Kirk Hanratty

About Kirk Hanratty

I’m the CTO and co-founder of SynerComm, where I help enterprise leaders turn complex cybersecurity challenges into clear, confident, business-aligned decisions.My work centers on reducing operational cyber risk—not by adding more noise, but by delivering what actually improves resilience:• Continuous security validation with human-in-the-loop expertise• Resilient architectures that minimize brittleness and failure paths• Real-time visibility into exposures that matter right nowI set the vision for how our teams blend automation with human judgment to help organizations see their environment the way an attacker would—and fix what truly increases risk. I am part of the team that defines the roadmap for our Continuous Penetration Testing capability powered by CASM®, aligning platform evolution with the needs of enterprise risk and resilience programs.As a Board Director at a federally regulated financial institution, I bring a unique combination of:• Risk and governance discipline expected in banking• Business and financial insight into how cyber risk affects enterprise value• Leadership accountability grounded in real-world oversight and fiduciary responsibilityThis dual perspective—technology leadership and board-level governance—sharpens my focus on clarity, resilience, and outcomes that withstand both attackers and regulators.I also contribute to industry dialogue as a member of the Forbes Technology Council, sharing practical insights on cybersecurity, risk, and leadership.My guiding belief—and the theme of my Principle of the Day series—is simple:Clarity beats complexity. Resilience beats reactivity. And cybersecurity only matters when it drives better business outcomes.

Experience

1. Member Board of Directors

   Great Midwest Bank

   Oct 2014 — Present · Brookfield, WI, US

   Board of Director on the Loan Approval and Audit Committee with cyber-security expertise.

Education

• Marquette University

  BS, Electrical Engineering & Computer Science

  1982 — 1986

Skills

• Security
• Enterprise Software
• Enterprise Architecture
• Cisco Ios
• Routing
• Applications Delivery
• Management
• Saas
• Penetration Testing
• Application Architecture
• Servers
• Information Security
• Solution Selling
• Network Security
• Storage
• Voip
• Data Center
• Virtualization
• Computer Security
• Network Architecture
• Ips
• Managed Services
• Vpn
• Juniper Technologies
• Cisco Technologies
• Leadership
• Vendor Management
• Virtual Private Network (Vpn)
• Firewalls
• Network Administration
• Project Management
• Juniper
• Cloud Computing
• Encryption
• Wan
• Go-to-Market Strategy
• Information Technology
• Network Design
• Sdlc
• Technology Needs Analysis