Jerry Bessette serves as Chief Operating Officer for Cyber Defense Labs. As an executive team member, Jerry leads the company’s cybersecurity consulting, customer operations, and technical teams. He brings a long-standing, successful c-suite leadership career in cyber security operations from the public and private sectors.

Jerry started his professional career as an officer in the United States Marine Corps. He left active duty to become an FBI Agent and served for 24 years before retiring as a member of the Senior Executive Service.  During his FBI career, he held various leadership positions nationwide and was assigned to the CIA.  He was the Chief of Technical Operations for the FBI Cyber Division in his last Bureau assignment, where he managed the FBI’s national cyber incident response team, the cyber undercover program, and investigative technical operations and led the investigation into the attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment and the US Post Office. 

Following his retirement from the FBI, Jerry held senior leadership positions in the private sector as Managing Director at Navigant, Senior Vice President at Booz Allen Hamilton, and Chief Operating Officer at Surefire Cyber. He successfully led cybersecurity consulting teams focused on incident response (“IR”), tabletop exercises, and advisory services. He developed go-to-market strategies around IR remediation programs, insider threat programs, ransomware readiness assessments, retainers, and executive awareness.  

Jerry has conducted exercises and threat briefings for C-suite members, senior leadership, and boards of directors at top financial, energy, technology, retail, and pharmaceutical corporations, including 16 on the Fortune 50. He speaks publicly on cybersecurity and business risk across the US and internationally and serves on two advisory boards.

Jerry earned his Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from Virginia Military Institute. He is a Certified Chief Information Security Officer (CCISO) and Certified Information Security Manager (CISM) and maintains FBI TS Clearance.