Appointment leverages Kilb’s extensive experience establishing a presence in new markets, overseeing organization growth and securing enterprise sales, most immediately at Option3’s ENIGMA Zero Trust platform as its first Chief Strategy Officer.
POTOMAC FALLS, Va., Dec. 9, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Option3, a cybersecurity private equity specialist with a deep heritage in U.S. national security, has appointed Karl P. Kilb III as Operating Partner, also naming him Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) for its new ENIGMA Zero Trust platform. Kilb’s 30+ years’ experience in the technology sector includes 22 years at Bloomberg LP, where he served as its first General Counsel, a position he held for more than 15 years.
Kilb established the firm’s global legal department, assisting in developing and marketing Bloomberg’s products worldwide, including the negotiation of major enterprise sales. As the company grew rapidly, Kilb also played a broader role in organization building, identifying and adding new content, and protecting intellectual property, as well as mergers & acquisitions that helped fuel Bloomberg’s emergence as a global technology leader. Kilb’s experience since leaving Bloomberg includes founding and leading companies in cybersecurity, identity, and media, always with a focus on data and analytics.
“Karl brings Option3 a unique range of experiences essential to introducing new technologies and products in the market, having been responsible for scaling enterprise-wide sales and aggressively securing intellectual property and other rights,” said Manish Thakur, Option3’s Managing Partner. “His focus on cybersecurity, identity and analytics allows him to make an immediate impact as Option3 enters a period of rapid growth. Our recent acquisition of Onclave Networks is the first of many by our new Zero Trust platform. Karl’s prior experience in closing agreements, integrating acquisitions, and enabling rapid revenue growth, makes him a rare and invaluable addition to our team.”
“Option3 is at the forefront of addressing difficult cybersecurity challenges that America must get right – from critical infrastructure to the automotive sector, and more broadly to areas like cyber insurance,” Kilb said. “My experience establishing new sectors aligns with this mission. I’m eager to accelerate ENIGMA’s success at a time when the adoption of Zero Trust must be a priority for companies and our country.”
Option3 focuses on creating mid-market cybersecurity platforms scaling them as the champions of the future. It combines decades of expertise in private investing with a deep understanding of cybersecurity trends and priorities gained in the national security sector. The ENIGMA platform offers security against threats arising from Operational Technology (OT) and IoT networks with solutions that are exclusively Zero Trust. It builds on investments made by Option3 in Zero Trust long before President Biden’s Executive Order mandating the federal government adopt it.
With ENIGMA’s foundational technology being deployed by organizations such as NATO, the White House Communications Agency, the Defense Health Agency, ENIGMA is perfectly positioned to address commercial markets, with an early focus on healthcare, a priority market for both Option3 and ENIGMA.
“Karl’s career exemplifies the rare ability to blend legal, operational, and strategic expertise to drive technology innovation and business growth,” said Michael Schoenbach, a senior advisor at Option3. “His leadership will be instrumental as we expand ENIGMA’s capabilities and ensure its technologies are at the forefront of solving some of the most complex cybersecurity challenges facing critical industries today.”
Beyond Bloomberg, Kilb has guided early-stage technology companies in cybersecurity, identity, data, and media, co-founding ventures in faith-based and educational content. He is an active mentor and speaker on legal and entrepreneurial issues, teaching and serving as Chairman and Co-Founder of the Entrepreneurial Law Advisory Council at Fordham University School of Law since 2014 and a board member of NYU’s Lawyers’ Alumni Mentoring Program since its inception in 1997.
About Option3
Option3 is a specialist cybersecurity private equity firm based in New York and Reston, Virginia that combines experience from the classified world of U.S. national security with decades of experience in private investing, capital markets, and mergers & acquisitions. Since 2016, Option3 has invested in a variety of innovative companies across the cyber ecosystem, through a number of investment portfolios focusing early in such areas as threat intelligence, operational technology and Zero Trust. With a team that spans the C-suite, Option3 seeks control positions in mid-market companies that it can help build into the champions of the future. Option3’s investment strategy is informed by its longstanding Technology Board, which spans the former Chief Information Officer of the CIA to the former CIO at Department of Defense, and a Capital Board of leading financiers. Option3 operates its Cyber TRUST™ index, one of the only equity indices comprised purely of companies engaged in cybersecurity. For more information, please visit www.option3.com.
About ENIGMA
ENIGMA is a next generation American cybersecurity platform that seeks to protect against threats arising from beyond traditional Information Technology, particularly the large installed base of devices in Operational Technology and Internet-of-Things. ENIGMA solutions are exclusively based on Zero Trust, a paradigm in security that regards every user, device, and component as untrusted, regardless of whether they are inside or outside the network. The platform was originally created out of investments in purpose-built Zero Trust companies made by cybersecurity private equity specialist, Option3. ENIGMA launched in August 2024 with its foundational acquisition of one of these companies, Onclave Networks, which uses Zero Trust principles and methods developed by the U.S. Department of Defense to secure IT networks from the world of Operational Technology and IoT. Onclave was recently awarded the first ever Authority to Operation (conditional) ever given by any federal agency for Zero Trust architecture, with its products now being deployed at the White House Communications Agency, Defense Health Agency and NATO, with planned deployments spanning from U.S. hospital networks to the global auto sector.
SOURCE Option3
