Excelling with Grace | Dez Rock

“She was formidable, and now every step I take I honestly feel the presence of all my female ancestors with me. In the past few years, SIEMonster has grown to the point where it can shed the startup label, however this is only the start for me. I now intend to let the world know about us.”

Becoming A Leader

The CEO of SIEMonster didn’t want the role, as she was happy to advise from the sidelines, believing that the world would have a hard time accepting a female leader in a male-dominated industry. “Looking back, this could be seen as a lack of confidence. The motivation to step up came from my co-founder who made the argument that the business would not succeed the way it should unless I took the reins,” says Dez. “Given that scenario, there was only one option, I stepped up. At the start it wasn’t leadership skills I needed to learn, that was there naturally all my life, it was the confidence to do the job that I needed to improve.”

Dez believes in a simple philosophy. Before she leads, she makes an effort to get to know the person she is leading, as everyone is unique, and what motivates one person may only work on one person. “I truly believe that there is a role for everyone in this world, and there is no point pushing people into positions they are not comfortable with,” explains Dez. “I also believe that money is not the only motivator, and staff will leave a job in which they are treated badly even if they are getting good money. I pay close attention to the corporate culture I build and will hire to ensure it remains where I want it.”

Building A Brand

SIEMonster is the brainchild of a team of professional hackers with over 20 years of experience hacking into companies worldwide Using this experience, SIEMonster has built modern security SIEM tools for companies wanting to detect threats and risks to their organizations.

It all began when a global manufacturer detailed their frustrations at the excessive licensing costs of commercial SIEM products and asked the then penetration testing team could build a SIEM to minimize these annual license fees. The co-founders thought that was a great idea and set out to build a SIEM they would also use.  SIEMonster now provides SIEM products for Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs) and Security Professionals worldwide.

SIEMonster began as a collection of powerful open-source tools integrated together to give security professionals the latest security tools.  V4,  built on Kubernetes with managed ingestion and can reach an EPS (events per second) of 500K in its cloud offering.

Their latest version, due in the first quarter of this year, promises to handle 2 million+  EPS, blowing the competition out of the water.

For Dez and her team, the most significant achievement of SIEMonster has been revenue positive since the very start, which is not something every startup can say. This has afforded the company the autonomy required to remain innovative and hungry. SIEMonster has built a reputation in the security community without a single dollar of marketing, meaning its product spoke for itself and was well received by the tech community. “We built it, tech teams loved it, and they spread the word,” she adds.

This year will mark the launch of SIEMonster v5, a significant overhaul of the company’s software and its brand; everyone will notice the difference. This has been something SIEMonster has been working towards for a while now, and as big of a change as this is, this is only the tip of the iceberg as to what is to come.