A boutique investment bank has hired a cybersecurity exec and former Homeland Security official to advise on deals

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• Boutique investment bank DBO Partners has hired Brian White, an ex-cyber security executive and former senior official with the Department of Homeland Security, to lead its coverage of security companies.
• White was previously chief operating officer at security analytics firm RedOwl, and he also worked as a senior official in the Department of Homeland Security from 2006 to 2009.
• White will advise companies in the burgeoning cybersecurity industry, which has seen hundreds of new entrants amid high-profile corporate data breaches.

Boutique investment bank DBO Partners has hired an ex-cyber security executive and former senior official with the Department of Homeland Security to lead its coverage of security companies.

The San Francisco-based strategic advisory firm has hired Brian White as a partner to lead its global security practice, the firm announced Thursday.

White was previously chief operating officer at security analytics firm RedOwl, which was acquired by cybersecurity firm Forcepoint in 2017. He worked as a vice president at Forcepoint for less than a year before joining DBO.

He also worked as a senior official in the Department of Homeland Security from 2006 to 2009 before leaving to work at Lockheed Martin and later to boutique advisory The Chertoff Group, according to his LinkedIn profile.

"Brian's experience driving a company to a successful exit, leading a specialized security advisory practice, and serving as a senior government official will enable us to build a differentiated practice," DBO partner and cofounder Gordon Dean said in a statement.

Dean and fellow Morgan Stanley colleagues Mark Bradley and Nicholas Osbourne founded the boutique investment bank in 2012, and have since advised on transactions for Google, Silver Lake, SunEdison, and Cloudera.

The cybersecurity sector has boomed in the past decade as the challenge for companies of protecting their own intellectual property as well as the data of their customers' has become a paramount concern.

As companies like Equifax, Yahoo, Target, and Sony have grappled with the fallout from data breaches, hundreds of companies have cropped up to offer solutions.

White told Business Insider he'd be offering strategic advice to firms across the spectrum, from early-stage startups to large public companies looking to add a critical assets to their business.

"We're in a space in cyber where we have something on the order of magnitude of 1,500 to 2,000 companies that are going to need to start thinking about what's next," White said. "We'll play across the entire landscape."

White said his range of experience in both the public and private sector will help him offer unique investment advice to security companies.