Michael Coates

Michael Coates is the CEO & co-founder of Altitude Networks. Previously, Michael was the Chief Information Security Officer at Twitter. In this role he led the security program for Twitter across all elements of information security. He has led security programs impacting hundreds of millions of users at Twitter and Mozilla. He has also served as the chairman of the board of directors for OWASP, the largest non-profit application security organization spanning 200 chapters in over 100 countries around the world. Michael is heavily involved in the security startup space serving as an adviser for multiple exciting startups.

Prior to Twitter, Michael was the Director of Product Security at Shape Security. In this role Michael worked with an amazing team to drastically change the way organizations defend their applications against modern application attacks. Before building and leading security programs, Michael spent six years as a hands-on security practitioner assessing, compromising, and securing the applications and networks for some of the largest banks, governments, and enterprises around the world.

Michael has served as an advisor to multiple startups and was also honored in 2012 when he was selected as an SC Magazine Influential Security Mind. Michael is based in San Francisco with his wife, two children and two dogs.