KANATA SOUTH – After 25 years of sharing his strategic expertise with companies around the country, Carp’s Brad Hibbert is happy to bring his talents closer to home.

Hibbert was recently recruited by Prevalent, a company that manages the risk of third-party cybersecurity issues, to grow the company and foster success.

He’s doing that from Prevalent’s new office space off Hazeldean Road – a location that will serve the multi-national company as both a research and development headquarters as well as a Risk Operations Centre.

The office space is so new, they don’t even have furniture yet. The 6,000 square-foot space is mostly empty save for the staff of 10 working in the new Risk Operations Centre (ROC) and a lonely guitar in the large, empty research and development space. Even Hibbert’s desk is borrowed and will be replaced when the furniture arrives.

“You hear it all the time,” Hibbert told West Carleton Online from the Hazeldean office last Wednesday (July 31). “Just last week Capital One announced more than one hundred million users’ data was breached. How do you make sure your business partners are secure and not putting you at risk? We’re coming in to take Prevalent forward. We think it’s a high-growth area.”

By ‘we’ Hibbert includes Chief Executive Officer Kevin Hickey (and several others), a man Hibbert has worked with before, most recently at BeyondTrust.

Hibbert came to Prevalent just last November. He brought with him more than 25 years of executive experience in the software industry “aligning business and technical teams for success.”

At BeyondTrust, Hibbert provided leadership as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Strategy Officer for solutions strategy, product management, development, services and support. Hibbert joined BeyondTrust via the company’s acquisition of eEye Digital Security, where he helped launch several market firsts, including vulnerability management solutions for cloud, mobile and virtualization technologies.

Prior to eEye, Brad served as Vice President of Strategy and Products at NetPro before its acquisition in 2008 by Quest Software. Over the years Hibbert has attained many industry certifications to support his management, consulting, and development activities. Hibbert has a Bachelor of Commerce, Specialization in Management Information Systems and MBA from the University of Ottawa.

“More than 60 per cent of recent cyber breaches involve a third party,” Hibbert said. “As a result, the space is healthy and growing. With a solid strategy, award winning products, supportive investors, and great people we have all the right ingredients for success. As we grow it will continue to create opportunities for our growing team.”

Prevalent’s headquarters are in Phoenix, AZ and also has facilities in the United Kingdom and New Jersey, NY, with about 140 staff between all locations. The company was founded in 2004.

“The growth is going to be here though,” Hibbert said.

Which is good news for him. Hibbert came to Ottawa when he was 18 for school. He and his family moved to Carp, in the West Lake community, in 2001 and “stayed out there ever since.”

While the short commute to work is certainly a perk, that’s not why Prevalent now has an office in Kanata South.

“I always wanted to do something local,” Hibbert said. “This is a great location with local access and people with great education.”

The Ottawa ROC recently hired 10 staff who literally just finished their training.

“We’re going to double that by the end of the year,” Hibbert said. “We can support growth for the next couple of years in this space.”

Prevalent hopes to have 21 people working in Canada by the end of the year, half in research and development and half for the ROC. They are currently looking for six to eight developers and quality assurance team members.

It was only six weeks ago the company signed the lease on the office space. It was only seven months ago Hibbert started at Prevalent. His role is diverse.

“Everything from product strategy, product management, to development, quality assurance to customer service and customer success,” Hibbert said. “The first thing we do is an analysis and put a strategy in place. One of those strategies is I wanted to bring research and development back. Specifically, to west Ottawa.”

A lot of the new Ottawa executive come from BeyondTrust.

“I’ve worked with these guys from way back,” Hibbert said. “We want to build a culture as a great place to work.”

Hibbert enjoys these early days of company building, it’s the most exciting time of the project.

“It’s just fun,” Hibbert said. “It’s fun watching the growth. It’s great having backers that are excited in the product. It’s fun to watch people grow and it can be lucrative. It’s an opportunity.”