InfoSec People, the specialist cyber security and tech recruitment company, are delighted to be named as the official recruitment and talent acquisition partner for the London Office for Rapid Cyber Acceleration, who have just launched their latest cohort 5.
LORCA announced an open call in March 2020 for startups with solutions to challenges presented by a connected society, including supply chain security, digital identity and the digital risk associated with an increasingly connected world to apply.LORCA announced an open call in March 2020 for startups with solutions to challenges presented by a connected society, including supply chain security, digital identity and the digital risk associated with an increasingly connected world to apply.
Yesterday, LORCA revealed 17 new members that make up their fifth cohort. The companies have innovative solutions that relate to identity, IoT, cloud security, autonomous cyber defence, privacy and more. And, conscious that cybersecurity (as well as the tech sector as a whole) needs to do more to enable diversity, LORCA also encouraged applications from under-represented founders. As a result,18% of their fifth cohort includes scaleups with female founders or CEOs and 18% leaders from BAME backgrounds.
SUPPORT TO SCALE
The goal of LORCA is to help scale the cyber innovations industry and society need most, while acting as a global landing pad and launchpad for cyber companies.
Their year-long programme will support the 17 early-stage companies to grow, secure investment, access new markets and participate in overseas trade missions, with the ultimate aim of growing the British cybersecurity industry. LORCA’s government-backed programme is delivered by Plexal’s innovation team along with Deloitte, which gives members technical and commercial support, and the Centre for Secure Information Technologies (CSIT) at Queen’s University Belfast, which provides engineering expertise and remote testing facilities.
Members will also benefit from engaging closely with industry, including directly with LORCA’s corporate partners (including Lloyds Banking Group, Dell Technologies and Kudelski Security) as well as through events, forums and introductions to LORCA’s international network.
SCALING THROUGH EXCEPTIONAL TALENT
InfoSec People become the latest addition to the LORCA Professional Services offering and will be providing cohort members with advice and guidance in how to build and scale effective tech and cyber teams throughout the programme.
As a leading supplier of cyber security recruitment solutions, InfoSec have built the teams at some of the UK’s most exciting cyber and tech scaleups since inception in 2008. Previous clients include CyberOwl, Ripjar, Senseon, Bitweave, Surevine, Tanium, Borwell, Deep3, (acquired by CACI Nov2019) and TrustNetworks (acquired by Lyft Feb2019).
Saj Huq, who leads cyber innovation at Plexal and is the director of LORCA, comments:
“Sourcing top talent is one of the biggest challenges cyber innovators are facing, so we’re delighted to be partnering with InfoSec People to help our members find the best talent as they scale their businesses. We do also need to address the talent pipeline challenge by inspiring more young people to develop their tech skills and helping them see a career for themselves in cybersecurity. Making sure we have a healthy flow of diverse talent with deep technical ability, business acumen and creativity is essential if we’re going to produce globally renowned cyber scaleups and unicorns in the future.”
Chris Dunning-Walton, InfoSec People’s Managing Director, comments:
“We are absolutely delighted to be formally supporting Saj and the team at LORCA and cohort 5, working with company owners and directors who require mentoring and support in how to effectively attract and retain the best talent in the sector. The team at InfoSec genuinely love working with owner-led scaleups who really understand the value of the people in their business and that the right hire can lead to rapid transformational growth.
The recruitment industry has typically struggled to effectively support cyber startups. The focus on transactional, large scale recruitment solutions with mid-to-large enterprise clients can be difficult to translate into the SME space. As a growing SME ourselves, we have direct experience of scale-up challenges and have worked hard to create flexible, scalable solutions for all our clients which add value beyond headcount growth.”
InfoSec will be providing a series of virtual and physical sessions for cohort 5 over the next few months, advising and mentoring on a number of key recruitment topics. This will include how to effectively leverage existing networks to hire directly, how to hire at pace and with clarity as well as how to craft a company people really want to work for in a competitive talent marketplace. Their recruitment specialists will also be offering Virtual Drop-In Clinics to answer any questions cohort members may have during the course of the programme.
InfoSec will also be working with LORCA to make active introductions between the CISO, CIO and buying teams within InfoSec’s enterprise clients and cohort members who have a relevant innovative offering which may be of interest.