NDAC

Failed

NightDragon Acquisition Corp.

Raised
$300M
CIK
1837067
SPAC Ticker
NDACU
Focus
Cybersecurity, Security, Decentralized Computing, Artificial Intelligence, IoT, Logistics
External link: SEC Filings

SPAC Team

Leadership

Dave DeWalt is a veteran CEO, board member, advisor and investor who has led numerous software and cybersecurity companies, from startups to the Fortune 500, on transformational journeys of success. As President, and CEO of three major public companies, more than $6 billion of stockholder value was created during his tenure. Another $14 billion of stockholder value was created during his service as a member of the boards of successful enterprise software companies such as Forescout, Mandiant, Five9, Jive Software, Polycom, MatrixOne and Serena.

Today, Dave is the Founder and Managing Director of NightDragon, a venture capital firm investing in innovative growth and late stage companies within the CSSP industry. He is also the Executive Chairman of Momentum Cyber, a cybersecurity advisory and investment bank, and Managing Director of Allegis Cyber, an early-stage venture capital firm focused on cybersecurity investments.

Dave has been a CEO for 17 years, most recently as FireEye’s CEO from November 2012 to June 2016, and Chairman of the Board from May 2012 to February 2017, a period in which the company’s revenues grew more than 10 times. Prior to FireEye, he served as President and CEO of McAfee, Inc. from March 2006 until its acquisition by Intel for $7.7 billion closed in 2011. At the time, this was the largest all cash deal in high technology history. Prior to McAfee, from 2003 to 2007, Dave held executive positions with EMC Corporation, a provider of information infrastructure technology and solutions, including serving as EVP and President of Customer Operations and Content Management Software. He joined EMC through the Documentum acquisition in 2003, where he served as President and Chief Executive Officer, and led the company through nine consecutive quarters of growth, five record revenue quarters and four acquisitions.

Dave also held various executive positions at Quest Software, Segue and Oracle. Over the course of his career he has helped build companies from startup (Eventus, Quest) to midsize (Documentum, Segue) to market-leading global corporations (Oracle, EMC).

Dave’s current investments and board roles include Optiv, ForgeRock, Claroty, Securing SAM, Illusive Networks and Premise Data. He is also on the board of Team8, an Israeli startup incubator, and is a board advisor to DataTribe, a startup studio based in the Washington, D.C. area. Dave serves on the board of Delta Air Lines, and is the chairman of the board’s safety, and security committee. He was appointed by President Barack Obama to the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Council (NSTAC) and continued to serve under President Donald Trump. The committee, composed of telecommunications and technology industry CEOs, advises and provides recommendations to the President, and other government leaders on matters of security that relate to the nation’s telecommunications systems.

A recognized authority on cybersecurity, Dave has spoken at the World Economic Forum in Davos on the issue of cybersecurity, and keynoted at several technology industry conferences including Interop, and RSA. Dave has also participated in panel discussions alongside world leaders, and served as an advisor to the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency, among others. He was named one of the 25 most influential executives in high technology by the readers of the industry publication CRN. Cyber Defense Magazine calls him one of the most brilliant and successful minds in the industry. Throughout his career, Dave has worked alongside members of the NightDragon Team in an operating and investing role.

Dave received his Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the University of Delaware in 1986.

Dave has been selected to serve on our board of directors because of his extensive senior management and board expertise in the information technology security industry.

Mark Garrett serves as Chair of the Audit Committee for the Board of Directors of Cisco, Pure Storage and Snowflake. Additionally, he is a member of the Audit Committee of GoDaddy. He also serves on the Board of Directors of HireRight and is a Strategic Advisor to General Atlantic. With more than 30 years of financial management experience in the technology sector, Mr. Garrett has worked with many leading companies.

Most recently, Mark served as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Adobe from February 2007 to April 2018. Mark played a pivotal role and has been credited with successfully guiding Adobe and investors through Adobe’s Digital Media business unit transformation to a full cloud-based subscription model and away from the physical, shrink-wrapped product with a perpetual license model. Under his guidance as Executive Vice President, and CFO, Adobe completed the transition to a cloud-based subscription model.

Prior to Adobe, Mark was the Senior Vice President, and CFO of EMC Software Group of EMC Corp.

Prior to EMC, he was Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Documentum, Inc., and co-led its $1.7 billion acquisition with a 29% premium by EMC in December 2003. Following the acquisition, he became Senior Vice President and CFO of EMC’s Software Group until February 2007. Previous accounting and finance management positions include tenures at IBM and Cadence.

In 2017, Mark was awarded Best CFO in Software by the Institutional Investor All America Executive Team ranking, and in 2015, was rated Public Company CFO of the Year by Silicon Valley Business Journal.

He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting and Marketing from Boston University, and an MBA from Marist College.

Mark has been selected to serve on our board of directors because of his extensive history of leadership in finance and accounting in the technology industry, including experience in product and business model transition and transformation to the cloud, and his experience serving as a public company director.

Ken Gonzalez has been a senior operating executive at technology companies for over 20 years. He has led the strategy, corporate business development, and channel functions for market leading public and private technology companies, including McAfee and FireEye alongside Dave DeWalt and Siebel Systems (Oracle) and Avast.

Today, Ken is the Managing Director of NightDragon, a venture capital firm investing in innovative growth and late stage companies within the CSSP industry. He is also a Partner of Momentum Cyber, a cybersecurity advisory and investment bank. Ken is also a member of the general partnership of Cyber Innovation Partners II, L.P., an early-stage venture capital fund formed by AllegisCyber focused on early stage cybersecurity investing. Ken also serves as an Advisor to YL Ventures, an American-Israeli early-stage venture capital firm. Ken was previously a Managing Director at Forgepoint Capital.

Prior to starting his investing career, Ken was a senior operating executive at various technology companies. Most recently, Ken was the Senior Vice President of Corporate Development, Global Alliances and Channels at FireEye, a publicly listed cybersecurity company. He led these functions from 2013 to 2017, through its IPO, and its transformational acquisition of Mandiant.

Prior to FireEye, he served as the Chief Strategy Officer of Avast from 2011 through 2012. In this role he ran the company’s strategy and corporate development efforts. He was the first U.S.-based employee and had the responsibility of establishing and growing North American operations. He served as Senior Vice President of Corporate Development at McAfee, Inc. from 2006 until its acquisition by Intel in 2011. Prior to McAfee, from 1998 to 2006, Ken was the Vice President of Corporate Development at Siebel Systems from 1998 until its acquisition by Oracle in 2006.

During his career in technology he has worked on 40 acquisitions, including 23 in cybersecurity. He has created, managed and grown numerous strategic go-to-market partnerships from technology integration to OEM and to resale and two-tier distribution.

Ken is a graduate of Harvard Business School and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He served in the U.S. Army as an infantry officer with the 82nd Airborne Division and the 75th Ranger Regiment.

Ken has been selected to serve on our board of directors because of his extensive experience as a senior operating executive in the technology industry, including his history of leadership in strategy and corporate development.

Barbara Massa has over 25 years of experience driving innovation, workforce strategy and organizational effectiveness. Barbara has led people and organizational readiness activities for a diverse range of businesses, from startup stages through initial public offerings and major public companies. Her exceptional ability to attract and recruit top level talent, combined with her significant experience in mergers and acquisitions, pre-IPO, startup environments and in mature Fortune 500 organizations, sets Barbara apart as a powerful advisor to companies looking to scale.

Barbara joined FireEye in January 2013 as Executive Vice President of People & Places, where she helped scale the company from approximately 400 to approximately 2,800 employees in 2.5 years. Most recently, in January 2020, Barbara was asked to expand her responsibilities as Executive Vice President and Chief of Business Operations to include Information Technology and Security (Information & Physical). Barbara has directly recruited many c-suite executives and over 50 other senior leaders to FireEye. She helped to establish and implement the company’s first global human resources systems and processes, succession planning programs, employee engagement methodologies, learning and development and total rewards strategies, human resources operations and human resources partnering functions. Under Barbara’s leadership, FireEye has been recognized on various lists of best places to work in locations where FireEye has operations.

Before joining FireEye, Barbara served as Vice President of Global Talent & Diversity at McAfee, Inc. During her tenure, McAfee was consistently named a “top employer,” and received high employee engagement scores. Prior to McAfee, Barbara served as Senior Director of Talent at EMC, where she was responsible for the approximately 40,000 employee organization and led a geographically dispersed recruiting and infrastructure staff of more than 200 individuals. In this role, Barbara advised on 19 acquisitions from due diligence through integration.

Kara Wilson has over 25 years of experience driving disruptive go-to-market strategies for leading companies such as Rubrik, FireEye, Okta, SuccessFactors and SAP. Kara has launched brands, created categories and navigated companies’ growth through initial public offerings, and is passionate about redefining the traditional approach to marketing.

Kara is a general investor, board member and advisor to corporations and technology startups in the United States and Europe. Kara is currently a strategic advisor for KKR, where she assists with due diligence and counsels their high-growth portfolio companies on go-to-market strategy and execution. Kara most recently served as Chief Marketing Officer at Rubrik from June 2017 to May 2019.

Prior to Rubrik, Kara was Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for FireEye. Kara has also served as the Chief Marketing Officer for Okta, SuccessFactors, SAP and Network General and held marketing leadership positions at Cisco and PeopleSoft. She sits on the boards of cybersecurity companies ReliaQuest and KnowBe4 and previously served as an advisor to ForeScout. Kara is also a director on the boards of Paychex, OneStream, OutSystems, Corel and Calabrio. Kara’s highly analytic and data driven approach to marketing comes with a relentless focus on developing go-to-market programs that drive deals, not just leads.

Kara received a Bachelor of Arts in Political Economy from the University of California, Berkeley.

Morgan Kyauk brings a wealth of experience leading corporate development and merger and acquisition strategy for companies of all sizes—from late stage, pre-IPO companies to large, serial acquirers. Today, Morgan is a Partner at NightDragon, a venture capital firm investing in innovative growth and late stage companies within the CSSP industry.

Prior to his role at NightDragon, Morgan was the Vice President of Corporate Development at FireEye, where he was responsible for the evaluation, execution and integration of all acquisition, investment and strategic partnering activity for the company. Morgan originally joined FireEye in early 2013, working with Dave DeWalt, Ken Gonzalez, Barbara Massa and Kara Wilson during his time there. While at FireEye, he led corporate development efforts leading up to its IPO and through its transformative acquisitions, which included FireEye’s acquisition of Mandiant, iSIGHT Partners and Verodin. Morgan was also responsible for the integration of the acquired companies, working closely with the targets’ management teams in operationalizing the synergies behind each of the transactions. In addition, Morgan was also Head of Corporate Development at Dropbox, leading the creation of its acquisition strategy, pipeline and process prior to its initial public offering as well. Earlier in his career, Morgan held corporate development roles at Juniper Networks and Hewlett Packard, where he helped both companies establish and execute on its cybersecurity strategy through a series of acquisitions in the CSSP industry. Morgan began his career advising technology companies on M&A transactions while at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Morgan received his MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and his bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and Economics from the University of California, Berkeley.

Steve Simonian has over 20 years of experience as chief financial officer of various Silicon Valley-based venture capital firms. Steve has been the Chief Financial Officer of NightDragon, a venture capital firm investing in innovative growth and late stage companies within the CSSP industry, since June 2019.

In addition to his role at NightDragon, Steve has served as CFO of AllegisCyber, an early-stage venture capital firm that works closely with NightDragon, since May 2015. Steve also has his own consulting practice, S Squared Consulting, where he has provided finance and operational services for venture capital, private equity and operating companies since 2013. Steve served as CFO of August Capital from 2008 to 2013, and before that, as CFO of Gabriel Venture Partners from 2003 to 2008 and as CFO of Meritech Capital Partners from 1999 to 2003.

Steve has a Bachelor of Arts in Business Economics, Accounting and Finance from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is a Certified Public Accountant (non practicing).

The past performance of our management team or their respective affiliates is not a guarantee either: (i) of success with respect to any business combination we may consummate; or (ii) that we will be able to identify a suitable candidate for our initial business combination. No member of our management team has had management experience with any special purpose acquisition company in the past. You should not rely on the historical record of our management team’s or their respective affiliates’ performance as indicative of future performance.