About Tenzir
Mission
Our mission at Tenzir is to make security data easy. We are fundamentally changing the way that cybersecurity operations infrastructure is built and operated. Our vision is to give security teams control over their own data and to free them from vendor lock-in through a fabric of powerful and efficient security data pipelines. Our commitment is to foster collaboration, open standards, and an open platform to ensure freedom and control for organizations to shape their own security future. We want to make working with security data easy and affordable, so that security teams can focus on what matters most—hunting threats and safeguarding their digital environments.
Moreover, our mission extends beyond the innovation of our products. It encompasses the people who make these innovations possible. Recognizing the inherent value of each team member, we actively champion diversity in the cybersecurity domain, particularly among women and individuals from diverse backgrounds. Our aim is to break free from traditional role models and ensure that everyone has the opportunity to realize their full potential.
Leadership
Matthias Vallentin, PhD
Founder & CEO
Matthias is the mastermind behind Tenzir. After completing his PhD and postdoc in computer science at UC Berkeley, he brings the Californian spirit and driven work ethos right into the heart of Hamburg, Germany. His dissertation work provides the foundation for Tenzir. When not coordinating the top-notch team, he seeks outdoor adventures with his family.
Johan Hesse
COO & VP Sales
Johan oversees day-to-day operations and is the driving force behind business development at Tenzir. As a mathematician, he can recount a career of close to 25 years in the high-assurance area of cybersecurity at secunet, liaising with the leading European security authorities and managing foreign business. Recreationally, you might come across him in an opera house somewhere around the globe.
Julia Vallentin
CLO
Julia is Tenzir's in-house counsel and responsible for the contractual relationships with customers and clients. In addition, she advises on all questions of the operational business. Before joining Tenzir, Julia was an Associate in an international law firm, focusing on IP, antitrust and IT law. Outside of the office, Julia spends time with her family and indulges in the art and cultural scene of Hamburg.
Advisory Board
Kelley Misata, PhD
Dr. Kelley Misata serves as the Founder and CEO of Sightline Security and holds the position of Senior Director of Open Source at Corelight. Renowned for her extensive experience in cyber and information security operations, open source, privacy, and strategic communications. She is also interim President and member of the Board of Directors at the Open Information Security Foundation (Suricata) and played an instrumental role in the Tor Project. Dr. Misata's exceptional ability to bridge technical and non-technical realms, coupled with her passionate advocacy for open source technology, makes her a dearly valued addition to Tenzir.
Ethics
DEI Strategy
We have a comprehensive strategy that embraces Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI). This initiative recognizes the importance of diversity at the workplace, encompassing the unique qualities and perspectives that each individual brings, irrespective of social and ethnic backgrounds, gender, and sexual orientation. Equity is integral to our approach, ensuring fair treatment and opportunities for everyone, while inclusion is the cornerstone of fostering a sense of belonging where every voice is heard and valued. Our commitment extends to creating and nurturing a work environment that is welcoming, safe, and free from discrimination at all levels. This includes clear and measurable targets–for example, we aim to further increase our current women quota of 30% and attract more female technical talents.
Respecting Privacy
Our mission is to significantly speed up the investigation process after cyber attacks by means of automated analyses. In an IT-world of understaffing, talent shortage, and alert overload, it is a daunting task to keep a large infrastructure secure. We bring together long-standing expertise in security, software engineering, and data science to develop a solution that extracts meaningful signals from the noise and translates them into actionable insight.
Transparency
At Tenzir, we champion the principles of transparency and community, which is why we heavily invest in open-source software. Our very own open source project is a testament to this commitment. Our commercial offering operates on an open-core model, meaning, its source code is freely available under a permissive license while commercial features provide additional functionality. We take pride in sharing our code as it ensures that we maintain rigorous standards of code quality.
Boundaries
Despite our love for data and inference, we draw the line when our technology should be deployed for surveillance, violations of privacy, or any other forms of unlawful or unethical behavior. Our contribution is to make attacks less impactful, not help in conducting them. We want to share with the community our learnings and contribute to the ecosystem so that everyone can effectively deploy our technology to defend against today’s threats.