OUR LEADERSHIP TEAM
The Shift5 leadership team is composed of industry change-makers and creators. Here, executives with decades of experience across the DoD and Silicon Valley have united to deliver modern operational technology (OT) solutions that empower our customers to make smarter, faster decisions.
JOSH LOSPINOSO
CEO & Co-Founder
Josh Lospinoso is the co-founder/CEO of Shift5. Josh is an entrepreneur with deep expertise in cybersecurity, data science, and system software engineering. Prior to Shift5, he co-founded RedOwl Analytics, an insider threat detection platform acquired by Raytheon/Forcepoint in 2017. Additionally, he served 10 years as a cyber officer leading teams to build dozens of elite hacking tools for the National Security Agency’s Tailored Access Operations, Army Cyber Command, and the Cyber National Mission Force.
Josh is also the author of C++ Crash Course (No Starch Press, 2019), dozens of peer-reviewed journal articles spanning multiple disciplines, and multiple patents. Josh earned a BS in Economics and Operations Research from the United States Military Academy and a PhD in Statistics from the University of Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. Other than defending operational technology (OT) from cyberattack, Josh’s secret superpower is that he can read his own mind.
MITCH PLONSKI
Chief Revenue Officer
Mitch Plonski is the Chief Revenue Officer at Shift5. Mitch is responsible for federal, commercial and international revenue along with building and scaling processes and teams across the company to meet our growth. He also leads many of our key federal relationships and focuses on scaling Shift5 products across the U.S. Government. Prior to Shift5, he was assigned to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, where he served in numerous operations and management roles, including the Executive Officer to the Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Strategy and Engagement and Special Events Intelligence Coordinator, where he led the planning, coordination, and execution of U.S. Intelligence Community support to International and Domestic Special Security Events.
Mitch served on the U.S. State Department’s International Special Events Group Executive Board and chaired the Intelligence Subcommittee that was responsible for coordinating the U.S. Government’s overall intelligence and security posture for international special events. Mitch also served as a Senior Duty Officer in the White House Situation Room and the Executive Assistant to the National Counterterrorism Center, Deputy Director.
Prior to his federal civilian service, Mitch served in the Army as a non-commissioned officer and all-source intelligence analyst. He holds an MA from Johns Hopkins University and a BA from the University of Minnesota-Duluth.
ELLEN MCDONALD
General Counsel
Ellen McDonald is Shift5's General Counsel, responsible for Shift5’s legal operations, including commercial, compliance, corporate, and intellectual property. Ellen has decades of legal experience, including major law firms, large companies and small start-ups, in industries such as cybersecurity, media technology and enterprise software.
Prior to joining Shift5, Ellen was most recently the General Counsel at Tanium, where she helped scale the company to an over $9B market capitalization, building out the legal function in a period of significant international growth. Before that she was the Chief Legal Officer at MobiTV, an early provider of streaming media services, and worked at IBM, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe.
Ellen holds a B.A. from the University of Notre Dame and a J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law.
ROB SISON
Chief Financial Officer
Robert Sison is the Chief Financial Officer. He is responsible for Shift5’s financial strategy, management, and operational effectiveness. Robert has over 30 years of accounting and finance experience spanning across different industries, including enterprise security, AIOperations (Artificial Intelligence for IT Operations), video games, and semiconductors.
Before joining Shift5, Robert was the CFO for BigPanda Inc. where he established the financial strategy and infrastructure as the company grew to over $1B in market capitalization. Prior to his role there, he was Vice President of Finance for Tanium, a security management platform. Prior to Tanium, he was with Electronic Arts for 10 years, where he covered a multitude of responsibilities including Investor Relations, Corporate Development, and Finance and Accounting. He started his career as a public accountant with Deloitte and Touche.
Robert holds an Accounting degree and an MBA from Santa Clara University.