Trustifi, an AI-driven, next-generation email cybersecurity solutions provider, has appointed Jeff Spirdgeon as its new CEO, a channel and technology industry veteran.
Prior to joining Trustifi, Spridgeon was with Aware, an AI-powered collaboration security platform that protects unstructured data in workplace communications tools. Aware was acquired by Mimecast in 2024.
In an interview with Channel Insider, Spridgeon discussed why he joined the organization at this pivotal time, how the organization will continue to support channel partners, and his priorities going forward.
Why Jeff Spridgeon joined Trustifi
According to Spridgeon, this was the perfect storm for coming over to Trustifi.
The new CEO was at a point in his career where he wanted to lead a company, and once he learned about the technology, the people within the company, and the existing customer base, the fit felt natural.
Spridgeon said the solution’s completeness is one of Trustifi’s biggest strengths.
“There are lots of different facets to email security – inbound, outbound, encryption, security awareness training for employees, archiving – and you can get a whole suite of products that service all those different needs,” he explained. “Trustifi has built a single platform that can service all of those different business areas of concern, and they make it easy to administer and operate.”
Spridgeon adds that one of the biggest opportunities is what they’re doing with AI in the Trustifi product. The way their training application has been built, Spridgeon says, creates an opportunity for the organization that both end customers and service providers will appreciate.
Trustifi expands AI-driven security awareness training
Through its network of channel partners and its recently launched AI-driven SAT module, Trustifi offers an email security solution that integrates directly with a company’s web application. It provides a holistic platform for continuous end-user security-awareness education.
Among the biggest misconceptions about email security is that you can implement the technology on its own and assume the problem is completely solved, Spridgeon says.
“The challenge is bigger than that,” said Spridgeon. “Technology certainly helps, and it can be very helpful in screening, filtering, and reducing down your attack surface to a small number of novel things.”
Email security requires technology and user education
Spridgeon says that if you simply apply a technology to the problem without educating your end users on what they should look for, it can still lead to problems for your organization.
“Unless you’re continually educating your people as well as deploying the right kind of technology, then you still have a big open hole,” Spridgeon says.
Trustifi’s AI-driven security awareness training will be a big component of the company’s vision going forward. This training was designed to help channel partners protect themselves and their clients from modern threats.
“The security awareness training module has the ability to service that need for end users at our customer sites to be part of the solution for email security,” Spridgeon explains.
“Secondly, it’s a continuous learning tool where it has the ability to take an actual attack – or an actual email that’s come in with problematic content – and use that specific thing to create a training module to educate the rest of the users in real time about things that are actually happening and how to spot and mitigate that risk. Everything we’re doing at Trustifi is now built to have an immediate response that then cascades across the rest of our solution to continuously update and help against new and emerging threats.”
Trustifi targets easier deployment and management for MSPs
Trustifi is building product and organizational capabilities, so partners have better ways of working with them, better ways to monetize the solution, and a path to a profitable relationship with Trustifi to provide that solution to their clients.
“We’ve got capabilities that are existing today that are just getting better for deploying across multiple clients,” said Spridgeon. “One of the harder things to do, and that’s the feedback we’re getting from the MSPs and other partners we work with, is replacing a technology that might already exist at client sites.”
The new CEO notes that this switching process requires communication with end users, so they’re not surprised by the new email security experience, which Trustifi is helping clients with as well.
Channel partners become Trustifi’s top priority
Spridgeon says those are the things partners should anticipate that Trustifi will do better to help them run their business.
“Channel and partners are our number one priority,” he said. “We are working day and night tirelessly to help MSPs make email security easier to position, deploy, and manage on behalf of their clients, and we’d love the opportunity to work with any of them and prove that that is true.”
Spridgeon is determined to hit the ground running as he takes the reins at the organization.