Giant Oak Expands Leadership Team to Support Rapidly Growing Customer Portfolio

Giant Oak, a leader in applying artificial intelligence, machine learning and big data analytics for the security needs of government and industry, announced today the recent appointments of Chief Revenue Officer, Mike Cerick, and Vice President of Engineering, Brian Spindler, to its burgeoning executive team.

“Giant Oak has doubled in size within the last 12 months, and we intend to do so again over the next year,” said Dr. Gary Shiffman, Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Giant Oak. “Developing such innovative and advanced technology requires an experienced team to ensure we are meeting all technical and security standards while also solving for current and future needs of the market. Both Mike and Brian have a strong command of our business and a depth of experience in the marketplace, and our collective efforts and knowledge will continue to propel Giant Oak’s growth and customer success for years to come.”

Cerick has more than 20 years of VP sales expertise and holds a Top Secret security clearance from his work in the Department of Defense (DoD) Consolidated Adjudications Facility (CAF), where he supported missions for critical infrastructure customers. As Chief Revenue Officer, he will use his deep cybersecurity domain expertise to give Giant Oak the competitive business advantage in threat intelligence, Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning, and next-generation security. Cerick has contributed to the acquisitions of six startups and has driven deals of 1M-35M+ transactions. He will support Giant Oak in long-term strategic innovation, grow top line revenue, and increase new business and partner relations within the government and financial space.

In his role as Vice President of Engineering, Spindler will oversee all technical operations for innovation, delivery, and roll-out of products for Giant Oak’s flagship search and screening platform, Giant Oak Search Technology (GOST), as well as new, upcoming technologies. He will be responsible for leading and growing the engineering team’s operational and engineering excellence and ensure an upward growth trajectory for the company and culture. With over 15 years building products and Software as a Service (SaaS) platforms, as well as more than ten years of experience managing multi-shore distributed engineering teams, Spindler will support Giant Oak in implementing new technological advances that support the mission-critical needs of customers and partners.

Giant Oak is known for its behavioral science-based technology that screens and continuously monitors in the open, deep and dark web. The financial sector and those in federal government rely on the company’s technology to identify human trafficking, terrorist activities, and other national security threats. The demands for Giant Oak’s technology in both the government and commercial sectors have pushed them to rapidly expand company size and customer growth. The new additions to the Giant Oak leadership team follow a recent $10 million investment from Edison Partners, the introduction of a new board of directors, and the grand opening of a new headquarters.

For more information on Giant Oak, please visit www.giantoak.com.

About Giant Oak

Giant Oak combines data and behavioral science to help business and government identify potential threats during the online search and screening process. Led by a team of social scientists, machine learning experts, and security professionals, the company provides a system known as GOST® which expertly searches the deep web to reveal and rank otherwise-hidden actions, actors, and communities. GOST’s human-centered design principles apply machine learning to publicly available information enabling organizations to see a clearer picture of the people with whom they transact. The government, financial and regulatory organizations, and national security agencies use GOST to comply with Customer Due Diligence (CDD) processes, reduce false negatives, increase data confidence, and enable smarter and easier decision-making. For more information, visit www.giantoak.com.