An Interview with Heath Davies, Clearswift CEO: ‘We Have Been Around For a Long Time. You can Literally Call us Pioneers in Information Security.’

“Our continued success stems from our team working closely with our customers to ensure the best information security solutions and services are delivered.”

Information security is continually moving up business and board agendas. However, many information security professionals find it challenging to help business leaders fully understand the cyber risks across the ever increasing digital business practice.

In light of the above-mentioned scenario, we are thrilled to present Clearswift.

Clearswift is a leading cybersecurity company owned by the RUAG Group. Recognized on the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Data Loss Prevention (DLP), all Clearswift solutions are building blocks to support the requirements of a DLP strategy at the highest security level, utilizing the long-established and unique ‘Deep Content Inspection’ engine.

The company was incorporated in 1982 and is headquartered in United Kingdom.

Heath Davies, Clearswift CEO, spoke exclusively to The Silicon Review. Below is an excerpt.

Q. Why was the company set up? How did you select the vertical and decide to be a part of the global platform?

Clearswift’s history can be traced back to 1982 and a UK company called Net-Tel which launched the first email application for MS-DOS, before moving onto providing email solutions for both Windows and UNIX in 1990. As technology evolved and collaboration via email was embraced, the company changed its direction to address the growing threat of malware in email, developing its own email content filtering solution - MIMEsweeper - which was launched to market in 1995 as the first solution of its type. It became its own company shortly after being launched.

Targeting government, defense and financial services as the early adopters of email, the same verticals are key to our success today, although we now have customers across all sectors and all sizes of organizations.

Q. What were the grounds on which you have expanded your company and its offerings over the years?

Clearswift has been around for a long time. You can literally call us pioneers in information security. Our technology portfolio has grown significantly since the company was first founded. The continuous evolution of technology and cyber threats has subsequently driven the evolution of business collaboration processes which have been the main drivers of our product suite development and company growth. Today, our technology portfolio includes threat protection and data loss prevention solutions for email, web and the endpoint, and an information governance solution. All Clearswift solutions are designed to prevent cyber threats, protect critical information and empower organizations with the ability to gain visibility and control of information flow in and out of their digital collaboration channels. We have grown our channel as a means for go-to-market, and in countries where we don’t have an office or partner, we use distributors.

Q. If you have to list five factors that have been/are the biggest asset to your organization, what would they be and why?

Our Culture– Clearswift is proud to have an inclusive, open-door culture. This is created by the behavior of the top level executives, down through the executive team and into managers and the broader business. The theme for our annual Kick Off event this year was: “One Team. One Vision. One Goal.” We’re consistently looking at ways and means to reinforce our company vision and our values. There’s always a challenge with a global organization that culture gets lost in smaller or more (geographically) remote offices, but we place great value in being one team of people who will help others, no matter where they are located.

Our People– Our employees are a true asset and the very heartbeat of our organization. Our ability to select the right people to fit into our company enables our teams to effectively collaborate – with each other, our customers and partners – and drive business growth. Every person who joins Clearswift is aligned with our company values – Collaboration, Visionary Thinking and High Performance. We recognize the great work our employees give to the company with a variety of Benefits, Health and Well Being and Event Machine programs which enable us to create a harmonious and fun environment to retain our passionate and talented people. From massages and office fruit baskets to charity days, go-carting and sporting events, there’s a whole range of activities and benefits on offer for all our employees to enjoy.

Our Customers– Clearswift works hard to retain and closely collaborate with our global customer base. This is really important to us as our product development roadmap is predominantly built out around our customers’ business process change requirements due to the evolving threat scape. We make sure our customers are connected with all divisions of our organization – from Support, Renewals, Product Management, Sales, Marketing and the Executive Team, through various traditional and digital communication channels. So we can connect with them at meetings and events scheduled throughout the year, as well as online.

Our Technology– The Clearswift Research and Development Team is continually innovating and developing our technology to ensure we keep ahead of the threat landscape; keep our customers happy and remain a leader in our field. Our technology is recognized by analysts including the Gartner Magic Quadrant and Forrester Wave for DLP, and our products and solutions are consistently winning industry awards and accolades.

Our Partners– Clearswift has a global reseller base of 900-strong with a rewarding ‘Catalyst’ Partner Program. Our team works closely with our partners on customer engagement and prospective customer activities throughout the year. We also offer a range of onsite and online Training Courses for partners to keep up to date with Clearswift, the capabilities of Clearswift products and how to sell them in the marketplace.

Q. Do you have any new products ready to be rolled out into the market?

Yes. We have just launched our new Clearswift Endpoint DLP solution which offers data discovery scanning and security to the levels demanded by industry regulations, and enables the control of devices to an organization’s network to protect against unauthorized copy or transfer of company information.

Clearswift Endpoint DLP Agent silently discovers critical information on networks, devices and systems without interrupting end-user activity. Data Protection Managers are provided with unprecedented insight into potential data protection risks that exist within their organization. Centralized information management policies can be applied on the endpoint to enable users to collaborate safely and securely. The Clearswift Endpoint DLP solution also supports additional security features including device control, deep content inspection, remediation actions, encryption and comprehensive auditing.

We provide updates and new features to our existing products two to three times per year. Most recently introducing, among other things, Optical Character Recognition (OCR) as part of our Data Loss Prevention functionality. With the next release, before the end of the year, we are introducing some innovative functionality to prevent data leaks through steganography and improve protection against Business Email Compromise (BEC).

Q. Where do you see your company a couple of years from now?

Clearswift has been through a number of acquisitions since the company was founded and the company has subsequently advanced over time through each of these ownership changes. In January 2017, we were acquired by RUAG – a multi-billion CHF Swiss defense conglomerate– which has supported a variety of investments to further enhance the business.

Where will we be in a couple of years from now? We’ll be one of the key innovation houses focused on data loss prevention delivered globally.

Heath Davies: A Brief Background

Heath Davies is the CEO of Clearswift and Senior Vice President of RUAG Cyber Security. He has held various international CEO and investor roles throughout his working history and has a particular expertise in driving substantial growth by building strategic customer/partner engagements. Heath leads the highly experienced Clearswift Executive Team that combines decades of cyber experience and knowledge with technical, financial and operational skillsets. The united Clearswift Executive Team has steered the global organization to financial success for over six years by driving a collaborative, visionary thinking and high performance culture into the worldwide operation, putting a strong focus on customer and employee retention as well as technology development and innovation.

"Clearswift enables organizations to collaborate securely across digital channels without the risk of business interruption, providing visibility and control of critical information 100 percent of the time.”

Keep in touch: www.clearswift.com