Leadership Team
Peter Worth
Founder, President & CEO
Peter founded Athena Security Group after spending almost two decades leading Technology and Security Operations for one of the nation’s leading Insurance Brokerage providers, serving some of the largest and most heavily regulated companies in the world. Before joining ABC, Peter held senior leadership and executive management roles at Aria Systems, Taleo, CoreCentive, and Portal Software, helping to design and build, and secure, the Cloud and SaaS software infrastructure that has become the de facto standard for application providers today.
Dan Bidwell
Chief Revenue Officer
Dan comes to Athena Security Group with a wealth of experience building out sales, business development and marketing functions for a variety of early and mid-stage enterprise software companies. During Dan’s career, he has held individual contributor, senior management, and executive leadership roles for many of the world’s most prestigious and successful technology and software companies, such as Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard, Hyperion, Veracode, Actuate, Trustwave, and Portal Software to name a few. Dan’s primary role at Athena is to facilitate the construction of a best-in-class sales and business development organization and facilitate meaningful customer relationships that will set the stage for Athena’s early growth and success, fueling Athena’s evolution and growth in its early stages. Dan currently resides in Powell, Ohio, and shares the Worth family’s passion for the game of tennis.
Christian Tate
VP Strategy & Business Development
Christian Tate is a Sr Executive with a wealth of experience in the Corporate IT and Cybersecurity sector, having most recently been the CEO and Chairman of CloudTruth, a security automation platform for software development and IT management teams, which was sold to Sigma Automate in June of 2025. Prior to being at the helm of CloudTruth, Christian was with Hitachi systems where he led Corporate Development teams and also served as the chairman of the board for Hitachi ID Systems. Before Hitachi, Christian has also served in leadership positions for a variety of Enterprise software firms such as Double-Take Software, Cable & Wireless, Sun Microsystems, StorageNetworks, and GigaLabs. Christian has a BA from University of Rochester and an MBA from the Wharton School of Business and lives with his wife and family in North Carolina.
Dr. Chase Cunningham
Chief Strategy Officer (CSO)
Dr. Chase Cunningham is a globally recognized cybersecurity strategist, author, and advisor, widely known in the industry as “Dr. Zero Trust” for his leadership in advancing zero-trust security principles. He pioneered the influential Zero Trust eXtended (ZTX) framework and has more than two decades of operational experience spanning the U.S. Navy, NSA, FBI Cyber, and private sector leadership roles, including Principal Analyst at Forrester and Chief Strategy Officer at Ericom Software. Dr. Cunningham holds a Ph.D. in Information Security and is the author of several influential cybersecurity books, host of the Dr. Zero Trust podcast, and a trusted advisor to Fortune 500 companies and government agencies worldwide. His thought leadership and practical frameworks continue to shape how organizations modernize security strategies to defend against evolving threats.
Laura Petre
Chief of Staff
Laura Petre is a strategic Chief of Staff with over 15 years of experience supporting executive leadership in fast-paced, high-growth environments. At Athena, she partners closely with the executive team to drive operational efficiency, align priorities, and lead cross-functional initiatives.
Known for her discretion, relationship-building skills, and solutions-oriented mindset, Laura brings deep expertise in executive operations, project management, and stakeholder engagement. Prior to Athena, she supported Fortune 500 CEOs across industries, including PR, finance, and marketing. She holds a B.S. in Marketing from the University of Tampa.
Dr. Ionut Cardei
Chief Scientist
Dr. Ionut Cardei is a distinguished Professor and researcher in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Florida Atlantic University (FAU) and has published meaningful research in the area of wireless networking, graph theory, resource management and fault tolerant systems. Before joining FAU, Dr. Cardei was a Senior Research Scientist at Honeywell Labs in Minneapolis working with NASA and the FAA on dynamic policy management systems and aeronautical wireless networks and is currently the leader of the Athena Cybersecurity lab at FAU in their Boca Raton Campus. Dr. Cardei is leading Athena’s efforts in building Cyber Threat Intelligence trained AI tools (LLMs), holds a seat on Athena’s Product Development Council and provides strategic research direction for Athena Labs.
John Graziadei, Esq
Chief Legal Officer
A graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law, John has been practicing in New York City and Italy for over twenty-five years. John has held senior leadership positions in both the private and public sectors, representing the City of New York in Federal Court Litigation as well as some of the best-known brands in the world from an IP perspective. He earned his Master’s in Intellectual Property Law at L’Università di Torino and served as General Counsel for a healthcare technology company where he practiced and managed the full spectrum of business law.
Ushna Akram
Manager, Infrastructure & Security Operations
Ushna is an experienced Systems Engineer who loves building things that just work – that perform at scale, and that meet the highest enterprise standards. She is passionate about bridging the gap between development and operations, and about making technology feel effortless for everyone who uses it, and is a perfect fit for Athena’s culture and the technology problems at scale it is looking to solve for its customers. Ushna comes to Athena with a strong background in DevOps and AWS, and a Bachelor’s in Science from Lancaster University in the UK. Ushna plays an integral role at Athena, facilitating product development as well as managing infrastructure and security operations – ultimately responsible for keeping systems up and running and making sure Athena’s Cyber Defense posture remains best in class on a day-to-day basis. Ushna is currently based in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan, where she resides with her family.