Tidal Cyber Taps AI Expert Jessica Hall to Scale Threat-Led Defense

RESTON, VA – January 08, 2026 – Tidal Cyber, the cybersecurity firm that pioneered the “Threat-Led Defense” category, today announced the appointment of seasoned technology executive Jessica Hall as its new Vice President of Product. The strategic hire signals a significant move by the company to accelerate innovation and scale its platform to meet surging enterprise demand for more effective, adversary-focused security strategies.

Hall will take the helm of product development and execution, tasked with expanding Tidal Cyber’s platform capabilities. Her focus will be on enhancing tools that help organizations operationalize the MITRE ATT&CK framework, directly mapping their defensive postures against the real-world behaviors of cyber adversaries. This appointment comes at a critical juncture for both Tidal Cyber and the broader cybersecurity industry, which is grappling with the shift from compliance-based security to more dynamic, intelligence-driven defense.

A Strategic Move Amid Explosive Growth

Hall's appointment is not just a routine leadership change but a calculated response to Tidal Cyber's rapid ascent. Founded in 2022 by a team of former MITRE experts, the company has quickly carved out a niche by making the complex principles of threat-informed defense both practical and sustainable for enterprises.

This approach has resonated strongly in the market. The company experienced a staggering tenfold increase in revenue and customer acquisition in the year leading up to late 2024. This momentum attracted significant investment, including a $5 million seed round in November 2023, strategic investments from USAA and Capital One Ventures in October 2024, and a recent $10 million Series A round in September 2025, bringing its total funding to $15 million. Industry accolades, such as being named “Threat-Led Defense Company of the Year” by GRC Outlook in December 2025, have further validated its market position.

This trajectory of intense growth necessitates a sophisticated product strategy and the leadership to execute it. Rick Gordon, Co-Founder and CEO of Tidal Cyber, highlighted the deliberate nature of the decision.

"Tidal Cyber is experiencing strong momentum as organizations adopt Threat-Led Defense as a more effective model for managing cyber risk," said Rick Gordon. "As our platform expands, it was critical to bring in a product leader from outside the company who could partner with our exceptional product, engineering and intelligence teams to scale innovation with rigor. Jessica brings the technical depth, product discipline, and customer-first mindset needed to evolve our platform and deliver new capabilities at the pace our customers and the market require."

The Product Mindset Meets Cyber Defense

Jessica Hall is not a traditional cybersecurity executive. She is a product, design, and AI leader known for building and scaling customer-focused B2B technology platforms in complex, data-heavy industries. Her career includes senior leadership roles at OpsCanvas, CoStar Group, and CEB (now part of Gartner), where she honed her skills in product strategy and platform development.

Beyond her corporate experience, Hall is the co-author of The Product Mindset and a TEDx speaker recognized for her work on product storytelling and outcome-driven innovation. This background suggests a focus on translating deep technical capabilities into tangible user value—a critical need in a field often saturated with complex, hard-to-use tools. Her expertise is expected to be instrumental in refining Tidal Cyber's platform, making the sophisticated process of Threat-Led Defense more intuitive and accessible.

Her deep understanding of AI is particularly relevant. Tidal Cyber has already invested in this area with its AI engine, NARC, which automates the extraction of adversary procedures from unstructured threat reports. Hall's leadership is poised to deepen this integration, potentially unlocking new ways to analyze threat actor behavior and predict future attack patterns.

Beyond Abstract Risk to Grounded Reality

The core philosophy behind Hall's appointment and Tidal Cyber's mission is a fundamental shift in how security is perceived and practiced. For years, many organizations have operated on a compliance-driven model, checking boxes and managing vulnerabilities in a way that often creates a false sense of security. Threat-Led Defense, by contrast, forces a more confrontational and realistic approach: understanding precisely how attackers operate and building defenses to stop them.

The MITRE ATT&CK framework serves as the common language for this approach, but organizations often struggle to operationalize it. The sheer volume of tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) is daunting, and manually mapping them to internal controls is a resource-intensive and perpetual challenge. This is the problem Hall is eager to solve.

"Tidal Cyber is solving one of the hardest and most important problems in cybersecurity - connecting real adversary behavior to how defenses are built, measured, and improved," said Hall. "What drew me here is the combination of deep domain expertise, a team that is genuinely curious and committed to learning, and a clear focus on building a customer-centric product in a high-stakes environment. This is an opportunity to help organizations move beyond abstract risk and toward security decisions grounded in how attackers actually operate."

This mission is more urgent than ever. The 2025 Threat-Led Defense Report highlighted the commoditization of zero-day exploits and the rise of new ransomware groups employing “triple extortion” tactics. Attackers are not just using new tools; they are altering their procedures to bypass existing defenses, rendering many traditional security measures ineffective. Hall's challenge will be to ensure Tidal Cyber's platform stays ahead of these evolving adversary tradecraft, providing defenders with the procedural-level intelligence they need to adapt and respond effectively.