The war against Ukraine was already underway when SOC Prime, a cybersecurity tech company, was founded in 2015. Three individuals from Ukraine, who already had a good reputation in Eastern Europe but nearly unknown beyond its borders, decided to embark on a mission to change the game in cyber defense. In 2022, when the war against Ukraine heightened, they changed the game with their compassionate leadership.
When Alex Bredikhin, Ruslan Mikhalov, and Andrii Bezverkhyi started the company, they successfully filled a need for a trusted repository of detection code that could capture a cyber threat before it could become a full-scale attack. Over the years, the project has evolved from a one-time hobby website to a sophisticated SaaS platform that helps people speak any cyber defense language at once. With their tool Uncoder, security defenders save over five years in learning specific languages.
The basis of SOC Prime’s technological innovation and collaboration is founded in courage and compassion. SOC Prime’s work “has everything to do with courage and compassion because it is all about people!” says Bezverkhyi. When I interviewed Bezverkhyi, he was in his car on his way to deliver supplies to his team members and other Ukrainians. “If we want the industry of millions of people to come together and defend each other, we have to start with our own small team. This is why we are focused on trust, transparency, and helping each other at work and often beyond.” This presented a challenge, as each team member brings to the table different experiences. “I would describe my own work experience before SOC Prime as extremely traumatic. One of the companies I worked for would fire people for a difference of opinion or for watching YouTube during lunch hours. This was a good learning of what can be done differently,” says Bezverkhyi.
People do not grow if they are getting blamed all the time, and business does not strive if people are fired for expressing an opinion or making mistakes. “As first-time founders, we were making hundreds of mistakes. Two things that helped us grow were being open to acknowledging our mistakes and learning to outgrow them. We called it a ‘second chance culture’ where people always get a chance to try again, no matter how hard they fail,” shares Bezverkhyi.
When nurtured, simple ideas can often grow into big projects that seem extraordinary to an outsider. When Bezverkhyi secured Series A financing for the company in 2021 from reputable Venture Capital funds and individual successful entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, one of the first items on the agenda was business continuity. Shortly before the full-scale war engulfed Ukraine, investors supported Bezverkhyi in his request to allocate a business continuity budget to train and equip people in case the worst possible situation happened. “I remember when we made a business continuity plan that required people to rapidly gather their belongings and travel to a safe zone in the country or abroad. And as we tested it, it was quite an experience having 63 families with their significant others, kids, dogs, cats, and other pets to practice grabbing ‘go bags,’ driving, and flying within hours after receiving the call. While stressful in test mode, it made all the difference when all hell broke loose because people knew what to do and knew they were not left out alone. So, we have not lost a single working day, and everyone who followed the plan was safe. As extremely hostile conditions unfolded, I assigned a working group of people to ask everyone about the required supplies, from warm clothing to 4G routers and power supplies. When the country’s energy system started to be continuously attacked by drones and rockets, we purchased and delivered over 1 ton of 12V accumulator batteries, current inventors, and heating supplies. And this is where the team exceeded the expectations of any leader. While I was negotiating for additional funding, which got approved, our executives paid upfront with personal funds to accelerate the purchase and delivery of the supplies. Because this was not new to us,” says Bezverkhyi.
As a global cybersecurity startup, SOC Prime team members can literally work from any spot on the planet as long as there is coffee, internet, and some shelter. This wins a massive amount of time for a person, every single day, that people are investing in work, their personal goals, health, and family. Bezverkhyi is grateful for the investments he’s received thus far and his entire team at SOC Prime. Together, they represent the power of compassion at a time when the world truly needs it.
Bezverkhyi and other leaders featured in these posts in 2023 have been nominated for a 2024 Compassionate Leaders Circle Award. Nominations will open to the public in November.
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