Our Team
Dave Porcello, Founder and CEO
Building on over 10 years of IT leadership, security, and entrepreneurial experience, Dave Porcello founded Pwnie Express in January 2010 with a clear vision of providing unique hardware and unparalleled expertise to the global security industry. At The School for Field Studies, Dave served as the IT Director for a technology infrastructure including six international field stations. After this venture, Dave transitioned into a highly successful IT security management role at Vermont Mutual Insurance. Drawing on a variety of sharply-developed technical and IT leadership disciplines, Dave provides the solid foundation required to ensure the company's success.
Jonathan Cran, CTO and Software Lead
Jonathan joined Pwnie Express to lead the development of our security assessment platform. He previously built and ran the quality assurance program for Rapid7's Metasploit products. Before joining Metasploit, Jonathan was a penetration tester and assessment team lead with Rapid7. Jonathan has been heavily involved in the open source and security communities for eight years, was a developer and network administrator for Iowa State University, and is an advisor for the SOURCE Boston conference.
Jed Kalkstein, CFO
Jed Kalkstein has a diverse background that includes operating roles in executive management of startup and growth stage companies, turnarounds, and venture capital investing. Prior to relocating to Vermont, Jed was in a CFO role with Perimeter Internetworking Corporation, responsible for investor communications, HR, legal affairs, contract negotiations, acquisitions, finance and accounting. Prior to Perimeter, Jed was a partner at Connecticut Innovations, Inc., a state-affiliated $100M venture capital fund, and served as a political appointee at the U.S. Department of Justice.
Chris Essler, Enterprise Sales
Chris is responsible for the strategic growth of the Global Sales & Business Development organization. Prior to joining Pwnie Express, Chris lead North American Sales at Axceler, a global leader in security and governance software; where he played a pivotal role in growing product revenue 5,350% from 2008 through 2011, as well as building out new offices in both Boston and Los Angeles. Chris’s expertise includes developing highly-scalable enterprise software sales teams, strategic alliance development, and new market penetration. Chris holds a bachelor’s degree from Stonehill College and has previously held senior sales leadership positions at Percussion Software.
M. Anthony Hughes, Federal Sales
Mr Hughes' broad range of experience include previous positions as security engineer, security consult, PKI engineer, senior product manager, senior security analyst, security practice director and independent consultant. He is US army retired, where he maintained cryptographic and communications security voice systems and served as an Information Systems Security Officer. He has extensive background in risk management program development methodologies and has presented on regulatory compliance and security convergence. Mr. Hughes is affiliated with the Information Systems Audit and Control Association and the International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium and the founding president of the Carolinas Information Systems Security Association.