Nexum Leadership Team
Meet the Nexum leadership team and use the links to connect with us on LinkedIn.
David J Lesser
Founder, President & CEO
David started Nexum in 2002 to create a security products and services firm that puts clients first and foremost. A technologist, businessman, and member of multiple industry advisory boards, David brings the pragmatic, no-nonsense approach he instills at Nexum to all our industry relationships. His approach to risk mitigation focuses on excellent technical design and intelligent cost control, as well as finding and nurturing top personnel who embrace the same philosophy. David is a service-disabled veteran who spent his time in the Navy running nuclear reactors on U.S. Navy carriers, and went on to receive his degree in nuclear engineering from the University of New Mexico.
Nathan Eng
Vice President of Sales
Nathan brings over 20 years of sales experience to the team, and is responsible for all sales activities. Nathan’s experience with Nexum hails back to 2010, and he worked his way up the ranks until he was promoted to Vice President of Sales in 2021. Utilizing his expertise in building brand awareness, Nathan constantly focuses on growing Nexum. He ensures Nexum assists customers with their security requirements by focusing on real-world solutions and bringing new technologies to market. In his free time, he enjoys spending time with family and friends, skiing, golf, and mountain biking.
J.D. Butt
Vice President of Technology
J.D. Butt has over 30 years’ experience designing, testing, and implementing secure architectures for networks, application deployments, and software. J.D. has been with Nexum since 2004, and directs Nexum’s managed services offerings, internal IT, and ensures that Nexum’s best-of-breed technology selections are made based on actual testing and verification. J.D. designed Nexum’s managed security services (MSSP division) standards, processes, procedures, and much of the technology back-end. He is responsible for maintaining compliance of Nexum’s MSSP services with SOC 2 Type 2 standards and managing the annual AICPA audits.
Michael Scher
Vice President and General Counsel
An attorney and systems security specialist, Mike has worked in risk management on both the legal and technical fronts since 1993. He has been a regular author and speaker on security and policy, ethics, and technology law. Before joining Nexum in 2004, Mike served as General Counsel and Director of Labs at Neohapsis, was Director of Security and Network Infrastructure for an e-commerce startup, and built and audited corporate policy and security architecture for the Tribune Company. Mike lives in New England, where he enjoys hiking year-round and supporting nonprofits as a volunteer board member and pro bono counsel.
Greg Watts
Vice President and Controller
Greg has over 30 years of diverse experience in corporate accounting and finance in various industries. He joined Nexum in 2010 and leads the Orders and Finance/Accounting teams. Greg is a firm believer in a hands-off management style and surrounds himself with great people who embody the same approach. Greg is a graduate of Indiana University – Bloomington with a Bachelor of Science in Accounting.
William Cummins
Director of Security Services
Bill has over thirty years of information security experience, working as both an information security executive and as a consultant in a variety of sectors, including human resources outsourcing, health care services, financial services, the wireless telecom industry, large manufacturing and technology companies, federal agencies, and public utilities. His team performs assessments and advisory engagements including red team exercises, penetration and application testing, policy review, and security organization assessments. Bill’s experience spans real-world problem solving from IT process and procedure development to high-security systems design and testing. Prior to joining Nexum, Bill headed consulting entities and ran governance at multi-billion dollar enterprises.
Terry Follensbee
Director of Human Resources
Terry brings 20 years of human resources experience to the team, and has been with Nexum since 2010. She is versatile, with a practical hands-on approach, leveraging strong expertise in planning and implementing all facets of human resources operations. Terry holds a Society for Human Resource Management: Senior Certified Professional (SHRM-SCP) certification. Prior to Nexum, she worked for such dynamic and diverse organizations as Aladdin Knowledge Systems and Amerisource Bergen.
Megan Harris
Director of Business Operations
Megan is responsible for making sure everything runs smoothly. With over ten years of experience in operations, she joined the team in 2017 as Nexum’s “Salesforce Ninja,” managing and administering key enterprise systems to improve our effectiveness and efficiency. Today she also leads our Business Development and Sales Operations teams, who build pipeline with our technology partners and ensure customer orders are processed promptly and accurately. Her weekends are devoted to family time, with swimming lessons, taekwondo, softball, dance, gardening, cooking, and fort building. When Megan gets a rare quiet moment, you can find her reading a book or completing a jigsaw puzzle.
Kathy Lucas
Director of Field & Channel Marketing
Kathy joined Nexum in 2012 and has been part of the Marketing team since 2016, managing and executing on various field and channel marketing components to increase demand generation. She focuses on developing innovative and targeted marketing strategies encompassing virtual and in-person events, programs, and promotions to drive new and cross-sell business. Kathy’s marketing automation experience and creative approach have helped build dynamic and compelling marketing campaigns to support Nexum’s goals. She enjoys being a teammate in competitive bocce ball leagues in her free time.
Jody Hodge
Director of Engineering Solutions
Jody started his career at Nexum in 2017 as a Sr. Security Engineer and made the jump to management a year later. His network security career began in 1998 with the U.S. Air Force for the 51st Combat Communication Squadron, handling WAN/LAN infrastructures across multiple countries as a combat controller. Jody has over 20 years of experience in network configuration, design, and implementation and has done extensive enterprise data network support, project management, and hardware evaluation. As head of Nexum’s Engineering and Project Management teams, he prides himself on being the “fixer.”
Joe Foster
Director of Managed and Support Services
As head of Nexum’s three Security and Network Operations Command Centers (SNOCCs) since 2010, Joe delivers rapid and effective assistance to our customers across the country in both proactive and reactive scenarios. With nearly 30 years of industry experience at large enterprises and service providers, his goal is to lead with a focus on practicality and situational awareness, to ensure his teams effectively navigate the battlefield of InfoSec products, strategies, and threats. Outside of the office, Joe can be found wandering about his beloved San Juan mountains of Southern Colorado, or, on occasion, the streets of Rome.
What's New at Nexum
Juniper Announces Wi-Fi 7 Access Points
Nexum’s engineering team highlights Juniper’s new Wi-Fi 7 AP47 as a game-changer, offering faster speeds, quad radios, and enhanced IoT capabilities. With dual 10Gbps interfaces and AI-driven Wi-Fi 7 support, these access points are designed for cutting-edge network performance.
AI-Native Now
Join Juniper Networks on June 5th for a LinkedIn Live exclusive discussion on “Leveraging AIOps for Maximum Impact.”
Wireless LAN Professionals Conference 2024
Allyn Crowe, Senior Security Engineer, attended the Wireless LAN Professionals conference. If you work on wireless networks, you really need to try and get to this conference.