topic was the regulation of Top-Level Domain Names.
What our customers love about Absolute
“We are amazed at their Persistence technology. An IT team member took a hard drive out and put it on another machine. The Absolute software client created itself on the new machine and the old machine with a new hard drive. Indestructible.”
David Reynolds - Systems Manager, IT
Rhode Island Blood Center
