ABOUT US

Kate Hartshorn

Vice President of Legal Affairs

Since 2017, Kaitlin has provided crucial legal navigation to Protegrity. Kaitlin is a member of the New York and Florida Bar, and with her years of experience in enterprise affairs, Kaitlin now leads all legal affairs at Protegrity, delivering, executing, and leading Protegrity’s legal team to ensure lawful business conduct. Previously, she served as Assistant General Counsel at Health Care Navigator, which provides consulting services in the post-acute and long-term care sectors throughout the United States. When she’s not handling all corporate governance for the company, she’s exercising her skills in drafting and negotiating commercial contracts that mitigate Protegrity’s business risks.

In her free time, Kaitlin can be found spending time with her puppies.

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Michael Howard

Chief Executive Officer

Michael Howard brings decades of leadership in enterprise software, specializing in database management, cloud computing, data security, machine learning, and Generative AI. Marked by a proven track record of driving innovation and transforming businesses into global powerhouses. Howard’s experience across enterprise software, specializing in database management, cloud computing, security, machine learning and Generative AI will prove invaluable as he leads Protegrity into its next phase of growth. Most recently, Howard led groundbreaking software initiatives in Deep Tech at RoadRunner Ventures Studio and in Text-to Analytics at Bodo.ai. Prior to this, Michael served as CEO at MariaDB, where he evolved MariaDB into a global brand, top 5 database, used by 75% of the fortune 500, and reaching 60m+ users via Linux Distros. While Howard has become a fierce advocate of Open-Source and Source-Available licenses, he has years of experience leading proprietary product lines at at Oracle, Veritas, EMC, and C9.

Michael’s leadership at Protegrity centers on enabling organizations to harness the full potential of their data while maintaining uncompromising security. By championing advancements like quantum resiliency and integrating Generative AI into Protegrity’s solutions, Michael ensures that businesses can innovate confidently in an era of rapidly evolving threats and opportunities. His strategic focus is on building scalable, future-ready technologies that empower customers to securely leverage their data for growth, analytics, and competitive advantage.

Michael studied computer science and Slavic languages and literature from University of California, Berkeley and currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Brad Rouse

Chief Revenue Officer

Brad brings more than 30 years of sales and marketing leadership experience to Protegrity.
After receiving his bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Northwestern University, he started his career at IBM. Brad then moved on to lead sales teams at Entrust, Ping Identity, and Gemalto among others, helping to grow these enterprises through strong leadership and customer relations.

Working with high-acceleration startups and larger enterprise technology players has given him the experience to build highly effective revenue teams that deliver innovative solutions to customers. He implements the same, effective strategies at Protegrity today.

When he’s not traveling the world, Brad enjoys spending time with his family.

Terri McBride

Chief People Officer

Terri has extensive experience in human capital, transformational change, organization design, talent management, and performance management. Prior to joining Protegrity, Terri spent the majority of her career with the management consulting firms of A.T. Kearney and McKinsey & Company.

Originally from the United States, she has worked in Australia, Japan, and Germany, creating high-performing cultures for global enterprises. She now resides in London, United Kingdom. Terri holds an M.B.A. in Finance from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and an M.A. from Johns Hopkins University.

When she’s not enabling individuals and organizations to deliver strategic and operational results, Terri can be found exercising her impressive rock climbing skills.

Chris Gaebler

Chief Marketing Officer

With more than 25 years of high-tech and cybersecurity marketing experience, Chris now leads Protegrity’s marketing team, providing strategic advice to the CEO and supporting the company’s full go-to-market effort. Before joining Protegrity, he was the CMO of Sonrai Security, Guardicore (acquired by Akamai), Netscou, and Arbor Networks. He also led marketing teams at Sony and helped launch two start-ups, one of which went public. To Chris, cybersecurity and data professionals are engaging in world-shaping work, and our goal is to support them as effectively as we can.  

In addition to being a marketer, Chris loves spending time with his family, traveling extensively, and cooking.  

Christian Carnell

Chief Financial Officer

Christian leads Protegrity’s financial organization and serves as the strategic thought partner to the company’s executive leadership team on financial performance, capital structure, and business growth strategies.

Christian brings a long track record of financial leadership experience and business intelligence expertise to Protegrity. Committed to scalable efficiency and talent development, he believes that cross-functional collaboration is the key to achieving financial results and business objectives.

When he’s not crunching numbers for Protegrity, Christian can be found out on the field playing (ok, sometimes watching) his beloved rec softball, baseball and football.

Kate Hartshorn

Vice President of Legal Affairs

Since 2017, Kaitlin has provided crucial legal navigation to Protegrity. Kaitlin is a member of the New York and Florida Bar, and with her years of experience in enterprise affairs, Kaitlin now leads all legal affairs at Protegrity, delivering, executing, and leading Protegrity’s legal team to ensure lawful business conduct. Previously, she served as Assistant General Counsel at Health Care Navigator, which provides consulting services in the post-acute and long-term care sectors throughout the United States. When she’s not handling all corporate governance for the company, she’s exercising her skills in drafting and negotiating commercial contracts that mitigate Protegrity’s business risks.

In her free time, Kaitlin can be found spending time with her puppies.

Recently featured on Vanguard Law