GRAYSHIFT - Key Persons


Braden Thomas - Founder

Job Titles:
  • Chief Product Officer
  • Co - Founder
  • Co - Founder and CPO
As Co-Founder and CPO, Braden is responsible for the company's complete product lifecycle from strategy and development through launch and continued innovation. He works with customers, partners, the advanced research team, and product development teams to bring even better experiences and value to customers more quickly. Braden has 14 years of experience working in the information security field as an engineer and researcher at Apple, Accuvant, and Optiv. Prior to Grayshift, Braden was a Principal Research Scientist as Optiv, where he consulted with companies to improve the security of their embedded device products. A recognized expert in vulnerability research, Braden has spoken at several conferences on topics of on applied cryptography and embedded device security. Braden holds a BS and MS in Computer Science from University of Southern California.

Chris Trammell

Job Titles:
  • VP Finance & Ops

David Miles - CEO, Founder

Job Titles:
  • Chief Executive Officer
  • Co - Founder
  • Member of the Leadership Team
David Miles is a Co-Founder and the CEO of Grayshift, where he oversees day-to-day activities and is responsible for managing the overall vision and strategy of the company. He has nearly 20 years of experience in cyber security. Prior to Grayshift, David was also a Co-Founder and VP of R&D at Endgame which initially built cyber security capabilities for the government sector. Endgame later launched a commercial endpoint security platform pioneering active defense and "hunt" capabilities to discover threats and adversaries on the network. Endgame was acquired by Elastic (ESTC) in 2019 for $234 million. In addition, David has held technical and business development leadership roles at Optiv (formerly Accuvant) and Internet Security Systems (acquired by IBM in 2006).

David Scruggs

Job Titles:
  • Chief Revenue Officer
David brings more than 20 years of experience leading sales at high-growth software companies. He joins Grayshift from Cisco, where he served as Senior Director, Workload and Analytics and played key roles in the successful integration of Cisco Security acquisitions. Prior to that, he served as Worldwide Vice President of Sales at Lancope Inc., a leading Network Security company, whose Stealthwatch solution protects the world's largest networks and played a key role in scaling the business to acquisition. Previously, David held multiple sales leadership roles over a decade with Lancope, and sales roles with IBM and Internet Security Systems. David holds a bachelor's degree in Business Management from Georgia State University.

David Smalley

Job Titles:
  • Director Digital Forensics
  • Lead for the Grayshift Digital Forensic Specialist
David Smalley is the worldwide lead for the Grayshift Digital Forensic Specialist team. His team focuses on providing technical insight and support for customers throughout their entire engagement, representing Grayshift as subject-matter experts in the field of digital forensics. As lead for the Grayshift Digital Forensics team, David's goal is to address customer needs in the ever-changing technical landscape by providing instruction to law enforcement and technical support staff. His responsibilities in this role include developing new training material aligned with the latest technology and working with product, marketing, and sales teams to ensure flawless execution. David brings to his position a well-established background in forensic technology and consulting. Prior to taking a role at Grayshift, he managed a team of forensic examiners and analysts at a leading worldwide electronic discovery organization and served for over a decade in law enforcement as a Digital Forensic Examiner and court qualified subject-matter expert.

Debbie Garner

Job Titles:
  • Solutions Evangelist
Debbie Garner is the Solutions Evangelist for Grayshift where she assists law enforcement with issues surrounding the lawful access to digital evidence. Prior to joining Grayshift she served 30 years with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation where she had assignments in specialty areas covering undercover narcotics, healthcare fraud, terrorism intelligence, fusion center management, officer involved shootings and online child sexual exploitation. In her last position of 8 years, she served as the Special Agent in Charge of GBI's Child Exploitation and Computer Crimes Unit. Agent Garner was also the Commander of the Georgia Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force and had the responsibility of managing and coordinating that task force which consisted of over 260 law enforcement agencies in Georgia. She attended the 267 th Session of the FBI National Academy and is a graduate of the Command College at Columbus State University (CSU) where she also earned her Master of Public Administration degree.

Holly Bail

Job Titles:
  • Director People Operations
Holly Bail is a forward-thinking people leader with a history of achieving business outcomes aligned with organizational mission, strategy, and goals. With over 20 years of experience, Holly has worked with diverse businesses from technology start-ups to Fortune 500 companies leading operations, sales, and talent management from 5 employees to over 1,500. With a heart for servant leadership, Holly is an avid volunteer in the Atlanta community serving at SHRM-Atlanta, mentor at GNFCC Women in Business, executive steering committee member at Tech400, and Small Group Leader supporting middle school students at Gwinnett Church. Holly was recognized by the Atlanta Business Chronicle as HR Excellence Award winner for Best recruiting Strategy in 2021, and #10 TopWorkplaces in 2022 in her current role as Director of People Operations at Grayshift.

Jody Ma Kissling - CMO

Job Titles:
  • VP Marketing
Jody Ma Kissling brings more than 20 years of marketing expertise, spanning brand strategy, communications, product marketing, and demand generation, within high-growth technology companies. She joins Grayshift from Cisco, where she led Global Events, Global Account Based Marketing and Customer Advocacy teams for the Cisco security portfolio. Previously, Jody was the VP of Marketing for Lancope, which was acquired by Cisco in December 2015. During her tenure with Lancope, she was responsible for the integrated marketing strategy, driving the company's accelerated market demand and double-digit sales growth. Jody holds an MBA from the Georgia State University and a BA from Wake Forest University.

Justin Fisher - CTO, Founder

Job Titles:
  • Chief Technology Officer
  • Co - Founder
Justin has spent more than 15 years working in the information security and vulnerability research industry, both as a leader and an individual contributor. As CTO Justin guides the overall technology direction of Grayshift products and solutions, helps to oversee Engineering for the Cloud, Embedded and Hardware Engineering teams and serves as an individual contributor on the Engineering teams. Prior to Grayshift, Justin directed security research at Optiv where he focused on leading-edge capabilities and managed customer contracts. Additionally, Justin worked as an information security researcher at Endgame, Vulnerability Research Labs, Applied Security and SPI Dynamics. Justin holds a BS in Computer Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Kerry Armistead

Job Titles:
  • VP Product Management
Kerry Armistead brings more than 20 years of experience delivering high-value products in the information technology and cybersecurity markets. He joins Grayshift from Cisco, where he served as Director of Product Management for Security Analytics. Before joining Cisco, he served as Vice President of Product Management at Lancope Inc., a leading Network Security company, whose Stealthwatch solution protects the world's largest networks. He played a key role in scaling the business to acquisition. Previously, Kerry held product management roles at McKesson, IBM, and Internet Security Systems. Armistead holds a B.S. in Marketing from Clemson University.

Mark Snell - CFO

Job Titles:
  • Chief Financial Officer
As Chief Financial Officer, Mark leads Grayshift's Accounting, Finance, People Ops, IT, and Business Operations teams. Prior to Grayshift, Mark served as CFO of venture-backed Endgame from startup phase through the 2019 acquisition of the company by Elastic. He brings more than twenty years of experience building and managing finance teams at both venture/PE-backed and publicly traded technology companies. Earlier in his career, Mark held financial leadership roles over nearly a decade with Internet Security Systems through the acquisition of the company by IBM. Mark holds a BA from the University of Virginia, an MBA from Georgia State University and is licensed as a CPA in the State of Georgia.

Paul Baxter

Job Titles:
  • VP of European Sales
Paul brings 25 years of experience as an industry innovator, sales leader, and advocate for law enforcement collaboration to Grayshift, where he leads the growing European sales team. Prior to joining Grayshift, Baxter served as Area Sales Manager at MSAB, supporting digital forensics customers across the UK & Ireland for over a decade. Before MSAB, Baxter helped develop and deploy identity solutions with governments around the world at Entrust Datacard, which was preceded by a distinguished career in the British Army.

Rick Hensley

Job Titles:
  • Vice President of Customer Success
Rick is the Vice President of Customer Success for Grayshift and has almost 20-years commercial experience along with 12-years of experience with the Department of Defense (DoD) and the United States Intelligence Community. Rick joins Grayshift from Elastic, where he worked to integrate all services and support in the company's acquisition of Endgame. Previously, Rick led all post-sale services, training, and support for Endgame. Rick has an extensive military and civilian background, having led a US Air Force capability development effort to support offensive and defensive cyber operations (OCO/DCO) and served as a Navy Reserve Cryptologic Officer, where he helped establish one of the first cyber threat operations centers for a major DoD organization's extended enterprise. Prior to his time as an Air Force civilian, Rick was a Naval Supply Corps Officer onboard the USS VINCENNES (CG-49) and a lead instructor at the Navy Supply Corps School. During this time, Rick also served as adjunct faculty at the University of Texas - San Antonio, teaching principles of cyber security. Rick earned his BS in Commerce from the University of Virginia and his MS in Information Security from the University of North Carolina - Charlotte. He has also received numerous Joint and DoD military and civilian service medals.

Robert Palazzo

Job Titles:
  • VP Engineering
With over 20 years of experience in network security, Robert leads Grayshift's hardware and software engineering teams. He joined Grayshift from Cisco via its Lancope acquisition, where he created and led an integrations team across Cisco's portfolio of security offerings. Prior to Lancope, he managed the development of multiple security products from IBM and Internet Security Systems (ISS). Robert received Cisco's most prestigious Engineering honor, the Pioneer Award, for his leadership in Encrypted Traffic Analytics and was named to the President's Club three times during his tenure at Lancope and ISS. He holds a patent for the analysis of security events and earned Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in Electrical Engineering from Clemson University.