Best Startup
At Best Startup UK we track over 130,000 UK startups and over 500,000 people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top United Kingdom based Principal operating in the Security space. If you think a Principal is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on editor@beststartup.co.uk.
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Companies House UK, Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
Nic Jackson
Principal Developer Advocate of HashiCorp
Nic Jackson is a developer advocate and polyglot programmer working for HashiCorp, and the author of “Building Microservices in Go” a book which examines the best patterns and practices for building microservices with the Go programming language. In his spare time, Nic coaches and mentors at Coder Dojo, teaches at Women Who Go and GoBridge, speaks and evangelizes good coding practice, process, and technique
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About HashiCorp: HashiCorp is a remote-first company that solves development, security, and operations challenges in infrastructure.
Ollie Gayton
Principal Consultant of Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Ollie leads the Cloud Infrastructure for Azure and Azure Stack practice for HPE Pointnext UK&I. His team is responsible for designing and implementing secure and scalable foundational cloud environments capable of hosting multiple types of workload – IaaS and PaaS – as well as defining and implementing clients’ cloud migration plans.
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About Hewlett Packard Enterprise: Hewlett Packard Enterprise is an industry technology company that enables customers to go further and faster.
Janet Williams
Director & Principal Advisor of CybSafe
Janet helps us keep the bigger picture on Cyber Security. in perspective. Janet, a former Chief Police Officer in the Metropolitan Police Service, held the National Law Enforcement Portfolio for Cyber-Crime 2008 – 2012. She developed the first police E-Crime Unit and was the Law Enforcement Lead engaged in writing the first UK Cyber Security Strategy in the Cabinet Office. She was the government Law-Enforcement Lead for Cyber-Crime for the 2012 Olympic Games taking her place at COBR. And in 2013, as a Non-Executive Director of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, she helped develop the organisation’s cyber security strategy. She is currently the National Security Adviser to the Security Committee of Qatar, where she advises on the development of Qatar’s cyber security capability and response. Janet works to enhance SME cyber security across the UK through her work as President of the Cross-sector Safety & Security (CSSC) charity. She is also a member of the Information Assurance Advisory Council (IAAC).
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About CybSafe: A behavioural security and data analytics platform helps people make better security decisions, and improve their security behaviour.
Jean Page
Principal Technologist of BAE Systems
Jean has been a practicing Human Factors (HF) engineer in BAE Systems’s Air Sector since 1990 when she joined the BAE Systems research and technology department researching new Human Machine Interface (HMI) technologies in the context of future aircraft concepts. She is a chartered Ergonomist & Human Factors Engineer and a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Ergonomics & Human Factors Jean was the HF lead on two aircraft programmes: The Nimrod MRA4 programme (1994-1999) and the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) aircraft (1999-2006) being responsible for the HF Integration programme elements including conducting HF analyses and ensuring that the HMI was designed according to human engineering principles and within agreed costs. This also involved providing design input and performing assessments of the developing design so as to ensure safe, reliable and efficient usage, and to increase system effectiveness. On the F-35 programme she was also ultimately responsible for the maintainer, trainer and builder human interfaces. From 2006-2012 Jean was Head of the HF Shared Service at Warton, a team of Human Factors individuals who undertake a wide range of HF work on behalf of the MAI business. Since 2006, she has also been the Head of the HF Discipline within MAI, responsible for human factors capability and governance management and for performing specific human factors work including aircrew duty of care and future concept research. In 2015 she was appointed as the Human Factors Lead Technologist in MAI. She is also a BAE Systems Global Engineering Fellow.
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About BAE Systems: BAE Systems designs, develops, and supports defense and aerospace systems used in the air, on land, at sea, and in space.
Gautham Gnanajothi
Principal, Energy & Environment | Regional Leader, BP Research of Frost & Sullivan
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About Frost & Sullivan, Frost & Sullivan: Frost and Sullivan is a business growth consultation company focused on increasing brand demand.
Afzal Ali
Principal Engineer & Expert – Synthetic Environments & Experimentation of Airbus Defence & Space
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About Airbus Defence & Space: Airbus Defence & Space develops and engineers products in the fields of defense and space.
Ben Owens
Principal Cloud Consultant Lead of Cloudreach
Ben is a Principle Cloud Consultant Lead at Cloudreach. Ben has over 20 years experience spanning Financial Services and Technology. He is currently concentrating on helping senior leadership teams in large organisations, both Private and Govt Sector, achieve really business benefit from Public Cloud Adoption by focusing on People and Processes. Ben’s area of interest are Culture, Organisational Design, Organisational Change and People and spans across AWS, Azure and GCP.
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About Cloudreach: Cloudreach is a Global cloud enabler with extensive experience across all industries, workloads and use cases.
Dean Stevenson
Principal Pre-Sales Consultant of HID Global
Dean is a Senior Security Consultant with over 10 years’ experience in IT, specialising in security for Identity and Access Management. At HID Global, the trusted source for Secure Identity Solutions, Dean has responsibility as Technical Account Manager for European, Middle Eastern and Sub-Saharan Africa regions. Dean has led many major security projects with HID Global including projects within Government, Security Agencies, Police, Telcos, Petrochemical and Financial Services. With Dean’s in-depth knowledge and understanding of organizations security requirements and of HID Global’s portfolio consisting of strong authentication, credential management, and single-credential solutions, Dean has enabled enterprise, financial services and government customers to meet their security and compliance requirements using the industry’s broadest range of identity assurance solutions. Dean is a graduate of Bournemouth University with a First class Honours degree in Computing. Prior to joining HID Global he held a Graduate position at Kingfisher PLC.
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About HID Global: HID Global develops access control and secure identity solutions such as smart cards, readers, printers, RFID tags, and software.
Chris Hewertson
Principal | CIO | CTO | Board Advisory of Freeman Clarke
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About Freeman Clarke: Freeman Clarke creates, manages, and executes technological strategies and solutions to help one’s company grow.
Thomas Cannon
Principal Consultant of NCC Group
Thomas Cannon is the former Director of R&D at viaForensics LLC.
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About NCC Group: NCC Group exists to make the world safer and more secure.
Saher Naumaan
Principal Threat Intelligence Analyst of BAE Systems Applied Intelligence
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About BAE Systems Applied Intelligence: Information security consulting firm.
David Christiansen
Principal Technologist of Leidos holdings
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About Leidos holdings: Leidos holdings is a provider of scientific, engineering, systems integration and technical services and solutions.
Ian Greig
Principal Scientist of Ministry of Defence – UK
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About Ministry of Defence – UK: Ministry of Defence UK is the British government department responsible for implementing defence and headquarters the British Armed Forces.
Balendra Elangco
Principal Consultant of PA Consulting Group
Balendra has been delivering enterprise security architecture and solutions for financial services, telecoms, media and packaged goods that include Financial Extranets and a large Payment Card transmission network. He has experience in designing, implementing and maintaining solutions (technical and governance) that meet compliance requirements such as PCI DSS and ISO 27001. He has also led managed security services teams for multinationals with global footprints. He is an exam developer for CISSP at ISC².
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About PA Consulting Group: PA Consulting Group provides management consulting, IT consulting, and technology and innovation services.
Rodrigo Marcos
Principal consultant of SECFORCE
Rodrigo caught the hacking bug when he was 14 years old, after he hacked into his dad’s computer. After discovering his passion for white-hat hacking he started his career in the offensive security industry, eventually founding SECFORCE where he is currently CEO. SECFORCE provides IT security and penetration testing services to some of the biggest brands and government organisations in the world. During his career, Rodrigo has seen an increasing demand in security services from iGaming companies, which seek to safeguard their IT assets against Internet-borne attacks. With a wide knowledge of the offensive security arena and with a vast experience in online services, Rodrigo has an unparalleled understanding of current and future cyber-threats affecting iGaming businesses. Having published a number of books, articles and tools in the topic of penetration testing and IT security, Rodrigo is a sought after speaker who has participated in conferences and seminars all around the world.
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About SECFORCE: SECFORCE are vendor independent penetration testing, security specialists providing effective business risk intelligence, security guidance.
Aaron Rendell
Microsoft Cloud Principal Architect of Transparity
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About Transparity: Transparity are a leading Microsoft Gold and Direct CSP Partner delivering business transformation through public, private.
Robert Orr
Cyber Security Principal Consultant – CNI of Context Information Security
Rob leads information and cyber security regulation of the UK civil nuclear sector, in order to ensure the safety of the public, the protection and safeguarding of nuclear material, the non-proliferation of enrichment technologies, and the control of sensitive nuclear information. He is responsible for enabling, influencing, assuring and ensuring the transformation of cyber security and information assurance across the UK civil nuclear sector, through effective and efficient regulation. Prior to this appointment, Rob managed cyber security policy, strategy and programme/project assurance for the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. His background is in intelligence, security and telecommunications management and leadership roles within the MOD. Rob holds degrees in Politics and International Relations (LSE), in Defence Technology (Cranfield), and in Advanced Computer Security & Digital Forensics (Edinburgh Napier).
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About Context Information Security: Context Information Security is a cybersecurity consultancy, specialising in assurance, technical security research.
Marcin Bogdanski
Principal Software Engineer and Director of DroneX
Marcin has a lifelong passion for robotics and technology. He started as robotic systems enthusiast but has progressed his career quickly from the realms of the technology to project management, to complete operations management for a medium sized R&D company. He has worked on robots including rovers, crawlers, underwater vehicles, surface vessels, helicopters, multirotors, fixed wings and other. This includes large commercial projects, offshore sector, academic research and hobby. Eventually, Marcin founded his own business, DroneX. A company blazing the trail for commercial drone technology, enabling people, customers within industry and likewise, to integrate the newest robotic technologies into their business.
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About DroneX: DroneX designs, develops bespoke Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and related technologies for commercial and scientific use.
David Everett
CEO and Principal Consultant of Microexpert
David Everett is a leading authority on the security design of electronic payment systems. With a cryptographic background and extensive knowledge of the tamper resistant properties of smart cards and HSMs (Hardware Security Modules) David is able to assist clients with a deeper understanding of electronic payment systems and digital currencies. His expertise also includes novel approaches to securing data in the cloud and IOT. David is the CEO of Microexpert which provides consultancy services in electronic payment and transaction systems. The company has been advising clients on digital security for over 30 years. David is the co-founder of Tibado, a central ledger electronic cash system and prior to that was commissioned by the Royal Canadian Mint to analyse the future of electronic payments which culminated in the design of MintChip, an electronic cash system for both the physical and virtual worlds. Previously he was engaged by NatWest bank to design a fiat based digital currency system using public key cryptography that became known as Mondex. This also led to the invention of Multos, a secure multi-application Smartcard OS with a PKI based control module. David also represented the UK banks on the original research work designed to improve card verification methods. This eventually led to the chip and pin system adopted internationally today. As a consultant to eftPOS UK David undertook the security design of a national debit card system which resulted in the first significant commercial use of public key cryptography. Previously he was contracted by CHAPS, the UKs Clearing House Automated Payment Scheme as co-designer of the security scheme. As a cryptography consultant, David is particularly able to help his clients with the business and technical architecture of modern electronic payment systems, authentication, IOT security and digital currencies. Apart from his numerous lectures David also undertakes training sessions on various aspects of electronic payments and transactions.
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About Microexpert: Microexpert are an independent data security consultancy and are leading experts in the application of cryptography.
