The Lancer Group Fills Top Sales Post for NINJIO
May 25, 2023 – La Jolla, CA-headquartered search firm The Lancer Group has placed Durant Harvin as vice president of sales at NINJIO, a cybersecurity awareness training company backed by Gauge Capital. “We are excited to have Durant leading our sales organization,” said Shaun McAlmont, president and CEO of NINJIO. “His extensive experience in enterprise sales and proven track record of driving revenue growth makes him the ideal person for the role. I’m confident that we have the right team in place to drive NINJIO’s growth and expansion in the coming years.”
Mr. Harvin brings vast executive sales experience to the company. He is a skilled sales and business development executive leader with over six years of experience accelerating growth and profitability in highly competitive markets with a focus on SaaS cybersecurity, governance, risk, and compliance platforms. Previously, Mr. Harvin served as VP of sales at peer company KnowBe4. In this position, he was part of the executive team that led the organization through its 2021 IPO. He also led the sales team to a 24 percent increase in sales in 2020 during the pandemic and a 32 percent increase in 2021 year-over-year.
In his role with NINJIO, Mr. Harvin will be responsible for driving direct sales growth across all market segments. His appointment comes as NINJIO continues to experience exponential growth and seeks to expand its sales organization both nationally and globally. NINJIO’s imminent launch of a new solution featuring technology from their acquisition, Dcoya, puts the company in high-growth mode, with plans to expand its sales organization and tap into new markets. “Our commitment to providing the solutions that our customers and prospects are asking for is matched by our commitment to sharing this solution with as many companies as possible,” said Mr. McAlmont “We are committed to empowering people to be defenders of their company’s assets, their own private information, and ultimately everyone in their immediate circles.”
Headquartered in Los Angeles, NINJIO lowers human-based cybersecurity risk through engaging training, streamlined testing, and insightful reporting. The company’s two-pronged approach to training focuses on the latest attack vectors to build employee knowledge and the behavioral science behind human engineering to sharpen users’ intuition.
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Gauge Capital is a leading middle-market private equity firm based in Southlake, TX. Gauge invests in five key sectors: business services, food and consumer, government and industrial services, healthcare, and technology. The firm manages more than $2 billion in capital.
Serving Private Equity and Portfolio Companies
The Lancer Group, established in 1998, serves private equity firms, their portfolio companies, and public corporations in their talent acquisition needs. The firm specializes in board-driven search mandates including CEOs, CFOs, C-suite executives, and board directors as well as private equity investment professionals and operating partners. With that background, the firm has provided strategic counsel to clients across a range of industries and has expertise in technology, industrial, energy, healthcare, and consumer markets.
The Lancer Group Recruits CFO for Elm Street Technology
The Lancer Group has placed Brad Wolfe as chief financial officer for Aquiline Capital Partners-backed Elm Street Technology LLC. Mr. Wolfe specializes in assessing situations and risks, then developing and executing effective strategies. With 14 successful exits ranging from 2X to 10X over 20 years, he has built departments from scratch and centralized and decentralized accounting and operational functions. Mr. Wolfe has worked for a private company/investor (private equity) for much of these last 20 years in a variety of his subsidiary/portfolio companies, investments, and public/private funds in both operational and financial roles. Prior to that, he worked as a CFO for AON, the Fortune 200 company, for five years and as the CFO/COO for Safeway Insurance for four years.
With relationships at over 50 of the top 100 private equity firms, The Lancer Group provides a range of pre-deal private equity advisory services beyond traditional executive search. These include deal origination, diligence support and introductions to “backable” executives. The firm, which is privately held, operates from offices in Boston, New York, San Diego, San Francisco, and Sydney, Australia.
Recently Completed Search
The Lancer Group recently recruited Eshwar Belani as CEO in residence of Symphony Incubator, a technology incubator set up to drive innovation and invest in solutions that infuse large markets with cutting-edge breakthroughs in AI and analytics. Symphony Incubator is the technology incubator arm of Symphony Technology Group (STG), a 14-year old private equity firm comprising of 23 companies, with a combined revenue of $3.5 billion and 18,000 employees.
Mr. Belani most recently drove products and alliances at Rubrik, a platform for backup disaster recovery, where he was responsible for product strategy, product development, and driving strategic alliances. Previously, he served as vice president of strategy at Rocket Fuel, where he was responsible for shaping the strategic direction of the company as well as driving ancillary revenue through new business initiatives.
Related: The Lancer Group Recruits Marketing and Sales Officers for FMG Suite
Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief; Dale M. Zupsansky, Managing Editor; and Stephen Sawicki, Managing Editor – Hunt Scanlon Media
