王寧成為了Offensive Security的新一任首席執行官。這家網絡安全培訓公司以教授黑客技術、測試黑客技巧的流行認證項目而聞名于世。公司的另一個著名產品是Kali Linux，這是一款由全世界漏洞測試者使用的開源工具庫。

2006年與妻子愛麗斯一起創立Offensive Security的聯合創始人馬蒂·艾哈尼在給《財富》的郵件中寫道：“王寧加入公司是我們莫大的榮幸。”王寧和她“完美的技術與運營背景”令他驚嘆。

王寧是加州大學伯克利分校的物理學博士。20世紀90年代，她在咨詢公司麥肯錫（McKinsey & Company）開始了自己的職業生涯，并在那里與Facebook的謝麗爾·桑德伯格成為同事。隨后，她在多家科技公司擔任了高層職務，包括Lynda.com【現在是微軟（Microsoft）的LinkedIn Learning】的財務與運營總監、云軟件開發商Eucalyptus【如今由慧與（HPE）】首席財務官，最近又成為漏洞賞金初創公司HackerOne的二號人物。

去年9月，在Offensive Security從波士頓的Spectrum Equity獲取第一批風投資金之后，王寧作為獨立董事加入了這里。交易的條款并未披露。

今年1月3日，王寧取代了之前在公司擔任四年首席執行官、在菲律賓開展業務的喬·施泰因巴赫。后者于去年10月離職，前去為初創公司提供咨詢和建議。

黑客人才

王寧在電話中對《財富》表示，信息安全領域的專業技能分布很不平衡。在HackerOne工作的三年里，她發現業內的技能差距普遍存在。

她說：“少數頂尖黑客做出了主要的貢獻，獲得了大部分漏洞賞金。人們都在尋找合格的專業人才。”

確實，各公司對黑客人才求賢若渴。據美國商務部一項教育計劃贊助的職位追蹤項目CyberSeek估計，目前網絡安全領域的職位空缺數量已經超過30萬。

恐怕具有諷刺意味的是，Offensive Security的問題恰恰相反。公司的首席戰略官吉姆·歐格爾曼表示，他們的黑客隊伍人才濟濟，還將著手培養新一代計算機破解者，但他們急需的卻是經營行家。

歐格爾曼是Offensive Security產品的早期用戶，他為這些產品深深著迷并加入了公司。他解釋道，這種獲取人才的愿望是公司尋求外部投資的動機之一。

歐格爾曼之前表示：“這里的每個人都是安全怪咖——我們沒有真正的商業背景。”他說，當公司增長“進入平臺期”，“顯然”公司需要不一樣的新型人才。

Spectrum的投資人對Offensive Security的創始人進行了長達一年的游說，終于在去年秋天敲定了投資。負責本次交易的Spectrum投資人亞當·馬戈林表示“最大的難題”在于讓團隊“將我們視為合適的長期合作伙伴并相處愉快”。

他表示，王寧是他們“愿望清單上的首席執行官候選人”。

職業經歷

如今執掌公司的王寧開始著眼于擴張。

Offensive Security單單憑借聲譽，已經吸引了大量客戶，如思科（Cisco）、富國銀行（Wells Fargo）、博思艾倫咨詢公司（Booz Allen Hamilton）和一些國防相關的美國政府機構。通過眾口相傳和拉斯維加斯年度黑帽安全技術大會上的現場培訓，公司培養了一批擁躉。

王寧表示，她計劃在保證品牌核心業務如漏洞檢測工具Kali繼續免費的同時，開拓訂閱和繼續教育業務。她把開發更多企業對企業的產品作為優先級最高的工作之一。在Lynda.com，她曾打造過類似的產品線并大獲成功。

王寧稱，在Lynda.com任職期間，她在三年內把公司的營收運轉率從2,000萬美元提高到了1億美元。（這也讓她得到了Spectrum的關注，后者是Lynda.com最大的贊助商。）

在那以后，王寧又幫助HackerOne首席執行官和Eucalyptus前首席執行官馬丁·米克斯打造這兩家公司。她說自己幫助上一家公司HackerOne在營收上提高了一個數量級。

米克斯通過郵件對《財富》表示，王寧在打造商業模式上“起到了重要作用”。他說：“她已經為擔任首席執行官做了一陣準備，如今有了一個完美的機會。”（財富中文網）

譯者：嚴匡正

Ning Wang is the new chief executive officer of Offensive Security, a cybersecurity training business best known for its popular certification programs which teach technical skills to hackers and test their chops. The company is also known for developing Kali Linux, an open source toolset used by penetration testers the world over.

“We feel very fortunate to have Ning on board,” wrote Mati Aharoni, Offensive Security’s cofounder, in an email to Fortune. Aharoni, who bootstrapped the business in 2006 with his wife Iris, said he was wowed by Wang and her “perfect technical and operational background.”

Wang, who holds a Ph.D in physics from the University of California, Berkeley, began her career at the consulting firm McKinsey & Company as part of the same class as Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg in the 1990s. She later rose to a variety of c-suite roles at multiple technology companies, including finance and operations chief of Lynda.com (now known as Microsoft’s LinkedIn Learning); chief finance officer of Eucalyptus, a cloud software-maker (now owned by HPE); and most recently as second-in-command of HackerOne, a bug bounty startup.

Wang joined Offensive Security as an independent board director in September after the company took its first venture capital investment from Spectrum Equity, a Boston-based firm. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

On Jan. 3, Wang replaced Joe Steinbach, the company’s former CEO of four years, who ran the business out of the Philippines. He departed in October to consult and advise startups.

Hacking talent

Expertise is unevenly distributed within the information security industry, Wang told Fortune on a call. In the three years she spent at HackerOne, Wang discerned an extensive skills gap.

“A few of the top hackers make a majority of the contributions or bounties,” she said. “People are looking for qualified professionals.”

Corporations are indeed hungry for hacking talent. CyberSeek, a job-tracking project sponsored by an education initiative within the U.S. Department of Commerce, estimates the current number of unfilled cybersecurity jobs at greater than 300,000.

Perhaps ironically, Offensive Security had the exact opposite problem. Already replete with hacking talent and set on training the next generation of computer crackers, what the company needed was business savvy, said Jim O’Gorman, the company’s chief strategy officer.

O’Gorman, who joined Offensive Security after becoming enamored with its products as an early user, explains that this desire to get ahead was part of the rationale behind the company seeking outside investment.

“Everyone in the organization was security nerds—we didn’t really have a business background whatsoever,” O’Gorman said of the early days. When growth “hit a plateau,” he said, it became “obvious” the team needed new and different talent.

The folks at Spectrum courted Offensive Security’s founders for a full year before investing in the fall. Adam Margolin, the Spectrum investor who led the deal, said the “biggest hump” was getting the team “comfortable with us as the right long term partner.”

He said Wang was their “wish-list CEO candidate.”

Track record

Now that Wang is in charge, she has her sights set on expansion.

Offensive Security has already managed to attract big customers—including Cisco, Wells Fargo, Booz Allen Hamilton, and some defense-related U.S. government agencies—on the basis of reputation alone. The company built its following through word-of-mouth and in-person training sessions at the annual Black Hat hacker conference in Las Vegas.

Wang said she plans to develop subscriptions and a continuing education business while keeping core components of the brand, like the pen-tester toolset Kali, free. One of her top priorities will be to create more business-to-business offerings, a product line she built out to great success at Lynda.com.

During her tenure at Lynda.com, she took the business to $100 million in revenue run rate from $20 million in three years, she said. (It’s this achievement that put her on the radar of Spectrum, a Lynda.com backer, in the first place.)

Since then, Wang has helped M?rten Mickos, CEO of HackerOne and former CEO of Eucalyptus, build two companies. In her most recent stint at HackerOne, she helped the company grow revenues by an order of magnitude, she said.

Mickos told Fortune in an email that Wang “was instrumental” in terms of nailing a business model. “She has been preparing to be a CEO for some time,” he said, “and here came the perfect opportunity.”