The techpartner.news podcast, episode 3: Why security consultancy founder Kat McCrabb started with the hard stuff

In 2023, Kat McCrabb founded Flame Tree Cyber to build a people-first company that can take on the most challenging cybersecurity and compliances challenges in Australia.

On the latest episode of the techpartner.news podcast, McCrabb outlined how her experience in federal government cybersecurity and then as a CISO for a non-profit, led to the creation of Flame Tree Cyber. 

The Brisbane-based company specialises in compliance and security solutions for high-demand customers, such as government agencies, critical infrastructure providers, and educational institutes.

McCrabb said the challenge is the point, even though keeping up with the immense changes happening in the compliance space makes it feel like “building foundations on shifting sands”.

She outlines three pieces of legislation that are the source of these shifts – the Privacy Act, the Cyber Security Act and the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act – but frames these changes as an opportunity.

“One of the things I find really fascinating about all this change is, some of it's quite interrelated and some of it is not … and I'm viewing it as a bit of an opportunity for organisations to look at things holistically," she said.

“We've got multiple pieces of legislative change, what can we do across the board to implement that legislative change and make sure that we're understanding our risk posture and uplifting our cyber maturity whilst doing it?”

McCrabb said that helping the highest-demand customers navigate these changes and prepare for uncertain futures amid a period of macroeconomic flux was what drove her to start Flame Tree Cyber.

It’s still a young company at just two-years-old but McCrabb said her depth of experience and the team she has assembled make it easy to communicate the value they offer.

“I feel a bit awkward about my own expertise, but 15 years in the industry working in some pretty significant environments," she told techpartner.news.

"My very first role was with Centrelink before it was Human Services, and that was known to have the broadest technical environment in the southern hemisphere at the time.”

She then moved to the CISO role at Brisbane Catholic Education, a network of around 150 schools with about 100,000 user accounts.

As well as learning to understand and balance the different needs for different kinds of organisations, McCrabb also gained insight that proved invaluable as a service provider working with CISOs as clients.

She said she had felt the frustration at some service providers who could be inflexible in their approach.

“Having that background in the CISO chair has given me that understanding and appreciation that I can come into an organisation and share my thoughts and my expertise and work with them to problem solve but in the end, they know what's best for their organisation and I want to be supportive of that.”