LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM, & BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS; JULY 25, 2023—Kape Technologies and ExpressVPN today announced new senior leadership appointments to enhance the group’s operations and strengthen its commitment to protecting user privacy and security online with industry-leading technology in the VPN space and beyond.
Chris Econn joins as Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for flagship privacy brand ExpressVPN. At the Kape Technologies group level, two experienced executives, Koby Menachemi and Ran Greenberg, will join as Co-Managers with portfolios in technology and marketing respectively.
Econn is a proven CTO with extensive experience in cybersecurity and consumer technology, with a strong track record of enabling teams to deliver significant value to hundreds of millions of people worldwide. As CTO for ExpressVPN, Econn will oversee initiatives aimed at scaling and advancing ExpressVPN’s technology and capabilities. He will work closely with ExpressVPN’s senior engineering team, who have been responsible for groundbreaking innovations like TrustedServer and the Lightway VPN protocol.
“ExpressVPN has long set the standard by which VPN companies are judged and held accountable,” says Econn. “I’m excited to be joining an organization that has led on the cutting edge of digital privacy, especially to be working closely with ExpressVPN’s team of industry-defining engineers, including Chief Engineering Officer Peter Membrey and Distinguished Engineer Brendan Horan. Our leading position will only be further strengthened under the new management team that brings together decades of excellence in engineering and business, with ExpressVPN reinforcing our strengths as a lean, fast-paced innovation powerhouse that delivers the most advanced privacy technology to our customers.”
“As we continue to innovate and deliver more advanced protection, we will also continue to uphold the core commitments that have secured our users today. This includes annual independent audits of our Privacy Policy compliance and absolutely no collection of activity logs, connection logs, or any data that can be used to link VPN activity or traffic with any individual user,” added Econn.
Koby Menachemi is also fully aligned with the organization’s core mission of delivering digital freedom to the world and supporting the team that has built ExpressVPN as the pacesetting VPN. “I am thrilled to be joining Kape Technologies’ leadership team,” said Menachemi. “I’ve experienced firsthand how technology, even when guided by the best of intentions, can be misused to infringe on our safety online. In today’s evolving threat landscape, digital privacy and security have never been more critical. I’m excited to join Kape’s world-class security and privacy team and have the opportunity to make a real difference for internet users worldwide.”
Ran Greenberg will supervise marketing activities across Kape’s brands. Greenberg co-founded Webselenese, a technological content platform acquired by Kape in 2021. Greenberg’s years of experience understanding consumer needs and challenges in privacy and security will help ensure ExpressVPN is best able to empower its users to take control of their internet experience. Greenberg is not involved in editorial decision-making for any Webselenese websites, and existing editorial leaders of Webselenese are empowered with full editorial independence to review all products and services by the same strict and transparent evaluation standards.
As part of the change in senior leadership, Ido Erlichman, Daniel Gericke, and Michael Truong have exited or are in the process of exiting the business.
ExpressVPN co-founder Dan Pomerantz remains a key leader in the business, continuing his more than 14 years of leadership in the VPN industry. Fellow co-founder Peter Burchhardt, who has been a valuable part of the company’s growth and evolution to this stage, left earlier in the year following a planned transition due to his decision to pursue new opportunities.
PRESS CONTACT
For more information, please contact the Kape Press Team
press@kape.com
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NOTES TO EDITOR
More about ExpressVPN’s Key Technology & Engineering Personnel
Chris Econn, Chief Technology Officer
Chris Econn is an experienced, hands-on, and growth-oriented CTO with a proven track record of over 25 years in building successful cloud enterprises in various industries, including financial services, cybersecurity, commercial aviation, and social networking/media.
He started his career as the third software engineering hire at ticketmaster.com and has led multiple early-stage start-ups to successful acquisitions exceeding US$500 million, including the first mobile location-based social network (Grindr) and Onica, acquired by Rackspace in 2019.
During his tenure at Onica, Chris grew the AWS consulting practice to become AWS’s top non-GSI technology partner, earning recognition as the fifth fastest-growing solution provider in 2019 on the CRN Global Fast Growth 150 list. Onica delivered innovative cloud-native application, mobile, IoT, ML, and Big Data capabilities to over 1,500 customers, including Ring, Amazon.com, Intuit, Southwest Airlines, and Halliburton.
Most recently, at Guardrail, Chris designed and implemented the Algorand Blockchain on AWS, Azure, and GCP, creating a compliant and hyper-secure cloud operating environment for the Algorand ecosystem. Prior to founding Guardrail, Chris served as Senior EVP for the cybersecurity firm known as “[redacted],” where he led professional services and managed security services practices.
Peter Membrey, Chief Engineering Officer
Peter Membrey is the Chief Engineering Officer at ExpressVPN and has been with the company since 2016. He is the creator of Lightway, a state of the art Open Source VPN protocol that protects millions of users every day with a focus on security and privacy. He was also one of the core creators of TrustedServer, the VPN industry’s first true RAM-only server operating system.
Peter is also a Chartered Fellow of the British Computer Society, a Chartered IT Professional and a Chartered Engineer. He has a doctorate in engineering and a master’s degree specializing in Information Security. He has co-authored over a dozen technical books and a number of research papers on a variety of topics. He is also an IEEE Computer Society Distinguished Contributor, has written for the IT Professionals New Zealand Blog and has appeared on national TV in New Zealand to offer insights into cybersecurity.
Although he works in industry, Peter remains very interested in academia and is actively looking for opportunities to conduct research and work with academics and students in the privacy field. His primary focus at the moment is internet privacy and the technologies that make that possible. His role is primary R&D and hopes to publish papers in peer-reviewed journals in the near future. He is also looking at founding a VPN industry-centric conference. Apart from this, he is also interested in time synchronization, particularly dealing with variable latency networks.
Brendan Horan, Distinguished Engineer
Brendan Horan is a Distinguished Engineer at ExpressVPN and has been on the team for over five years. During his tenure he has worked across the entire stack, working on ExpressVPN’s core network technology and co-creating TrustedServer, the industry’s first true RAM-only server operating system.
Self-taught from a young age, Brendan’s passion for electronics and technology has led to nearly twenty years of hands-on industry experience across a diverse range of platforms and operating systems. His dedication to the profession can be seen in his engagement and membership of world-class professional bodies such as the British Computer Society, the Hong Kong Computer Society, IT Professionals New Zealand, and the Australian Computer Society.
Brendan is also a professional published author and tech reviewer, having worked with Apress for many years. He is passionate about sharing his love of technology with others—even traveling to Hong Kong to teach surface mount soldering techniques to Hong Kong Polytechnic University students and act as an expert judge in their inaugural PolyHack Hackathon.
About Kape Technologies (“Kape”)
Kape is a leading ‘privacy-first’ digital security software provider to consumers. Through its range of privacy and security products, Kape focuses on protecting consumers and their personal data as they go about their daily digital lives. Through its subscription-based platform, Kape has fast established a highly scalable SaaS-based operating model, geared towards serving the vast global consumer digital privacy market.
About ExpressVPN
Since 2009, ExpressVPN has empowered millions of users to take control of their internet experience. The company’s award-winning consumer VPN service is backed by its open-source VPN protocol Lightway, delivering user privacy in just a few clicks. ExpressVPN’s Keys password manager and Aircove router make digital privacy and security easy and accessible for all. ExpressVPN’s products have been extensively vetted by third-party experts, including PwC, Cure53, KPMG, and others.
ExpressVPN has been part of Kape Technologies since 2021. To learn more about ExpressVPN’s industry-leading privacy and security solutions, visit www.expressvpn.com.
