Tesserent appoints James Ormesher as chief growth officer

ASX-listed cybersecurity firm Tesserent has appointed James Ormesher as its chief growth officer.

James has a background in sales leadership across commercial, government and defence sectors ranging from mid-market to enterprise.

He joined VMtech at its inception in 2010, helping the startup grow from four people to 100 and facilitated its sale to Telstra in 2017.

Following acquisition, James integrated VMtech into Telstra and launched Telstra Purple to market, providing services across cybersecurity, cloud, network, data and professional managed services.  

Ormesher's appointment comes after global defence and technology company Thales last week completed its A$176 million acquisition of Tesserent.

"I am excited to join Tesserent and Thales as the two companies strengthen their cybersecurity offering in the market and spearhead future growth in Australia and New Zealand," Ormesher said

"I was attracted by the depth and breadth of the full-service offering, the unique capabilities in the group and the high caliber of skills within the team in the fight against escalating cyber-crime." 

Tesserent CEO Kurt Hansen said that Ormesher will be key to the company's "aggressive growth and expansion strategy."

"I am delighted to welcome James, who will play an important role in turbocharging our growth as a Thales company and enhanced force in the Australian and New Zealand market," he said.

Ormesher said that he will focus on enhancing Tesserent's customer service in Australia and New Zealand.

"The combined market force of Tesserent under Thales, means there is strong potential to inform our existing extensive customer base of our bolstered service provision," he said.

"We work with many extremely well-known brands in Australia and New Zealand, but they may only know one or two of our service lines."

"My aim is to continue delivering excellent customer service and demonstrate the many other areas we can partner together to strengthen their cybersecurity defenses."

Tesserent acquires Beyond Binary

In the same week as its acquisition by Thales completed, Tesserent acquired cybersecurity firm Beyond Binary for $7 million.

Founded in 2010, Brisbane-based Beyond Binary provides penetration testing, red team engagements, adversary and attack simulation in addition to associated security consulting services.

Beyond Binary said that the $7 million value will be payable in tranches and subject to certain standard adjustments.

Completion of the deal is expected by mid October.