Executive Team

Kurt Hansen

 Kurt Hansen

CEO Tesserent

Kurt has over 30 years of IT industry experience driving sales and delivery transformation and impressive business growth across many IT and cybersecurity organisations in Australia and New Zealand.

Kurt was the CEO at Pure Security where, as part of the PS&C Group he integrated four security businesses following their acquisition and listing on the ASX. Previous roles include executive, senior management and operational positions at Check Point Software Technologies, F5 Networks, AirData, Symbol Technologies, Telstra Wholesale, Cisco Systems, and Ericsson.

Prior to commencing his corporate career, Kurt joined the Australian Army as an electronic trainee, later becoming a commission officer and finishing his military career in Royal Australian Signal Corp with the rank of Captain. He holds a Diploma of Engineering from Swinburne Institute of Technology.

Read more

 James Jones

Group CFO, Tesserent

James joined Tesserent after serving as CFO of the Australian FMCG business, Bellamy’s Organic Group which was formerly an ASX listed business (sold in a public to private transaction in 2019).

In his role at Bellamy’s, James was responsible for leading the Finance team across multiple jurisdictions in the delivery of technical accounting, reporting, audit and tax requirements plus statutory reporting and board reporting for Bellamy’s Group. 

James led projects to develop and improve financial/accounting systems and controls, plus cash management procedures to adapt to changes in the ownership and business operations in line with local and international requirements.

Prior to his role at Bellamy’s, James was a Director at Deloitte and then EY (in the United Kingdom) working in an advisory capacity on restructuring, distressed assets and M&A transactions.

James has worked on the ground on both sell side and buy side mandates, as well as fund raisings and Stock Exchange listings on both ASX and LSE.

James has extensive experience in financial modelling and scenario analysis, plus providing advice on bid tactics, sale and purchase contract structuring and purchase price mechanics through execution of M&A deals.

James has significant cross-sector experience, having executed transactions of businesses and operations within the airline, manufacturing, shipping, infrastructure, retail, FMCG and Financial Services sectors.

James has a Bachelor of Commerce and a Bachelor of Science from The University of Melbourne (Aust) and is a member of Chartered Accountants (CA ANZ).

Read more

 Samantha Riddle

Director - People and Culture

Samantha has extensive commercial and human resources experience spanning 30 years both in Australia, and overseas. The last 18 years, she has held senior people leadership roles across the IT Sector. She is passionate about leading a Human Resources function that attracts, develops and retains high performing leaders and teams. With her depth of knowledge and experience across the IT sector and Human resources alike, she is able to bring alignment between business and people strategies. She is both passionate and committed to making a positive impact to the business, through maximising and developing peoples’ potential and capability. Samantha, holds a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce and Political Science, Honours Degree in Organisational Development and a Masters Of Business Administration.

Read more
George Katavic

 George Katavic

Managing Partner, Tesserent Federal

George has more than 25 years of experience with consulting organisations in the Federal Government market. George founded BCT, a specialist in Defence and National Security consulting which later became part of UXC in 2006. From that time George was responsible for building UXC Consulting in the ACT, combining 6 disparate and small brands which evolved into the largest Australian owned Consulting organisation in the ACT. With over 200 staff including over 100 cybersecurity staff, UXC was largest cyber consulting organisation in the Federal Market. Prior to his current role with north, George was the Managing Partner of DXC Consulting in the ACT. He co-founded north in 2018 which has cemented itself as the leading provider of cybersecurity services in the ACT.

Read more

 Craig Humphreys

Managing Partner, Cloud

Craig is an IT veteran having held leadership positions in both Australian and multi-national organisations over the past 25 years. He founded iQ3 in Sydney in 2010 with a strong vision to address the dynamic landscape of IT and the growing appetite for consuming IT as a Service. Building a team of professionals and establishing a significant position delivering Secure Cloud services to a large number of Government organisations, as well as Australian and multi-national corporate clients, saw iQ3 ranked 28th in BRW’s fast 100 in 2015.

Craig leads the Tesserent Cloud BU providing clients with highly secure services lines involving public cloud, private cloud/IaaS and hybrid managed cloud offerings.

Read more
Patrick Butler

 Patrick Butler

Managing Partner, SOC, Systems & Brand

Patrick has been at Loop Secure for more than 15 years, building up both the cybersecurity service and technology arms of the business. Patrick was formerly the General Manager of Sales & Marketing overseeing the national team from the Sydney office. Patrick was appointed CEO in 2016. During his time at Loop, Patrick has engaged with hundreds of clients, and understands the unique challenges posed to organisations in Australia by cybersecurity threat actors. In his role as both a shareholder and CEO of Loop, Patrick was able to understand the challenges that come with running a business securely. Patrick has extensive experience in presenting and training boards and executives on cybersecurity challenges and how to be prepared and resilient today and into the future. Patrick commenced August 2021

Read more

 Scott Ceely

CEO, Seer Security

Scott has worked in cybersecurity roles for over 20 years, with 13 of those in the Australian Federal Government. After leaving government, Scott built the Asia-Pacific branch of Context Information Security, before starting Seer Security in 2016. Scott holds a Bachelor Engineering in Computer Engineering and a Master of Management majoring in Technology and Innovation.

Read more

 Paul Taylor

General Counsel and Company Secretary

Paul has extensive experience across the financial services, e-commerce and legal industries and is a member of Tesserent’s Senior Leadership Team. Paul previously held leadership roles in the insurance and financial services sector with the Cover-More Group Limited and Insurance Australia Group Limited, and most recently acted as General Counsel & Company Secretary at Simonds Group Limited, an ASX listed business focused on residential building and construction.

At Tesserent, Paul brings his strong partnership building approach & commercial acumen to drive profitable and pragmatic business transformations. Paul holds a Master of Laws, Bachelor of Commerce (Hons) and is a Member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. Paul is qualified to practice law in Australia and New York, USA.

Read more

 Duyen Tran

Managing Partner, Defend & Protect

Duyen is the Managing Partner at Tesserent Defend and Protect leading various Cyber Security consulting practices across Australia and New Zealand. With over 12 years of experience in Cyber security holding several leadership roles including her former Chief of Staff leadership position within Defend & Protect at Tesserent. Her wealth of hands-on experience in organisations such as KPMG, Australian Super, and NBN, where she had built and led a team of security experts, establishing, implementing, and operating enterprise security capabilities to manage information security risk, uplifting information security maturity.

As an Industry Leader, she has experienced firsthand how to communicate and manage expectations of the Board, Audit and Risk Committee, Executive Members, and various Australian government agencies, and work with a team to successfully secure funding to uplift organisational-wide security capability and deliver on an organisation's security outcome that meets business objectives.

Read more

Optimize your network security - don't let your business get compromised.

CONSULT A SECURITY EXPERT

Don't let your business get compromised. Let's talk.

CONSULT A SECURITY EXPERT