Optiv hires Kevin Lynch as CEO
Denver, CO-based Optiv Security announced on April 13 that it has named Kevin Lynch as the company’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and member of the Board of Directors, effective April 17, 2020. Lynch comes to Optiv from Deloitte, where he served in a variety of leadership roles for more than two decades.
“Cybersecurity has never been more critical, and Optiv is at the intersection of some of most challenging situations and important purchase decisions for enterprises,” said John Park, KKR Partner and Optiv Chairman of the Board. “Kevin’s track record of successfully growing services businesses, coupled with his strong work ethic and management philosophy centered on people, makes him the perfect leader to take Optiv to the next level. We thank Dan Burns for his decade plus of leadership and look forward to an exciting new chapter for Optiv.”
Lynch is a seasoned executive with more than 30 years of strategic, operating and technology experience, largely in professional and technical services, and operating at scale within private and public environments. He has a proven track record of delivering growth and exceptional financial returns.
“Clients are facing unprecedented change and Optiv is well positioned to help organizations reduce cybersecurity complexity and enable digital transformation efforts,” said Lynch. “I am extremely honored and excited to lead Optiv and help turbocharge its already strong, innovative and client-centric approach to delivering integrated cybersecurity solutions.”
Dan Burns, Optiv’s co-founder and current CEO, will continue serving the company as an executive advisor to the CEO, partnering closely with Lynch and the Board to ensure a smooth transition.
“I’ve always believed that Optiv serves a critically important role in the world as a security solutions integrator – helping clients realize radically simpler and stronger cybersecurity programs that are business aligned,” said Burns. “Kevin is a veteran leader and the board and I are confident that he’s the right person to accelerate Optiv’s strategy and growth trajectory. I’m incredibly proud of everything our team has accomplished and can’t wait to see what Optiv accomplishes next.”
Prior to joining Optiv, Lynch served as a senior partner at Deloitte focused on substantially growing the firm’s mergers and acquisition services revenue and playing a key role in re-architecting the business. He served many of the firm’s largest clients as an overall advisory partner in the technology infrastructure, cloud, cybersecurity and computing segments. Lynch was also Deloitte’s chief global officer, overseeing $1.2B of annual investment and optimizing the U.S. partnership’s global interests. In previous roles, Lynch was chief strategy officer at AECOM, a Fortune 150 global engineering and construction services firm, and a director at PricewaterhouseCoopers. He is a regular lecturer on the topics of growth and operational efficacy.
Source: Optiv