Arthur Coviello Jr

Arthur W. Coviello Jr. is one of the cybersecurity industry's most recognized executives-turned-investors. He built his reputation over roughly two decades at RSA Security, which he joined in 1995 as head of finance and operations. He rose to President in 1999–2000 and served as President and CEO from 2000 until EMC's acquisition of the company (a deal valued at roughly $2.1 billion) in 2006. After the acquisition he became Executive Vice President of EMC and President — and later Executive Chairman — of RSA, The Security Division of EMC, a role he held until his retirement in 2015. Under his leadership RSA grew from roughly $25 million in revenue in 1995 to more than $1 billion by 2014, and the RSA Conference became the industry's most respected, vendor-agnostic security event. He began his career as a certified public accountant at Deloitte and holds a BBA in accounting (magna cum laude) from the University of Massachusetts (1975).

Since leaving RSA in 2015, Coviello has focused on investing and advising. He had been a Rally Ventures Tech Partner since the firm's 2013 founding and formally joined as a Venture Partner in May 2015, where he helps source and evaluate early-stage enterprise-security opportunities and advises portfolio companies alongside partners such as Don Listwin and Zenas Hutcheson. His stated rationale for concentrating on security: "Security occupies a unique position in the technology landscape, because it is essential to every single technology market."

In August 2022 Coviello took on a more central investing role as Managing Partner and Investment Committee Chairman for the Flagship Funds at SYN Ventures, a venture firm specializing in cybersecurity and industrial-security companies. He continues to sit on numerous boards and advisory bodies, including Synchrony Financial (NYSE: SYF) and Tenable (NASDAQ: TENB) — where he was appointed to the board in 2018 and became Chairman in January 2025 — and has served as an adviser to the ClearSky Security Fund and a Senior Advisor to Blackstone's Tactical Opportunities Group. He has also advised or served on the boards of numerous security startups including Bugcrowd, Capsule8, ZeroNorth, SecZetta, and SKOUT Cybersecurity.

• Security-first, enterprise-technology focus. Coviello invests where his operating expertise is deepest — cybersecurity and enterprise/business technologies — believing security is foundational to every technology market.
• Early-stage discipline. At Rally Ventures the model is seed and Series A investing with deep, hands-on engagement in a limited number of portfolio companies rather than spreading capital thinly.
• Operator-led value-add. He positions himself as more than a check writer — sourcing deals, evaluating founders, and advising portfolio companies on go-to-market, scaling, and building an enduring security business (the kind of $25M-to-$1B journey he ran at RSA).
• Backs founders who understand the buyer. His CISO/enterprise credibility means he gravitates toward teams that grasp how security products are actually bought and deployed inside large enterprises.