Meet Matt! 👋

Matt Cooper is Principal, Cybersecurity & Data Privacy on Vanta’s sales team. Matt has been with Vanta since February of 2021. 

Tell us about your role at Vanta.

I have a cross-functional role as an information security, data privacy, and compliance subject matter expert. My specialty is helping customers manage their information security and privacy risk and get ready for compliance audits. I have different hats to wear: assisting customers with audit readiness; working to understand the big picture of what they are trying to achieve; and helping them prepare to meet their SOC 2, ISO, or HIPAA compliance goals. I’m also a resource for customers on information security, privacy, and risk and governance generally.

Another aspect of my work is with our audit partners—vetting our partners and acting as an interface with organizations to help improve their experience from an audit perspective. I’m available to gather customer feedback on our product and services, and can then bring that back to our product and engineering teams, so we can continue to improve our product as it applies to the audit experience.

My third function is interfacing with the product and engineering teams to continually make improvements and add new functionality to the product. I bring the perspective of someone who is very familiar with audit standards and related requirements, as well as best practices for information security and data privacy. I’m also here to offer general pre-sales support for companies that may have questions.

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What made you realize this was the right career field for you?

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Broadly speaking, my career field is information security and data privacy. I like information security because it’s trendy—there’s a lot of need in the marketplace. I feel like working in information security, I’m wearing a white hat by helping customers feel more secure, and helping companies to have more security around their products and services, which benefits both orgs and consumers at the end of the day. 

Information security is extremely complex, deep, and broad. There are endless opportunities for learning and growth into various different areas. There is always something new to learn, that’s what I love most!

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Why did you choose Vanta over other companies?

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Vanta was an easy choice for me. First off, I loved the people I met during the interview process, which is important to me. More to the point—Vanta is on the bleeding edge in the compliance automation space. We’re also a disrupter in the market. The net effect of that is that we are making compliance and certification more affordable and attainable for smaller organizations. We are also helping customers effectively understand and manage their information security risk.

Vanta is the leader in our space; we’re at the forefront of technology and thought leadership; and we’re making difficult processes much easier and more accessible. Those qualities all excite me and I’m happy to be part of it.

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What excites you about Vanta?

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Vanta is an innovative product disrupting the space. Our mission is to secure the internet, and I’m fully excited about it. This is the industry I come from. There are other folks at Vanta who are new to the audit space or come from another space; this is the space I’ve chosen to work in, and I find it super interesting. There are so many opportunities to learn and grow and to do things in a new way. We’re challenging our partners and other players in the industry to adapt.

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What’s your favorite quarantine activity?

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My favorite quarantine activity is one of my favorite anytime activities—hiking in nature! I tell people I live outside Seattle, which is technically true. I live in a quaint small town on the north end of the Olympic Peninsula, so I have awesome access to the Olympic National Forest and its amazing natural beauty!

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