Vikram Phatak

Chief Executive Officer

Vikram Phatak

Chief Executive Officer

As one of the industry’s foremost thought leaders and a veteran of testing cybersecurity products for over 20 years, Vikram Phatak has extensive experience in cybersecurity technologies. He founded NSS Labs, Inc. in 2007 and grew the company from a small test lab to a global leader in security product testing, becoming a go-to source for trusted independent, fact-based guidance on security product efficacy. Previously, Vikram founded and led several Internet and cybersecurity companies including Lucid Security and Intermedia Sciences Group, one of the first internet service providers and security consulting firms in the U.S. In November 2020 he founded CyberRatings.org, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing confidence in cybersecurity products and services through its research and testing programs.
Ian Foo

Chief Technology Officer & EVP of Product

Ian Foo

Chief Technology Officer & EVP of Product

Ian Foo has over 20 years of experience in cybersecurity, network engineering, and product development. Previously, he was a Senior Product Manager at Google, where he led the vision, strategy, and development of networking for special projects within Google Cloud Platform, driving enterprise cloud transformation at a global scale. Before Google, Ian served as Director of Product & GTM for Service Providers at Commvault, leading the transition from on-premises solutions to cloud-based SaaS models. He has also held senior roles at Huawei, Cisco, and BBN/GTE Internetworking/Verizon.

Carma Austin

Chief Strategy Officer

Carma Austin

Chief Strategy Officer

Carma Austin has over 25 years of experience in the cybersecurity market and holds a successful track record developing, implementing and executing go-to-market strategies. Carma is Co-Founder and a Board Member of CyberRatings.org, non-profit organization dedicated to providing confidence in cybersecurity products and services through its research and testing programs. Previously, Carma developed and led the go-to-market strategy for IBM’s Security SaaS business. Carma was a former NSS Labs, Inc. executive, and has dedicated her career to helping organizations understand and better manage cybersecurity risk. She was also a founding board member of the National Cyber Security Society, a non-profit dedicated to educating small businesses about cybersecurity.

Cathy Main

Chief Marketing & Communications Officer

Cathy Main

Chief Marketing & Communications Officer

Cathy Main has over 30 years of experience in executive management, strategic business development, public relations, and brand marketing. She is a Co-Founder and Board Member of CyberRatings.org, non-profit organization dedicated to providing confidence in cybersecurity products and services through its research and testing programs Prior to CyberRatings.org, Cathy was Vice President of Marketing & Corporate Relations at NSS Labs, Vice President of Global Marketing for Deluxe Entertainment Services Group and earlier in her career, President of Alpha Cine Laboratory.

Tim Otto

Vice President of Test Operations

Tim Otto

Vice President of Test Operations

A veteran in testing cybersecurity technologies, Tim Otto runs test operations for NSS Labs LLC. He was previously Technical Marketing Engineer Director at Juniper Networks where he ran competitive and 3rd party testing for Juniper Networks Security branch. Prior to Juniper he was Domain Manager and Testing Team Lead for NSS Labs, Inc. where he led the team that designed the harnesses and tests for all of the network security tests run by NSS Labs. He has over 20 years of experience in network and cloud security, architectural design, load balancing, product configuration, packet level analysis and ethical hacking.

Thomas Skybakmoen

Vice President of Research

Thomas Skybakmoen

Vice President of Research

Thomas Skybakmoen has over 20 years of experience as both a cybersecurity researcher and analyst. He runs the Research team for NSS Labs, LLC, and authors test reports published through CyberRatings.org. From 2012 – 2020 he was a Research Director at NSS Labs, Inc. where he authored hundreds of test reports on the range of security products tested in the IT space. Earlier in his career, he was Senior Research Analyst in the Web Application Development & Integration group at Gartner providing research and analysis for thousands of Gartner clients.
Edsel Valle

Senior Developer, Offensive Research

Edsel Valle

Senior Developer, Offensive Research

Edsel Valle is an experienced cybersecurity researcher and engineer responsible for building the exploits and evasions library used in the NSS Labs state-of-the-art test infrastructure. His innovative work includes curating real-world exploits, and hand-crafting evasions designed to disguise and modify attacks to avoid detection by security products. Prior to NSS Labs 2.0 he was Senior Security Research Engineer at Keysight Technologies from 2020 - 2023, and was at NSS Labs 1.0 from 2017 – 2020 as a member of the test and research team.
Rachael Farquharson

Production Manager

Rachael Farquharson

Production Manager

As Production Manager, Rachael Farquharson leads the coordination of cybersecurity testing programs and marketing initiatives, ensuring projects progress seamlessly from concept to completion between the testing cycle at NSS Labs and publication of test results on CyberRatings.org. With a background in graphic design and communications, she is also responsible for brand content and execution of marketing collateral for both NSS Labs and the non-profit it services, CyberRatings.org. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communications from Texas A&M University.