Bio

Dr. Hugh Thompson is one of the world’s leading experts on Cyber Security and Privacy. Before joining Crosspoint Capital Partners, he was the Chief Technology Officer of Symantec (SYMC, NLOK). At Symantec, Dr. Thompson was responsible for the company’s technical and product strategy and led a team of approximately 1000 technologists, software developers, product developers and researchers. Prior to joining Symantec, he was the Chief Technology Officer and Chief Marketing Officer of Blue Coat Systems Inc. which was acquired by Symantec for $4.65 Billion in 2016. Dr. Thompson has testified before Congress as an expert on cyber security issues and has co-authored three books on cyber security including, How to Break Software Security: Effective Techniques for Security Testing (with Dr. James Whittaker, published by Addison-Wesley, 2003), and The Software Vulnerability Guide (with Scott Chase, published by Charles River 2005). He was named one of the “Top 5 Most Influential Thinkers in IT Security” by SC Magazine and the Financial Times calls him “one of the world’s foremost cryptology and internet security experts.” Thompson is also the co-author of a bestselling business book on human potential and achievement called The Plateau Effect: Getting from Stuck to Success published by Penguin (2013 hardback, 2014 audiobook, 2014 paperback and several foreign language editions including Korean, Portuguese, Russian and Romanian). Dr. Thompson is also Chairman of the RSA Conference Program Committee and has held this position for over a decade. During his time at RSA Conference, he has helped drive attendance at the conference to over 45,000 cyber security professionals annually. He spent several years as an Adjunct Professor in the Computer Science Department at Columbia University in New York and created the popular Software Vulnerabilities and Exploitation course which was taken by hundreds of undergraduate and graduate students at Columbia. Dr. Thompson has spent years creating methodologies and tools that help some of the world’s largest companies build demonstrably more secure systems. He has delivered talks/keynotes at key conferences and Fortune 500 corporations, written industry-defining books and articles on software security, and has been interviewed by top news organizations including the BBC, Bloomberg, CNN, CNBC, ABC, Fox News, CBS Evening News, MSNBC, HBO, BusinessWeek, Forbes, the Associated Press, and the Washington Post. Dr. Thompson has authored more than 100 academic and industrial publications on software security and writes for such industry publications as the New York Times, Scientific American, IEEE Security & Privacy, CSO Magazine, Network World, and Forbes. In 2006, HBO made an Emmy-nominated documentary featuring his work in uncovering vulnerabilities in electronic voting systems called Hacking Democracy. A sequel to the documentary is scheduled to be released by HBO in 2020. As one of the world’s leading experts in cyber security he has shared the keynote stage with leaders such as Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice and celebrities such as Stephen Colbert, Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin and Sean Penn. Dr. Thompson is a member of the Aspen Cyber Security Group and the STS Forum Council. Thompson earned his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from Florida Institute of Technology.