Cybersecurity guru Antoinette King launches consulting firm

MIDDLETOWN, N.Y.—Antoinette King, PSP, DPPS, has certainly made her mark in the security industry for more than 20 years. Now, she is branching out on her own with a new venture focused on cybersecurity.

On July 1, 2021, King launched her own consulting firm, Credo Cyber Consulting LLC, with the goal of helping organizations understand how to tie their physical security and cybersecurity objectives to their mission.

“I started this journey in cybersecurity about three years ago when I started my master’s degree,” King told Security Systems News. “I always wanted to go back to school. I wanted to do something in either security or computer science, I wasn’t really sure. When I started recognizing that, as an industry, there was this huge knowledge gap around cyber, I said, ‘Alright, that’s what I’m going to go to school for.’ I signed up at Utica College for their Cybersecurity and Risk Analysis program, and as I started diving into that world, my passion just ignited.

“When I started seeing the threat landscape, understanding the global threat landscape, and how it affects supply chain, sometimes there are things that you see, you can’t unsee. Then it became almost an obsession.”

King served at Axis Communications for four years prior to launching Credo Cyber Consulting, starting as Regional Sales Manager in the New York/New Jersey region before becoming Key Account Manager in that region, working closely with large global partners to influence and create strategic security plans, develop global standards, and strengthen relationships surrounding the end customer with integrator, distributor, and technology partners to support customers' security goals.

She noted that her experience at Axis was a major factor in the decision to form her own security consulting firm.

“Working at Axis and being a manufacturer, understanding supply chain, wanting to talk to the channel about how to do proper implementations, what it means to be a part of the supply chain, and what our responsibilities were,” King said. “As the time went by, I realized that I’ve been in the security industry for 21 years. I started as a technician, building systems, mounting cameras, building headends, so I had this engineering mindset. But after having kids, I kind of migrated into operations and then sales. I realized I didn’t want to be a salesperson anymore. To me, this was really about building programs around cybersecurity.

“For whatever reason, the time just wasn’t right at Axis. There really wasn’t a role available for that at Axis, so about a year ago, I started laying the foundation of Credo Cyber. I opened up the LLC - actually the pandemic was kind of what triggered it because I had some time on my hands - and I just started building out my personal brand around cybersecurity.”

King continued. “When I recognized that there wasn’t going to be, in the near future anyway, a place for me at Axis, I had just made the conscious decision that we were going to part ways amicably. I’m grateful for all of the opportunities, but I saw the value in being able to help organizations build programs around cybersecurity. How do we monetize on cybersecurity?

“I’ve always had an affinity for the channel, the integrators, the people who are the ‘boots on the ground,’ but for the small and medium businesses, in most cases, there’s a lack of awareness sometimes, there’s a lack of talent sometimes, and there’s often just a lack of resources. Most small and medium businesses can’t hire a full-time person who is able to build their program. Credo Cyber Consulting is going to be a resource for manufacturers, integrators, and even end users to create programs around cybersecurity both internally, but then externally, to their customers.”

King noted that Credo Cyber’s specialties will center around data privacy, risk management, cybersecurity, physical security, consulting, and training.

“There’s a mysticism around cybersecurity, and there’s a missing link,” she said.

“People are often afraid of it because we don’t understand it. My goal is to tie the security objectives of an organization to their business objectives. If we can really sit down, instead of trying to take everything off all at once, we take a look at the organization’s business objectives and then we isolate things that we can do – the controls that we can put into place, the training that needs to be done, in order to meet those objectives.

“Not every organization needs to do everything. I’m hoping that I demystify cybersecurity for organizations and make them recognize by creating this strong cyber posture, they’re going to grow trust in their brand, and they’re going to be able to do more business because the consumer, and customers, are recognizing through all of the events that have been happening over the last couple of years, that they need to pay attention to this stuff.” 

King explained that Credo Cyber Consulting revolves around the supply chain from one point to the other. “This includes everything from training employees on things like ransomware and phishing attacks, to helping companies get SOC [System and Organizational Controls] certification or ISO [International Organization for Standardization] 27001 certification or CMMC [Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification],” she said. “I have really great resources that are able to kind of just build out that platform and make organizations more secure.”

“It is so important to me because to me, supply chain is a matter of national security,” she pointed out. “That is, in fact, the reason why I decided to do this. It was because I felt compelled. It’s more than just ‘Oh, I’m going to start a business.’ It’s a calling for me, just being able to provide education and be a resource is a calling, more than it is ‘I’m just going to try something new.’”

Whether you are a manufacturer, integrator or end user, if you are interested in reaching out to Antoinette at Credo Cyber Consulting, please contact her at:

Email: aking@credocyber.com

Phone: 845-293-3550

Address: 680 Route 211 E

               Ste 3B #320

               Middletown, NY 10940

Website: www.credocyber.com