About Us

David co-founded ForAllSecure to automatically check and protect the world's software. ForAllSecure's products are based upon over 10 years of his research in program analysis. David is on leave as a tenured professor at Carnegie Mellon University, with appointments in Computer Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering. David's academic work has received the United States Presidential Early Career Award, a Sloan award, and numerous awards for publications in peer-reviewed venues.

Aaron joined NEA in 2011 and is a Partner focused on investing in entrepreneurs seeking to build, scale, and secure the next-generation of SaaS applications, big data platforms, and cloud infrastructure. He serves on the board of Tigera and Illusive Networks, and is an observer at NGINX, Streamsets, Move Guides, Mimosa Networks, Juvo, and Built Robotics. In 2016, Aaron was named to Forbes Magazine’s “30 under 30” in Venture Capital and the Silicon Valley Business Journal’s "40 Under 40". Aaron graduated Summa Cum Laude from the Jerome Fisher Program in Management and Technology at the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned dual Bachelor of Science degrees in Economics and Electrical Engineering, and carried a minor in Math.

Forest joined NEA in 1999 as a Venture Partner and became a General Partner in 2004. Forest focuses on information technology investments and serves on the Board of Directors for several private and public companies. Prior to NEA, Forest was Senior Vice President of R&D and Chief Technology Officer of Silicon Graphics Inc. He founded and directed the Western Research Laboratory of Digital Equipment Corporation before joining SGI. Forest was a Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at Stanford University. He received a BA in Mathematics from Rice University, a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Texas at Austin and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

Director, KDT

Director, Growth Equity & Venture Capital, KDT 

Christien Rioux was Co-Founder and Chief Scientist of Veracode. He was responsible for the technical vision and design of Veracode’s advanced security technology. Before founding Veracode, Christien was on the founding team of @stake, a security consultancy, as well as L0pht Heavy Industries, a renowned security think tank. Christien is also responsible for numerous security advisories in many applications, operating systems and environments. He is recognized as an authority in the areas of Windows product vulnerability assessment, application optimization and program analysis. His background includes 30+ years of computer programming and software engineering experience on a wide range of platforms and for numerous companies, including financial institutions, mechanical engineering firms, educational institutions and multimedia groups.

Jim founded Accel with Arthur Patterson in 1983. Entering a fifth decade in venture capital, Jim has been a lead director of more than 50 successful companies. He also works with the Accel London team as a founder/mentor of Accel's European business. Before founding Accel, Jim was the founding general partner of Adler & Company, which he started with Fred Adler in 1978 after his tenure as a vice president of Citicorp Venture Capital. A long time industry leader, Jim is a former chairman of the National Venture Capital Association and a 2007 recipient of its Lifetime Achievement Award. Jim grew up in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania, graduated from Harvard in Engineering and has a M.S. in Industrial Administration and an Honorary Doctorate from Carnegie Mellon, where he sponsors the Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship.

Lane Bess is best known for his keen eye and leadership in Cybersecurity. He was CEO of Palo Alto Networks (PANW – NYSE). He also was instrumental in leading Zscaler (ZS – NASDAQ) and helped bring it to its IPO in March 2018. Prior, he led Trend Micro (TMIC – Nikkei) as President as it became a global name in Internet Security. In addition to his B.S. Degree in Managerial Economics from Carnegie Mellon University, Lane holds a Master’s Degree from the University of Dayton. Lane Bess also serves on the Carnegie Mellon Board of Trustees.

Yael Hochberg is the Ralph S. O’Connor Professor in entrepreneurship and Professor of Finance at Rice University, where she leads the Rice Entrepreneurship Initiative and Liu Idea Lab for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Prior to Rice, she served on the faculty of Northwestern U. and Cornell U., and has held visiting faculty positions at the University of Chicago and MIT, where she remains an affiliate of the MIT Innovation Initiative. Before entering academia, Hochberg was employed in the technology industry in both established and startup software companies, and was a founding team member at GetInventory. In 2015, she was named one of the world’s 40 under 40 best business school professors by Poets and Quants, and in 2016, she was awarded the Ewing Marion Kauffman Prize Medal for research in entrepreneurship. Hochberg holds a B.Sc. from the Technion—Israel Institute of Technology and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Stanford University. She is an active angel investor, startup advisor and board member.   

With a passion for deep tech and building category-creating companies, Tiffany has played an integral role in launching some of the most disruptive trends in enterprise software and infrastructure, from VDI at VMware to hyperconverged infrastructure at Nutanix, and autonomous cybersecurity at ForAllSecure. With nearly two decades of go-to-market experience, she has held product management and marketing roles at both industry leaders and early stage startups, and now heads product for Atlassian's Agile and DevOps solutions. Tiffany enjoys bringing her in-the-trenches operator experience to help the next wave of breakout enterprise startups as an advisor and angel investor.  She received her MBA from the Berkeley Haas School of Business and her BS in Computer Systems Engineering at Stanford University.

Zach has two decades of national intelligence, cybersecurity, and cyberwarfare experience with service in the nation’s most important institutions, including the National Security Agency, Central Intelligence Agency, and at the Pentagon. Most recently, Zach led the Defense Innovation Unit’s Texas office where he deployed nearly $1 billion to emerging technology companies to solve national security challenges. He was named to the Federal 100 in 2019 for his work at the intersection of commercial technology and autonomous cybersecurity. Currently, his company ATX Defense is helping to advise the Department of Defense on some of its most high-profile technical projects. Additionally, he is the Deputy Director of Intelligence for the Texas Air National Guard and has served in the Reserve Component of the Army and the Air Force for nearly 20 years. He received his MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a Master of Public Affairs degree from The University of Texas at Austin, and a B.A. degree from The University of Texas at Arlington.  

Dr. James Ransome is the Chief Scientist for CyberPhos, an early stage startup, and continues to  do ad hoc cybersecurity consulting. He is on the Board of Directors for the Bay Area CSO Council. Most recently, Dr. Ransome was the Senior Director, Security Development Lifecycle (SDL)  Engineering in the Intel Product Security and Assurance (IPAS) - Governance and Operations (IPAS GO) Group. His career is marked by leadership positions in the private and public industries, having served in three chief information security officer (CISO) and four chief security officer (CSO) roles at Applied Materials, Autodesk, Qwest Communications, Pilot Network Services, Exodus Communications, Exodus Communications-Cable and Wireless Company, and Cisco. Dr. Ransome holds a Ph.D. in Information Systems specializing in Information Security, a Master of Science Degree in Information Systems, and graduate certificates in International Business and International Affairs. He received the 2005 Nova  Southeastern University Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award. He is a member of Upsilon Pi  Epsilon, the International Honor Society for the Computing and Information Disciplines, Certified Information Security Manager (CISM), a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), and a Ponemon Institute Distinguished Fellow. Dr. Ransome is the author of several published books, including Wireless Operational Security; VoIP Security; Instant Messaging (IM) Security; Business Continuity Planning and Disaster Recovery Guide for Information Security Managers; Wireless Security: Know It All; Cloud Computing: Implementation, Management, and Security; Defending the Cloud: Waging Warfare in Cyberspace, Core Software Security - Security at the Source, and is currently working on a new book titled  Building In Security at Agile Speed.

Alex is a computer security researcher, specializing in automated program analysis and bug finding. He led the ForAllSecure team in the 2016 DARPA Cyber Grand Challenge, where ForAllSecure  took 1st place. Alex holds a Bachelor's degree from EPFL and a Master's from Carnegie Mellon. Alex is a MIT Innovators Under 35 and Forbes 30 Under 30 laureate.