MindPoint Group Leadership Team

MPG leaders are dedicated to offering customers, partners, and employees innovation and excellence in everything they do.

Partners and Co-Founders

Patti Chanthaphone

Patti Chanthaphone

President
Patti Chanthaphone is a MindPoint Group co-founder and President. She sets the strategic vision for the company and presides over all elements of the company to ensure the company meets its operational goals, delivers leading-edge services, drives high client satisfaction, and provides employees with an environment to grow and achieve professional excellence. Patti is a cybersecurity SME who has been providing IT security program and project management, executive leadership, and leading business development since 1999. She has a successful track record in leading business growth and delivering exceptional cybersecurity services. Patti is a Certified Information Security System Professional (CISSP) with a Master’s degree in Engineering Management (Information Security Management concentration) from George Washington University and a Bachelor’s degree in Administration of Justice with a Minor in Legal Studies from George Mason University.
Marc Dixon

Marc Dixon

Vice President
Marc Dixon is a MindPoint Group co-founder and Vice President where he is responsible for Facility Security Management, Community Outreach, and Corporate Compliance. Marc has been providing subject matter expertise in federal, state, and local government technical writing, proposal management, and business development (BD) operations since 1994. He successfully managed winning proposals in excess of $350 million dollars. He has extensive support experience regarding market and business intelligence, performance measurement, corporate statistical analysis and compliance. During his tenure at MindPoint Group, Marc has promoted the company’s community outreach program where we have dedicated thousands of hours and donated $400K to various community outreach programs. He is a veteran of the U.S. Navy, and an alumnus of Marshall University.
Matt Shepherd

Matt Shepherd

Vice President
Matt Shepherd is a MindPoint Group co-founder and Vice President responsible for the marketing, sales, and delivery of all of our Information Security and Privacy (IS&P) services. He is a cybersecurity SME responsible for managing and developing IS&P solutions teams and delivering excellent support services for government and commercial sector clients. In addition to overseeing and implementing IS&P service offerings, Matt is responsible for developing a portfolio of contracts to leverage the company’s strong IS&P capabilities across all applicable markets. Matt has been providing program and project management and technical leadership in Information Technology since 1999. Matt has a Master’s degree in Information Assurance from Capital College and a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology and Philosophy from St. Mary’s College.

MindPoint Group Directors

Omar Aminzay

Director, Finance and Accounting
Omar is an accomplished Director of Finance and Accounting with a distinguished career in the government contracting sector. As a Director of Finance and Accounting, Omar is committed to leveraging his experience and expertise to drive the growth and success of the company.

Peter Davies

Director, Proactive Security
Peter is responsible for building out our penetration testing and red team solutions, which are designed to assist clients in the assessment of complex networks and applications to identify and remediate security issues in a diverse range of environments. With over 20 years of IT experience, over 15 of those years have been focused on providing vulnerability assessments and penetration testing support to commercial and government clients.

Davida Gray

Director, Corporate Operations
Davida directs MindPoint Group’s Corporate Operations where she oversees the relationship between MPG and employees as well as our contracting department. She has 20 years of extensive business experience in Human Resources Management, Employee Relations, Training, and HR Business Partner services. Davida is a tenured HR leader supporting cyber security programs, NASA, and many other federal government contractors.

James Rodgers

Director, Cybersecurity Defense
James is responsible for managing our cyber threat, cyber hunt, incident response, and insider threat solutions teams. He is a cybersecurity expert with over 20 years’ experience in information assurance, security engineering/architecture, vulnerability assessment, penetration testing, cyber threat intelligence, and security operations centers (SOC), and he has successfully led the development of enterprise security programs and organizations to include establishing four SOCs across both the U.S. Federal Government and Financial Sector.

Gabriela Smith-Sherman

Director, Governance, Risk, and Compliance
Gabriela is a former Federal agency CISO with over 15 years of experience in leading and implementing comprehensive enterprise cybersecurity programs and initiatives. She leads our GRC services portfolio, and is directly engaged in our support for multiple cabinet-level Department CISOs. She is a U.S. combat disabled veteran who understands the importance of mission and is dedicated to delivering high-quality results and value to customers through innovative solutions.

Elaine Toennies

Director, IS&P Chief of Staff
Elaine is a passionate servant leader with over 20 years of professional experience supporting people and driving service delivery excellence across programs, projects, and initiatives in Federal IT, banking, and healthcare. She supports Matt Shepherd in his role by acting as a force multiplier for achieving the company’s strategic vision. She leads up some of MindPoint Group’s most important initiatives and coordinates with leaders across the company to achieve these goals. She continually works to mature internal processes, reinforce corporate culture, and to become indispensable to everyone around her.

Anthony Mercaldo

Associate Director, Cybersecurity Shared Services
Anthony has been providing management consulting support to federal shared service centers for over ten years. He is responsible for designing, implementing, and managing cybersecurity shared services for customers, which provide them with highly effective cybersecurity capabilities through standard, cost-effective service models. He has a Master’s degree in Public Policy and Management from Carnegie Mellon University, as well as Bachelor’s in Psychology and Criminology & Criminal Justice from the University of Maryland.

Jennifer Moyars

Associate Director, Talent Acquisition
Jen leads MindPoint Group’s Talent Acquisition team and supports the company’s growth by overseeing all processes related to bringing external talent onboard. She has 15 years of talent acquisition experience, specializing in finding and securing IT and Cyber talent in both commercial and government contracting companies supporting both the Federal Civilian and DOD/IC agencies. Jen joined MindPoint Group in 2021 and has a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Virginia.

Lindsay Van Dyke

Associate Director, Growth
Lindsay provides strategic and advisory support to the Growth Department’s federal, commercial, and marketing teams. Her focus is on aligning and leading cross-departmental major strategic company initiatives. Lindsay also directly oversees MPG’s federal and commercial proposal department. She holds a Bachelor of Science from Virginia Tech’s Pamplin College of Business.

MindPoint Group Managers

Arsalan Abbasi

Manager, GRC
Arsalan manages a Governance, Risk and Compliance solution team for MindPoint Group. Arsalan is a cybersecurity professional with over 10 years of experience in Information Technology, with a focus on IT Security and ICAM. Arsalan has supported various government agencies throughout his career and has specializations in many different areas of cybersecurity, including penetration testing, security architecture and design, and vulnerability management.

Tom Bakry

Manager, MPGSOC
Tom has been working in technology for more than 30 years and Cybersecurity has been his passion from his very first firewall. Tom uses his software development and PMP background to help the MPGSOC team to build out its world-class tools and services to take on the important Security Operations work for MindPoint Group’s clients. His diverse experience in banking, healthcare, legal, non-profit, and NGO enable him to provide valuable perspective to the team and bring value to our customers.

Casey Barnett

Manager, Marketing
Casey leads MindPoint Group’s marketing team, helping to align our mission and vision with customers, clients, and partners who share our vision. Casey is a technology enthusiast with expertise in marketing, campaign strategy, event coordination, brand voice, and messaging. Connect with our cybersecurity whisperer on LinkedIn and of course, if you need MPG SWAG, Casey is the one to talk to!

Dylan Bracey

Manager, SOC Services

Ahmed Buhkari

Manager, Sales Engineer

Eron Covington

Manager, Proactive Security and Security Operations
Eron has 18 years of experience in Information Technology and 12 years as a Penetration Tester and holds various Red Teaming and Penetration Testing certifications. In addition to these skills and certifications, Eron has experience in helping MPG customers design, implement and manage their Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing (VAPT) infrastructure.

Francisco Crovetto

Manager, Accounting & Finance

Baigali “B” Dalai

Manager, Growth
Baigali manages MPG’s federal capture team within the growth department. She oversees the full capture and business development lifecycle process including qualifying business development leads, leading capture research, planning, and development as well as supporting proposal activities. As the Federal Sales Manager, she is responsible for building and managing a public sector pipeline that aligns with the company’s vision and mission. She holds a B.S degree in Marketing from the University of Maryland, Robert Smith Business School.

Akintola DaSilva

Senior Manager, CyDER @ OCC
Akintola’s interest in technology as a child led him into the IT industry after graduating from the University of Maryland. Akintola has specialized in GRC during his 15+ year career in cybersecurity, helping to assess and improve security for many federal government and private industry clients.

Christi Gavilan

Manager, Architecture & Engineering

Morris "Mo" Herring

Senior Manager, Commercial Sales & Partnerships
Morris (Mo) Herring is the leader of MPG’s Commercial Sales team, supporting initiatives for Government Contractors, Healthcare, Finance and Banking, and growing our partnerships in the cybersecurity ecosystem. Mo has several professional certifications including VCP, CISSP, CCSP, PMP and ITIL. Mo served in the US Army as well as a police officer. Mo has worked in several infrastructures services for cloud providers in the healthcare and financial industries. He as earned Bachelor’s of Social Science Degree from Southern Methodist University (SMU) with an emphasis in political science and anthropology.

Jyoun Holmes

Manager, Contracts
Jyoun manages MindPoint Group’s Contracts Department with extensive experience in law and management. She has successfully led the legal, contractual, and logistic activities for the healthcare, government, state and local government, IT, airline, and commercial industries. In her role, she leverages industry expertise as a Certified Professional Contracts Manager (CPCM) and certifications in Mediation and Conflict Resolution.

Amy Horan

Manager, Architecture & Engineering

Kevin Lock

Senior Manager, SOC
Kevin is an experienced Program Manager with more than 30 years in leadership, management and cyber operations, with an emphasis on change management and process engineering. He has an MBA from University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business, is PMP certified, and is retired from the U.S. Navy. 

Greg Lyon

Manager, Architecture & Engineering
Greg has been working in software and technology for more than 30 years and building great products and tools has always been his focus. Greg uses his software development, small business leadership, and DevOps background to manage MPG's A&E Independent Research and Development team and build out enterprise-class security tools to take on the important Security Operations work at MindPoint Group. His diverse experience in manufacturing, educational publishing, healthcare, and finance enables him to provide valuable perspective to the team and bring value to our customers.

Brett Massar

Manager, Security Operations
Brett is an experienced cybersecurity expert with over six years of experience providing Managed Security Services (MSS), senior monitoring and incident response (IR) expertise, guidance, and business development for multiple Federal agencies. Brett is CISSP certified and an AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner with a Bachelor’s degree in Cybersecurity and Information Assurance from Western Governor's University.

Edna McCalla

Manager, GRC
Edna leads and develops scalable Cybersecurity Supply Chain Risk Management (SCRM) team responsible for securing MPG Federal customer’s technology and mitigating critical threats and vulnerabilities existing in cybersecurity’s evolving landscape. She provides subject matter expertise for SCRM and evaluates client’s supply chain program, policies, and procedures against best practice, and proposes solutions and continuous process improvement recommendations.

George Nalen

Manager, Architecture & Engineering

Katy Paquette

Manager, GRC

Amber Ponce

Manager, Accounting & Finance
Amber manages the daily financial activities in the accounting department including payables, receivables, payroll, and other corporate accounting functions. She has been providing daily financial, operational strategy, and executive office management in small businesses within the government contracting sector for over 18 years. She has a versatile skill set in the areas of financial reporting, accounts receivable, accounts payable, payroll, corporate taxes, operating budgets, government contracts, DCAA compliance, and employment law.

Jim Porter

Manager, GRC

Lucy Price

Manager, Security Operations
Lucy has more than 20 years of professional experience in managing information technology and cybersecurity projects. She has supported missions for the U.S. Army’s Worldwide Individual Augmentation System (WIAS), the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service training program, the Department of Defense’s Secure Unclassified Network (SUNet), and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC); and she taught at the George Mason University School of Business. Lucy earned her Master of Arts in Professional Writing and Rhetoric from George Mason University, and she holds industry certifications including CISM, CISSP, and PMP.

Stephen Putnam

Manager, GRC

David Richardson

Manager, Architecture & Engineering
David has served in various leadership roles throughout his career. He holds degrees in Information Technology and Information Systems and has over 25 years of IT experience spanning areas such as IT operations, engineering, and security in both the public and private sector. David is a client-focused, hands-on program manager with proven success in directing resources to empower organizations to advance strategic objectives.

Carolyn Sanders

Manager, GRC
Carolyn is a former Federal Agency CIO and CISO. She is a results-driven Cybersecurity Manager with extensive experience implementing and overseeing technology programs. Her stellar public sector career in planning and directing activities provided innovative IT solutions to advance the organization's mission. She leverages her current industry certifications, including the CISSP, PMP, CISM, CDPSE, and CBCP, to support MPG customers.

Sean Shortridge

Manager, GRC

Simon Shtipelman

Manager, Information Technology

Tekedra Gregory

Manager, GRC
Tekedra is a client-focused Program Manager with over 18 years of experience and demonstrated expertise in Cybersecurity policy. She leads our FedRAMP team and is directly engaged in system security audits, risk assessments, and vulnerability analysis and reporting for SAAS, IAAS, PAAS, and DAAS cloud-based architectures. She is revered for outstanding attention to detail and methodical, effective project execution.

Gregory Turk

Manager, PM Architecture and Engineering

Maria Vega

Manager, Security Operations
Team MPG

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Our team has been handpicked from the best in the industry to ensure a versatile range of perspectives from all cultures. We are a proud minority-owned business.
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