Securing the Future
By: Eric Butterman | Categories: Alumni Association News
Cybersecurity is a problem that has been haunting technology for decades. Data in areas of health, finance, and more had been thought to be under a tight lock. But technological safecrackers have often proved otherwise. As we stare down the latest challenge to our world, the coronavirus pandemic, even tech offerings like Zoom have had their share of issues, causing a portion of the public to lose confidence in them.
Jordan Rackie wants to be a part of the overall security solution as CEO of Keyfactor, named to the post at the fairly young age of 33. Working on sensitive data protection for more than 500 of the world’s largest companies without necessarily staying within the traditional firewall, Keyfactor found confidence of its own in receiving $77 million in funding through Insight Partners in 2019.
Here we talk with the CEO about security, how Georgia Tech helped his career soar, and how Rackie knows rackets.
Q: How do you help companies move to the digital age from the brick-and-mortar space and other areas?
A: Our experience centers on asking companies how they move organizationally. You have lots of people in offices and in-person spaces moving to a very remote reality. How do you achieve that and maintain a certain level of security that your organization requires? That’s where we come into play. We also work with organizations in the medical industry, where we insert our code into things like pacemakers, heart monitors, and different medical devices that would be embedded into the human body. That way, if a software update is needed, for example, you can easily do that without having to remove the device from a patient’s body. We also work with airplane and train manufacturers, building in security at design to prevent hackers from breaching critical devices, for example, to take over the controls of a plane.
Q: You've spent most of your career in the Atlanta area. It really seems to offer a strong amount of opportunity.
A: Yes, and it also makes me think of the relationships I’ve had with Georgia Tech in the Atlanta area. Kyle Porter (Mgt 04) and I went to college together. He’s the CEO of SalesLoft. While working for David Cummings, founder of the Atlanta Tech Village, I sold Kyle marketing automation software, which led to a growing relationship between David and Kyle, who would later spin off SalesLoft. Craig Hyde, (CmpE 05), CEO of Rigor, and I have been longtime friends and went to Tech together. And when I was at QASymphony, you had Mark Buffington (Mgt 93) at BIP Capital, a venture capital group, which was one of our early investors. That’s a small list of a large network I continue to stay in touch with from Tech.
Q: Was there a particular course or experience at Georgia Tech that you found especially helpful?
A: I took an entrepreneurial class that was critical to my personal direction. Historically, the Institute does a strong job of getting alumni into large enterprises, but it was the unique courses around entrepreneurship and startups that I was most inspired by.
Founded in 2001 as a services business and pivoting to software in 2014, Keyfactor has 500+ global clients. Rackie (center), was named CEO in 2019.
Q: You were in sales earlier on in your career. What made you choose that path?
A: I’ve always been someone who likes to communicate. Thinking back on stories, when people asked why they should hire me for sales, I used to tell them about being back in school where people had a specific group of friends they gravitated to… I had many groups of friends and never sat at the same lunch table. I was always spending time with different kinds of people.
Q: And it's not just business where you're finding success. You also have been finding some with your tennis game.
A: I grew up really competitive and was a three-sport letterman in high school. As I’ve become older, there are types of sports I’ve focused on that limit the risk of injury. I’ve been concentrating now on tennis and golf and was part of a team that won a 2018 USTA Georgia State Men’s Team championship. Tennis is a good outlet and a good way to continue to stay competitive.
