About Dispersive

Rajiv Pimplaskar

Chief Executive Officer

Don Leone

VP Sales, Strategic Accounts

As a sales leader and strategist, Don has been at the forefront of helping create and build the Hybrid Cloud and Multi-Cloud Secure Networking market over the past 10 years. He was instrumental in helping Aviatrix define the Multi-Cloud Networking category and grow the company from early-stage startup to one of the market leaders. With a focus on growth and sales execution, Don has built and led sales teams throughout his career. In addition to Aviatrix and other startups, Don has held positions at Siemens, HP Enterprise Services, and IBM. He holds a B.A. degree from UC Berkeley.

Timothy Smith

CIO

Tim has decades of experience successfully aligning IT solutions with business strategy by directing the planning, budgeting, staffing, architecture, design, and implementation of state-of-the-art technology initiatives. He has a Bachelor of Science, Commerce & Business Administration, Accounting from the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa.

Lawrence Pingree

VP Technical Marketing

As a renowned expert and former Vice President at Gartner’s Technology and Service Provider research practice, Lawrence Pingree has been instrumental in shaping the future of security innovation. With over 300 published research notes on cybersecurity, he has helped thousands of businesses and society as a whole evolve by accelerating IT security innovation and enabling its positive impact. As a thought leader in emerging security technologies and trends, Mr. Pingree’s insights have guided organizations through the complexities of modern cybersecurity, introducing key concepts such as Security As a Service/Software as a service (SaaS), Software Defined WAN (SDWAN), Content Disarm and Reconstruction (CDR), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA), Cloud Workload Protection (CWP), Cloud Incident Response Automation (CIRA), Generative Runtime Defense (GARD), and Secure Internet Gateways (SIG). With his expertise spanning cloud security, endpoint security, generative security, and disinformation security, Mr. Pingree enables businesses to stay ahead of threats and capitalize on new market opportunities, making him a highly respected voice in the industry dedicated to accelerating information technology security innovation and its positive impact on business and society.

Scott Higgins

SENIOR DIRECTOR OF ENGINEERING

Scott is Dispersive’s Senior Director of Engineering. After joining the company as a full-stack developer, he now leads the development efforts of Dispersive’s software and solutions. Scott has many years of experience with converting innovative ideas into working solutions.

Mark Pohto

Field CTO

Mark Pohto is a distinguished cybersecurity visionary and the Field CTO of Dispersive Holdings, Inc., renowned for his expertise in Zero Trust architectures. With a career that spans military intelligence, strategic roles at Microsoft, analyst at Gartner, and innovative cybersecurity solutions, Mark has a rich history of transforming security paradigms. His work emphasizes the importance of Automated Moving Target Defenses (AMTD) and the integration of AI, hyper-automation, and post-quantum computing to bolster defense mechanisms against evolving threats. Mark’s military background, including his service as a Russian linguist and intelligence analyst, complements his technical acumen, enabling him to address complex security challenges with strategic depth. His tenure at Microsoft, leading critical security initiatives, and his role in shaping the future of cybersecurity at Dispersive highlight his commitment to advancing the industry.

Greg Akers

Advisor and CISO

Greg Akers was the Senior Vice President & CTO of Advanced Security Research & Government and Chief Technology Officer within the Security & Trust Organization (STO) group at Cisco. With more than two decades of executive experience, Akers brought a wide range of technical and security knowledge to this role. A major focus of his group was to expand security awareness and launch product resiliency initiatives throughout Cisco’s development organization to deliver high-quality and secure products to customers. He also served as executive sponsor of the Cisco Disability Awareness Network.

Akers joined Cisco in 1993. He held a variety of technical, managerial and executive roles at Cisco. These have included networking engineer, Vice President for the Worldwide Technical Assistance Center, Senior Vice President-CTO Services and Senior Vice President-Global Governments Solutions Group. He also holds the CCIE certification.

In addition, Akers is an Internet security and critical infrastructure protection advisor to Cisco customers and to the U.S. government. He regularly advises and directs activities relative to technology and security matters of domestic and international importance. Akers has also advised the U.S. Department of Defense and the federal intelligence community for more than fifteen years.

Before joining Cisco, Akers’ career included more than 15 years of designing, building, and running large networks for Fortune 100 companies. He has held senior technical and leadership roles at Fechheimer Brothers, a holding of Berkshire Hathaway, and Procter and Gamble.

Today, Greg Akers advises large and startup commercial organizations. He continues to serve as a government advisor. He also sits on several “for” and “not-for” profit boards.

Akers holds a bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering from the University of Akron.