Former Darktrace board member Sushovan Hussain is appealing a 5-year prison sentence for his role in the disastrous HP Autonomy deal.n upmarket offices off London’s Trafalgar Square, a short walk from Parliament, rows of Darktrace employees are working the phones, flogging the startup’s artificial intelligence software, which hunts down hackers on the networks of major businesses. Above them a monitor tracks sales wins: happy faces for staff performing well, sad for those lagging behind.
Poppy Gustafsson, co-CEO of Darktrace, is a qualified chartered accountant and former CFO of the cyber security firm.As a $5 billion civil fraud suit brought by HP in the U.K. rumbles on, the U.S. has pressed ahead with criminal charges in what prosecutors say is the largest fraud case in the history of the Northern District of California.
“We have built this hugely successful company,” says Gustafsson, of her and Eagan’s leadership. “And we are both fiercely, fiercely proud of this business and what it has achieved.” Gustafsson and Eagan, in a two-hour interview at the company’s London headquarters, stress they’re firmly in control of the company, and have been since they became joint chiefs in October 2016. They deny claims from one former employee that Hussain was seen as “everyone’s boss’ boss.
The Autonomy connection persists today; half of Darktrace’s board and six of its eight top executives are ex-Autonomy folks, which included Gustafsson and co-CEO Nicole Eagan . So embedded was Hussain in Darktrace culture he appeared in amusing video skits designed to galvanize staff during yearly sales meetups at grand locations. During one in 2017, after he had left the board, Hussain appeared as Morpheus, the Laurence Fishburne character fromwho memorably said “Remember, all I’m offering is the truth,” three former employees confirmed. “Management thought [the videos] were hilarious. Everyone was just like what the hell is this,” the former employee adds.
So embedded was Hussain in Darktrace’s culture he appeared in amusing video skits designed to galvanize staff.
The well-regarded co-CEOs of cybersecurity firm Darktrace have deep ties to Sushovan Hussain, the convicted former CFO of British data analytics company Autonomy