Kevin Mandia testifies during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill on February 23, 2021 in Washington, DC.
Drew Angerer | Getty Images
Amazon said Kevin Mandia, the founder and former CEO of cybersecurity company Mandiant, is joining its board of directors.
In a blog post on Wednesday, Amazon referred to Mandia as a “widely recognized cybersecurity expert” with extensive experience “combating cyber threats” in the public and private sectors.
His appointment comes as companies grapple with new cybersecurity threats tied to artificial intelligence. OpenAI in July disclosed its autonomous agents successfully breached AI platform Hugging Face, while Anthropic in April took steps to limit the rollout of its Mythos AI model over concerns hackers could leverage it for cyberattacks.
Mandia founded Mandiant in 2004 and sold the company to Google for $5.4 billion in 2022. He left Google in 2024, and last year launched a new startup called Armadin, which uses AI to identify network vulnerabilities. Mandia is also a general partner at Ballistic Ventures, a venture capital firm he co-founded.
“Mandia is a global leader in cybersecurity whose experience building and leading companies that defend the world’s most complex organizations — and investing in the next generation of security entrepreneurs through Ballistic Ventures — will help inform the Board’s perspective on these opportunities and challenges,” Amazon wrote.
Amazon said in a securities filing on Wednesday that Mandia’s sister-in-law, Kristin Mandia, is a company employee. She works as a senior online community manager for Amazon Quick, an enterprise AI service, according to LinkedIn.
Mandia was awarded 4,086 shares of common stock as part of his appointment, which will vest in three equal annual installments beginning November 15, 2027, the filing states. Those shares are valued at about $1 million at Wednesday’s closing price.
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