The types of threats that can keep business owners up worrying all night are also the very things that give Michael Spinosa the peace of mind to sleep soundly all evening.
That’s because the chief executive of Shield 7 Consulting, a Columbia-based cybersecurity firm, knows his team is prepared for the challenge to help clients keep their two most important assets safe: technology and people.
By taking the offensive on behalf of clients, Shield 7 uses penetration testing and vulnerability assessments to design, implement, manage and maintain customized services and products that protect clients from bad actors and security attacks.
“We lean heavily on prevention,” Spinosa told citybiz. “We feel that it’s much better to catch something before it happens, stop it in its tracks before it goes down, than it is to detect it while it’s happening or try to respond to it.”
Spinosa, who graduated with a computer science degree, has a background in information technology and development. In 2007, Spinosa struck out on his own to start Unleashed Technologies, a firm that builds, maintains, and hosts websites and web applications for businesses. He sold Unleashed in 2019 and joined Shield 7 a year ago.
“I was brought on for sales, marketing and strategy,” Spinosa says. “We have all the technical horsepower we need. What they need from me is to be able to create a dynamic sales team, create a dynamic strategy, growing the company so they can focus on what they do best: providing solutions to our clients.”
The firm has 10 employees now, but Spinosa expects that number to climb to 20 to 25 by the end of 2023 with a focus on building a customer base in four fields that include energy, manufacturing, healthcare, and finance.As more people and businesses outsource their servers to the public cloud, Spinosa also sees the next growth area specializing in making the public and private cloud as secure as users expect it to be.
Shield 7 is in a good position to grow as more and more businesses are hyperaware of the increasing dangers and threats to critical infrastructure, he says, pointing to the example of the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack in 2021 that shut down its ability to move oil for several days.
“It only takes a moment for the whole world to be turned upside down,” Spinosa says. But even with the constant threat of attacks, Spinosa says cooler heads will always prevail at Shield 7 to protect clients.
“The pressure is always there,” Spinosa says. “The best part about pressure is that when that pressure is constantly on you, you become numb to it, you build the ability to cope and manage that pressure that is constantly upon you. It gives us the ability to act to swiftly and keep our heads about us when we work in a marketplace that’s constantly under attack.”
Interview Questions:
Q1: Shield 7 focuses on prevention, detection, and response?
Q2: There is so much hacking going on. What does this mean for Shield 7?
Q3: How many people does Shield 7 employ?
Q4: What is driving growth?
Q5: What types of companies are you working with and what types of issues are you dealing with?
Q6: What do clients like about Shield 7 and why do they do business with Shield 7?
Q7: Companies are always under attack. Do you feel that pressure all the time?
Q8: Why did you sell Unleashed Technologies?
Q9: What the next biggest hurdle, what is your Achilles heel?
Q10: What is next in the market?
Q11: What the biggest thing you learned at Unleashed that you’re applying to what you’re doing at Shield 7?
Q12: Can you explain the story behind one of your favorite quotes: The price of anything is the life you are willing to exchange for it.
Q13: Chaos will really throw off your work life balance. You have four kids and when they look at you, what do you think they think?
Q14: What keeps you up at night?
Q15: Where do you see Shield 7 in five years?
Connect with Michael on LinkedIn
Bill Atkinson launched Atkinson Strategic Communications in January 2020 after 15 years in the public relations business and 21 years as a newspaper reporter. Clients include, Coca-Cola Consolidated, the largest bottler of Coca-Cola products in the country, the American Beverage Association, Howard Bank, Ambu, a Danish medical device maker with its U.S. headquarters in Columbia, Md., and Think Systems, a Baltimore-based management consulting firm.
Prior to starting his own firm, Atkinson was a partner in 212 Communications, which he joined in June 2015, and focused on strategic and crisis communications, media relations and grassroots strategies. Before that he was a senior vice president at global public relations agency Weber Shandwick. At Weber’s Baltimore office Atkinson specialized in strategic and crisis communications as well as reputation management. Clients included Constellation Energy, Honeywell, General Motors, Bank of America, Promontory Financial Group and 1st Mariner Bank.
Shield 7 Consulting is a company that operates in the Computer Network & Security industry. It employs 6-10 people and has $1M-$5M of revenue. The company is headquartered in Crownsville, Maryland.
Upcoming events: https://shield7.com/upcoming-events/
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