Our story, mission, and dedicated team
Our passionate team believes in protecting people from those who would use their information against them.
The story behind Picnic
For decades, the promise of big data was on the horizon as a means to make sense out of our digital chaos.
The big data wave crested and crashed: there is more data at the fingertips of any human than anytime in history – all you need is a smartphone and the internet. While there are many positives associated with such rapid innovation, a dangerous current cuts through our online world: hackers also use big data tools to make cents from the digital chaos.
Until now, the cybersecurity industry has done what it knows how to do best: harden infrastructure.
By locking hackers out of systems, traditional cybersecurity vendors tried to stem the tide of attacks. We are at an inflection point: further hardening of infrastructure is a losing battle, because hackers know that they only need to trick a human to defeat the most powerful technical solutions.
The human operating system is fallible.
Love, fear, curiosity, and other emotions present potential ways that we can be manipulated, and personal information about each of us tells hackers what our passions and concerns are. This fundamental situation is the reason the social engineering problem is so challenging to resolve, and has remained such a threat.
The world digitized faster than society ever imagined.​
Working to secure the human OS and protect good people from bad ones.
Recognizing that our own data trails are being used against us, and that humans are vulnerable to exploitation, Picnic’s founders realized that the solution to the social engineering problem – the way to protect people from those who would use their information against them – is to think like a hacker, to focus on harnessing the power of information for good, and to provide people with the means to reduce their visibility and accessibility to social engineers by controlling their data footprint. Our team was built to achieve this.
Matt Polak
Chief Executive Officer
Matt is a subject matter expert in intelligence collection, having spent his career applying these skills to intractable growth and competitive strategy challenges for Fortune 500 customers. Matt’s extensive experience and expertise in the field of human intelligence inspired Picnic’s creation as a means to protect people from open-source intelligence gathering by hackers.
Prior to founding Picnic, he was the founding partner of BroadBranch Advisors where he directly supported over $200B of successful M&A transactions in over a dozen industries ranging from cybersecurity to life sciences. Early career roles included working in investment banking and as an intelligence analyst. Matt holds dual MBAs from the UCLA Anderson School of Management and Escuela de Negocios de la Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez (Chile). He received his BA in International Affairs from James Madison University.
Marco Gomez​
Chief of Staff
With over 10 years of experience solving challenges across the private, public, and non-profit sectors, Marco is a strategy consultant at heart with a deep interest and expertise in technology, data, and cybersecurity.
Michael Hans
Engineering
Michael is responsible for all Engineering and Data Science at Picnic. Before Picnic, Michael was VP of Engineering at IronNet Cybersecurity and Director of Engineering at Socially Determined with years of public and private sector product development.
Ben Andreas
Managed Services
Ben focuses on customer-centric relationship-building and collaboration. He has over 15 years of experience partnering with private and public enterprise organizations to deliver cutting-edge cybersecurity solutions. Ben has previously held leadership positions with XTec, Intercede, and EMC (RSA).
Matt Price
Product Management
Matt leads the product team at Picnic. Â He brings a broad array of experiences focused on AI/ML in the cybersecurity industry across multiple disciplines, platforms, architectures, and programming languages. Prior to joining Picnic, he worked in research engineering at ZeroFOX and FireEye.
Felisha Mouchous
Threat Intelligence
Felisha leads Picnic’s Global Threat Intelligence function. She is an Ethical Hacker who previously led the Penetration Testing Team for the UK’s Central Bank. Felisha holds an MSc in Information Security from Royal Holloway, University of London as well as a certified information systems security professional (CISSP) certification.
Katie Hayes
Human Resources
Katie is a Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) certified professional with a background in strategic communication and operations. She works on all things related to human resources and operations at Picnic.
Drew van Vliet
Business Development
Drew leads the business development team at Picnic. He holds a degree in Psychology from the University of Baltimore. Before joining Picnic, he worked in Sales at Dragos and Tenable.
Matias Comella
Marketing
Matias runs all things marketing at Picnic. He has been a cybersecurity marketer for over 15 years, working at Symantec (Broadcom), Netsurion, and Elisity. Before jumping into cybersecurity, he ran marketing for a successful start-up in the defense industry.
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Move beyond the corporate perimeter to reduce human risk and proactively safeguard against cyber threats.