Company establishes U.S. headquarters in Boston, adds offensive security leader Rich Smith to fuel enterprise adoption 

Mindgard, the leading provider of Artificial Intelligence security solutions, announced the appointment of James Brear as Chief Executive Officer. To further accelerate its growth, the company also welcomed renowned offensive security researcher Rich Smith to its team and established its U.S. headquarters in Boston. These moves follow Mindgard’s recent expansion of its leadership team with offensive security expert Aaron Portnoy, reinforcing the company’s rapid trajectory and the caliber of talent driving its mission. This momentum is designed to capitalize on the growth opportunity in the generative AI cybersecurity market, which is projected to reach $35.5 billion by 2031. 

These milestones come as Mindgard scales its solution to meet demand from the world’s largest organizations, helping them discover shadow AI, automate AI red teaming, and achieve runtime protection to ensure their models and agents operate safely and securely in compliance with legal and operational policies. 

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Proven Leadership for the Next Stage 

“We’ve assembled the strongest AI security team in the world, with deep roots in cybersecurity AI research and behavioral analysis,” said James Brear, CEO of Mindgard. “The world needs a new foundation for AI security and Mindgard is delivering it. Our solution has been battle-tested 

in Fortune 500 companies by elite security teams and is expanding to cover the entire AI lifecycle, from development to production. I’m honored to lead the team at this inflection point.” 

James Brear, a seasoned growth-stage CEO with over 15 years in cybersecurity, brings a proven track record of scaling public and private technology companies. He has partnered with founders to accelerate growth, expand operations, and build category-defining businesses. Most recently, he served as CEO of Swimlane, where he grew the company into the industry’s largest standalone security automation provider. Prior to that, he led Veriflow (acquired by VMware) and Procera (acquired by Francisco Partners). Brear now joins Mindgard as it moves from breakthrough innovation to large-scale deployment, while Co-Founder Dr. Peter Garraghan transitions to Chief Science Officer, deepening his focus on advancing the company’s long-term AI security research and vision.

Mindgard’s new U.S. headquarters in Boston will serve as the company’s North American hub, with plans to expand its footprint through hiring across key functions to meet growing enterprise demand. 

A Solution Built for a New Kind of Threat 

AI is dynamic, opaque, and contextual, which makes it exploitable in entirely new ways. As organizations integrate AI into mission-critical systems, attackers are learning and successfully exploiting its behavior. This has created a growing set of risks that security teams struggle to understand, detect, or defend. 

“AI is everywhere yet organizations can’t find it, can’t measure it, and can’t secure it,” said Dr. Peter Garraghan, Co-Founder of Mindgard, Chair Professor in AI security at Lancaster University, and now Mindgard’s Chief Science Officer. “AI agents leveraging technologies such as RAG databases and MCP are being built, bought, and deployed into enterprises faster than they can roll out protection or controls. We need a new security foundation before the AI tsunami hits, and I’m excited to work with James to secure the world’s AI.” 

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Bringing Offensive Security Principles to AI Security 

Rich Smith, a veteran of the security industry, joins Mindgard to work alongside Aaron Portnoy. He brings deep expertise in adversarial research, a critical pillar of Mindgard’s approach to securing AI, having held senior leadership roles at Duo Labs, Etsy, and most recently Crash Override. 

“AI systems reflect the people who train them, the data that feeds them, and the behaviors they enable,” said Smith. “To secure AI, we have to think like attackers who understand systems, people, and language. That’s what we’re building at Mindgard, a truly multidisciplinary approach to AI security.” 

Defining an Emerging Security Category 

As AI rapidly enters the software supply chain, security leaders are being forced to rethink how they enforce compliance and policy within organizations in the face of rapidly sprawling agentic AI adoption. Mindgard’s platform tackles this complexity head-on, earning recognition from industry analysts for its novel and rigorous approach. 

“Mindgard stands out by rethinking the problem,” said Justin Lam, Senior Research Analyst at S&P Global Market Intelligence. “Rather than layering legacy controls onto AI, they have built a solution from first principles that combines red teaming, psychology, and AI research. The result is a platform that helps enterprises secure AI supply chains and enforce policy before risk becomes exposure.” 

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