Michael Coates

Across the past 20 years, Michael Coates has been a CISO, an entrepreneur, a board chair and an investor across the cybersecurity industry.

Michael served as Twitter’s first Chief Information Security Officer leading a security program to protect hundreds of millions of people worldwide. Coates was also previously the head of security at Mozilla where the Firefox browser was entrusted by half a billion users globally.

In addition to leading cybersecurity at some of the most impactful technology companies, Michael is an entrepreneur. He was an early employee at Shape Security where he worked with a specialized team to drastically change the way organizations defend their applications against modern application attacks. Shape Security was acquired in 2020 for $1B.

Michael was also the co-founder and CEO of Altitude Networks, a silicon valley venture backed startup. This revolutionary company redefined how data could be protected in cloud platforms and was acquired in 2022 by CoinList.

Outside of Silicon Valley, Michael also served as the Chairman of OWASP, the largest nonprofit organization in the world focusing on software security.

Before building and leading security programs, Coates was a hands-on hacker. He assessed, compromised, and secured applications and networks for some of the largest banks, governments, and enterprises around the world. Coates was also honored in 2012 when he was selected as an SC Magazine “Influential Security Mind.”

Today, Michael Coates is the founding partner of Seven Hill Ventures, a San Francisco based venture firm dedicated to supporting the next generation of industry-defining cybersecurity companies.

Exclusively represented by Leading Authorities speakers bureau, Coates draws on his vast experience securing the world’s most complex networks to bring to light the threats that exist and provide a roadmap for securing the future of technology.

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