Core Team

MATIJA SILJAK, CISA

Mat drives Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, corporate governance, and enterprise security services at Illumant. Leveraging deep regulatory, technology, and risk management expertise, he has managed over 100 consulting engagements for firms ranging from pre-public to Fortune 500 companies. He has also been responsible for managing the development of best practices, scalable methodologies, and high client service quality control standards at Illumant.

Mat has participated in many high profile conferences, including "Sarbanes-Oxley: Lessons from the Trenches" and "Sarbanes-Oxley and the CIO." He is CISA certified and is a member of ISACA (a global organization for information governance, control, security, and audit professionals), FEI (the organization of choice for corporate finance executives), and InfraGard (which provides channels for the exchange of information about infrastructure threats and vulnerabilities). Before Illumant, Mat managed the consulting group of MindSource and then spun off that group with its core team to become Illumant. Mat and others on the Illumant team were co-founders of OLOSEC Network Security Solutions, an information security consulting firm based in Menlo Park, California. He previously held the position of Chief Technology Officer for Bullhound, Ltd., a global technology hedge fund based in London.

Mat holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering, both from Stanford University.

GARY NANKIN

Gary brings the mindset and implementation experience to create and maintain a highly customer-focused organization. Using his experience building and managing two enterprise consulting firms, Gary provides Illumant and its clients with deep strategic and operational expertise.

Gary has delivered high value strategic planning, project management, recruiting, and tactical implementation services to clients in a broad array of industries from technology to banking and from emerging stages to Fortune 500 companies. At his consulting firm, Venture Navigation, Gary leveraged his expertise and network of contacts to develop content and deliver conferences and workshops on many critical business issues. Topics have included Sarbanes-Oxley: Lessons from the Trenches, Financial Management Best Practices, and many others. Prior to building these successful consulting firms, Gary served in senior executive positions at financial institutions over 18 years, including Imperial Bank and Union Bank. He built and managed major profit centers, held responsibility for compliance, and dealt with many other major organizational issues. His later activities included providing consulting services to banks.

Gary has been extremely active in the community, having served as director and in senior board leadership roles with many organizations. He holds a B.A. in Economics from University of California at Davis and an M.B.A. in Finance from University of California at Berkeley.

BRIAN KIRSCH, CISA

Brian oversees Illumant's audit practice. In 2002, Brian joined Illumant's (then MindSource's) consulting practice, where he has since contributed heavily to SOX 404 readiness activities and has managed external audit engagements for numerous public companies. Brian is responsible for refining Illumant's methodologies and for driving the successful completion of projects. He has deep expertise in identifying internal control risks and developing and implementing strategic and tactical control remediation programs for enterprise clients. Brian has an extensive track record in compliance auditing, with expertise in Gramm-Leach-Bliley, Sarbanes-Oxley 404, HIPAA, and SAS-70. He has played a senior consulting role in over 100 risk assessment and audit engagements.

Prior to joining Illumant and MindSource, Brian co-founded OLOSEC Network Security Solutions, an information security consulting firm based in Menlo Park, California. Previously, he was a founding partner of NAPEX, LP, a provider of network security solutions, where he was responsible for client security and operations. Brian is CISA certified, having been recognized as achieving the highest test score in the ISACA Silicon Valley chapter.

Brian holds a B.S. in Civil Engineering and an M.S. in Biomechanical Engineering, both from Stanford University.

ROGER SMITH, CISSP, CISA

Roger Smith is a Senior Manager in Illumant’s IT Risk Services practice, where he develops Illumant’s consulting methodologies and project manages Illumant’s SOX IT, SAS70, and other IT risk and compliance projects. Prior to joining Illumant, Roger was the principal at Argos I/T Security Services, where he led SOX general controls and application audit teams at Siebel, Verity, MIPS, E-Loan, and Essex Property Trust. Before becoming a SOX expert, Roger had senior roles in three high growth startups, including Napster, the original online music company, where Roger was Executive Director of Operations. In that role Roger took that company from 10 people to 250 in six months and built out a world class data center from a single T1 line to one that pushed a sustained 1Gigabit 24x7. Roger also worked at NASA’s Ames Research center for 15 years, making significant contributions to projects such as the first successful Martian Lander and the Lunar Prospector Satellite.

Roger holds CISSP and CISA certifications, and has deep expertise in various best practice IT frameworks. Roger earned a BS in Computer Science from Trinity University.

TERESA BOCKWOLDT

Teresa Bockwoldt is a technical advisor for Illumant’s Business and Risk Advisory Services practice. As a technical advisor and senior project manager, Teresa has assisted 30 pre-IPO firms, first-year filers, and Fortune 500 companies to achieve compliance in a timely, cost-effective manner. Prior to assisting Illumant, Teresa was an Audit Senior Manager at Frank Rimerman & Co., LLP, focusing on SOX compliance initiatives for pre-IPO companies. Teresa served as a Senior Manager at McKesson, where she led the SOX 404 compliance effort for the $80B/40 subsidiary consolidation to a clean opinion, after serving in a consulting role for PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Teresa earned an M.S. in Taxation and an M.B.A. from Golden Gate University.

MARK F. SNODGRASS, Ph.D., CISSP, CISA

Mark drives the development of Illumant's consulting tools and systems, which enable and facilitate internal processes and drive consulting quality and efficiency. Mark is responsible for the development of a proprietary suite of tools and the integration of open-source products. He has focused on developing superior statistical analysis tools for vulnerability detection, IDS, denial of service prevention, and log review. Mark joined Illumant (then MindSource) as a Senior Security Engineer in 2003. Prior to that he co-founded OLOSEC Network Security Solutions. Over the past years, he has worked on hundreds of network security assessments and dozens of compliance audits.

During his tenure as a Ph.D. candidate at Stanford University, Mark researched large-scale stochastic systems, developing specialized statistical analysis tools and novel data-mining techniques.

Mark holds a B.S. and M.S. in Civil Engineering and a Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering, all from Stanford University. He is CISSP certified by the International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium and CISA certified by the Information Systems Audit and Control Association

CHANG KIM

Chang oversees Illumant's recruiting and internal operations functions, including methodology development, business process modeling, and operational reporting. Chang leverages strong expertise in operational process engineering, customer service, and best practice IT and management frameworks.

Prior to joining MindSource, Chang served as Director of Operations at Zyan Communications, a nationwide provider of business DSL, broadband, and Internet services. In that role, he implemented all operational initiatives and special projects. His management responsibilities encompassed customer service, operations, information services, software development, and business process engineering. Prior to Zyan, Chang held operational management positions for the McMaster-Carr Supply Company, a private $2 billion international hardware distributor.

Chang holds a B.S. in Economics from Stanford University.