On the heels of our recent $4.3m seed funding announcement, we're excited to share another major milestone: the introduction to Maro's advisors!
Each of these leaders is someone I admire deeply… People whose vision, integrity, and generosity of spirit have shaped the foundations we stand on today. They've weathered the industry's cycles, broken its barriers before, and now they're helping Maro bring to market cognitive security for the human attack surface.
Collectively, our new advisors represents what it takes to transform security:
Together, they bring more than a century of hard-won experience and the conviction that Maro's approach to human risk is the shift our industry needs. That belief starts at the atomic unit of security: people. With that as our guiding light, we're building a more secure, more human future, and I'm honored they've chosen to walk this path with us.
Without further ado…
Jim knows a thing or two about scaling modern technology businesses. Across two decades of product and technology leadership, he's guided organizations from early-stage growth through global expansion. Today as CPTO at GetReal, he's on a mission to protect digital integrity from AI-fueled deception and malicious media. We share the same commitment and desire to defend against emerging threats that exploit human trust. A perfect alignment!
As Jim guides Maro into the future, he will help us shape what modern guardrails look like. Not just in theory, but in practice. He was instrumental at BetterCloud by leading the product organization through sustained growth; a project that resulted in a majority acquisition by Vista Equity Partners.
It's this visionary thinking that will steer Maro as we grow our business and navigate product market fit.
Employees are being empowered with new tools and technology at a pace never before seen in the workplace. And these amazing innovations are being put in the hands of employees without clear security guidance or effective safeguards.
The result is a dramatic increase in human risk. Jadon and the team have developed a solution to human risk that truly meets this new reality. They've broken down the artificial silos left behind by legacy, long-in-the-tooth security market categories, and created a new form of cognitive security that meets employees where they are.
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Few leaders have shaped the evolution of enterprise security and computer networking like Debasish. With more than two decades of experience in product engineering across security, networking, and AI/ML, he's built solutions that protect both people and organizations. He knows how generative AI and human behavior collide because he's been solving for it long before “AI-native” was a headline. That grounding matters at Maro, where AI-powered governance and human risk prevention are central to our mission.
Most recently, Debasish was CTO of Aware, where he built ML-powered governance for employee communications across Slack, Teams, and more, which led to its acquisition by Mimecast. Before that as SVP of Engineering at Aura, he launched the flagship Aura Digital Safety Suite for consumer cybersecurity. And earlier, at Aruba (HPE), he developed SD-WAN, SASE, and cloud networking products that are still deployed across powerhouse companies like Home Depot, McDonald's, and Hilton Hotels worldwide.
This blend of engineering rigor and vision will steer Maro as we bring cognitive security to the enterprise.
Since the launch of GPT late 2022 and the emergence of ubiquitous chatbots and copilots embraced by folks in all walks of life, it is becoming clear that usage of copilots, while beneficial, needs to be leveraged with the right guardrails in an enterprise context.
Having been exposed to all the governance and DLP risks with employee communication at Aware, I came across the great founding team at Maro focusing on this core problem impeding enterprise AI rollouts. I had to get involved and help them in their journey.
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Or brings a rare range of skills: offensive security expertise, large-scale engineering leadership, and mastery of AI-driven technologies. Over the past decade, he's built and supported cyber intelligence systems that safeguard billions of devices and more than $400 billion in transactions each year. Talk about scale!
He's seen firsthand why even the most advanced systems are only as strong as the human layer they depend on. His background in vulnerability research, secure systems architecture, and cyber intelligence has shaped Forter's ability to detect and neutralize threats in real time. This experience mirrors our belief that real-time detection and prevention is the future of defense. He also shares that knowledge with the community as a regular contributor to leading security publications and a frequent speaker at international conferences on advanced threat detection and mitigation strategies.
That bridge between offense, defense, and people is exactly what we're building at Maro.
As organizations embrace AI-native workflows, the complexity and speed of decision-making have outpaced traditional security models.
Maro isn't just patching this gap, it's rethinking how cognitive context, user behavior, and enterprise controls intersect.
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Gabe is a pioneering technologist, author, and educator with nearly three decades of experience across AI, gamification, cybersecurity, crypto, and behavioral design. His career has been defined by a single throughline: showing how technology and human behavior intersect, and how we can harness that intersection for good.
A sought-after keynote speaker and UCLA lecturer, Gabe has influenced a generation of leaders by turning abstract concepts like gamification into systems that drive measurable change in how people act. You may also recognize him as the host and moderator of our Cognitive Security Webinar series!
He's applied behavioral design to everything from addiction recovery to building safer digital habits for employees. It's this experience that is critical as we guide employees toward safer, more secure habits.
Human behavior continues to be the most challenging threat vector in cybersecurity. Maro is leading the way in developing innovative approaches to address this reality.
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Every day at Maro, I work alongside brilliant builders and behavior-shapers. And now with our newly minted advisors, we have visionaries helping us chart the way forward!
Interested to see cognitive security in action? Request a personalized walkthrough below.