The Blackpanda Leadership Team
Our senior leadership team combines decades of public and private sector experience to deliver Asia’s leading cyber incident response services.
Gene Yu is Founder and CEO of Blackpanda Group. A computer science honor graduate from West Point, Gene previously served in the U.S. Army Special Forces, and has authored three books. Gene has served in Asia across military and private sectors – as an equity swaps trader at Credit Suisse in Hong Kong and with Palantir Technologies’ Asia business development team in Singapore. Gene also attended Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and Stanford Graduate School of Business. Gene is currently best-known for leading one of the fastest recorded recoveries of a family friend, kidnapped in eastern Malaysia by Filipino Abu Sayyaf terrorists in late 2013.
Matt Pecot is Chairman and Co-Founder of Blackpanda Group. Matt previously served in the U.S. Army Special Forces and is the current Barclays Head of Markets for Asia-Pacific, a member of the Asia Pacific Executive Forum and Global Markets Executive Committee. Matt has worked in Asia-Pacific for over 30 years in both the military and private sectors, previously serving as Head of Prime Services and Head of Equities Distribution at Credit Suisse in APAC.
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Kevin McCaffrey is one of Blackpanda’s Co-Founders. Kevin is a practiced graduate of multiple highly respected intelligence, leadership, and military risk programs, specializing in crisis response and cyber warfare. With over 15 years of experience in intelligence, security operations, and crisis management, Kevin previously served in the U.S. Army Special Forces as part of strategically deployed teams in Asia, the Middle East, and beyond. Kevin received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania and is currently pursuing an MSc in Cybersecurity Leadership.
Timothée Grange is Chief Revenue Officer at Blackpanda overseeing the development of the group’s activities. Timothée spent the past 15 years in risk consulting roles including 10 years as the APAC managing director of a leading specialty lines risk management and loss adjusting firm. Timothée holds two master’s degrees–one in Finance (ESSCA) and one in Risk and Crisis Management (Paris 1 – Panthéon-Sorbonne). He also holds several certifications in Business Intelligence (IHEDN), Risk Management (ARM54) and Certified Ethical Hacking (EC Council).
Struan is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of Pandamatics. Throughout his 15 year career, Struan has serviced a diverse portfolio of entities throughout Europe, APAC, the Middle East, and North America with their Cyber, Financial Lines, Tech PI, Media, and Intellectual Property Insurance and Risk Management needs. He has held underwriting, broking, and risk advisory positions in Sydney, London, Singapore, and Hong Kong, and now holds overall responsibility for Pandamatics' Insurance Portfolio and Insurtech developments.
David is the Managing Director of Blackpanda Japan. Previously a Director at Kroll as well as the Head of Northeast Asia for Blackpeak Group, David brings 25+ years of experience in risk intelligence and corporate investigations to the team. David previously founded a risk consulting firm specializing in the Indo-Pacific region and has also served as an expert witness in criminal and civil trials in Hong Kong, Malaysia, and other Asian jurisdictions. David’s work has been widely featured in the Japanese and international press, including the Financial Times, Forbes, Bloomberg, Nikkei Asia and NHK.
Evelyn is a long-term IT practitioner specialising in information security and cybersecurity. She has worked in IT distribution for over 10 years, with a wide range of experience across presales, product management, sales, marketing and business development. With a background in education, Evelyn is on a personal mission to raise awareness of the importance of cybersecurity among individuals and corporations.
10+ years experience in insurance and loss adjusting APAC & EMEA, specialised in Tech E&O claims, Financial lines (Crime & Cyber) claims and Specialty lines (Contingency, Media, Fine Art).
15+ years experience in engineering, product, and data science in APAC, North America and Europe.
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10+ years of experience in IT and incident response serving both large FOR500 enterprises and smaller organisations.
10+ years of professional experience in cyber security, specialising in incident response and digital forensics. Certified GCFA, GCFE, GCIA, CISSP
10+ years of business development experience in the Technology and Infocomm space, with focus on top-of-funnel sales. Frequent speaker at tech and cybersecurity events.
Martin serves as the VP of Legal and Investor Relations at Blackpanda and is responsible for legal and regulatory matters. Martin is also responsible for handling investor relations and stakeholder communications on behalf of the Blackpanda Group. In previous roles, Martin has acted as counsel for, advised and liaised with investment funds and family offices of different sizes and their portfolio companies.
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As a former DoD and DoJ Crisis Manager with deployments in Europe, South America, and APAC, Lee brings 15+ years of computer crime investigation experience to his role as Blackpanda advisor, having previously led the company's incident response team. Lee has also held senior roles at a number of cyber and technology firms in the US and Singapore during his time in the industry, including Co-Founder at Horangi Cyber Security. Lee is currently the Principal Investigator with the CyberTriage team at BasisTech.
Matt Devost is a technologist, entrepreneur, and hacker with over 25 years of experience specialising in cybersecurity, risk management, counterterrorism, critical infrastructure protection, and intelligence issues. Matt is currently the CEO of the global advisory firm OODA and is an active board member, investor, and mentor in multiple early stage technology and cybersecurity companies. He is also a member of the Black Hat review board and an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University.