Query.AI, the provider of the market’s only security investigations control plane for modern enterprises, announced Neal Bridges as the company’s chief information security officer (CISO), further expanding the company’s talented executive roster. In this role, Bridges, a cybersecurity industry veteran and hands-on practitioner, is primarily responsible for leading security strategy and operations for Query.AI, but he’ll also use his experience and expertise in the security trenches to guide product development efforts and help customers achieve their desired security outcomes.
Bridges has more than two decades of experience in the strategic, operational, and tactical areas of cybersecurity. Throughout the course of his career, he’s helped numerous organizations in the federal and commercial sectors develop and execute cybersecurity strategies, and built security teams at multiple Fortune 100 companies. Neal’s areas of expertise include offensive capabilities; detection, response, and threat hunting; penetration testing; and mitigation and remediation strategies. He has also successfully led go-to-market strategies and spearheaded multi-million-dollar merger and acquisition activity to achieve company growth objectives.
“As Query.AI continues on its growth plan, it’s more important than ever that we have a dedicated member of our executive team devoted to our own security,” said Andrew Maloney, Query.AI co-founder and COO. “At the end of the day, if we’re not secure, neither are our customers, and they are the foundation of everything that we do. Neal’s experience across the gamut of security operations will help us continuously identify potential threats and put the right prevention, detection, and response strategies in place to minimize cyber risk to our organization. As an added bonus, Neal’s 20-plus year career on the security front lines will help us stay on top of the changing threat landscape and customer demand, so we can continue to deliver what they need to defend against today’s complex attacks.”
Before joining Query.AI, Bridges held CISO positions at INE and Mondelēz International, Inc. He previously served as the senior director of global cybersecurity operations at Abbott, and managed cybersecurity and privacy engagements for PwC. He also spent a decade serving in the United States Air Force. While there, he was hand selected to establish its first cyber function training unit to develop specialized training for thousands of USCYBERCOM students on the latest, advanced offensive cyber techniques. Bridges is also the founder of the Cyber Insecurity podcast, where he discusses the latest cyber news and trends, and gives career advice to listeners who are new to the cybersecurity industry.
“Query.AI offers a truly unique security investigations platform that I would have implemented in my previous security teams in a heartbeat had it existed because it solves the decades-old challenge of centralizing data to gain any meaningful insights in the investigations process,” said Bridges. “What really attracted me to the company, though, is the people behind the technology. They have been in the thick of security operations, identified a significant area of weakness in security investigations and, in just a few years, brought a proven solution to market that helps security analysts obtain centralized insights to decentralized data – no matter where it lives – for more efficient investigations and more informed response decisions.”
Bridges joins Query.AI on the heels of the company’s appointment of Ron Schnackenberg as head of customer success in October 2021.
Maloney concluded: “As demand for our innovative Query.AI security investigations platform continues to increase, we remain committed to taking a customer-centric approach in all that we do. This means putting the people, technologies, and processes in place to help them succeed. Neal aligns perfectly with this strategic roadmap, and we have no doubt that he’ll immediately help us bolster our cybersecurity posture, and also serve as a valuable resource for our customers as they work to achieve their own security goals.”
About Query.AI
Query.AI provides the market’s only security investigations control plane for modern enterprises. The company’s patented browser-based platform serves as a connective tissue that delivers federated search to conduct cybersecurity operations across data silos in cloud, third-party SaaS and on-prem environments.