Question: You've spent 17 years in the cyber security industry, both in South Africa and across Africa and the UK. This was as a CISO, then building and running cyber security businesses, before being brought in to lead Armata Cyber Security. Why does that matter to how Armata is perceived?
Caesar Tonkin: It matters more than I likely appreciated at the time. When someone is brought in to lead a business specifically because of a track record like that, it isn't just a hiring decision; it sends a message or “signal” to the competitive landscape. The board and shareholders are making a judgment call based on something they can verify: 17 years on the front line, first defending organisations as a CISO, then building and running cyber security businesses. That's not something you can claim without having lived it. So the appointment, some four years ago (November 2022), itself became a signal that Armata wanted to become a credible player. It told the competitive landscape what kind of business this was going to be – competing on depth of experience and expertise and not just price – and what standard it would be held to.
Question: That's a strong opening claim – that simply "who" was appointed sent a message to competitors.
Tonkin: I think it did, yes. In a crowded market, competitors are constantly reading each other's moves – who's hiring, who's backing whom, who's being brought in to lead what. When someone with a specific, verifiable track record is placed at the head of a niche, pure-play business, that's a credible signal in its own right. It tells rivals this isn't a speculative entrant; it's being run by someone who's already proven they can do this. And that Armata was intent on building on the base already in play from 2021.
Question: You have mentioned “Signalling Theory” as a lens for how Armata positions itself. For anyone who hasn't come across it, what does that actually mean?
Tonkin: When someone can't directly verify how good something is, they look for credible clues instead. It goes back to an economist called Michael Spence in 1973, who was studying hiring: employers can't see how good a candidate really is, so they rely on things like a degree as a costly, hard-to-fake proxy for ability. Cyber security has exactly the same problem. A customer can't open up our products and service lines and verify their quality before they buy them. So they look for other signals.
Question: And the expertise of the leadership team is also one of those signals?
Tonkin: Right. In an up-and-coming, and now rapidly growing, niche cyber security business like Armata, without decades of brand history behind us, our track record and technical credibility become one of the clearest things a buyer, a partner or shareholders can actually evaluate. It's tangible in a way that a marketing brochure simply isn't.
Question: Let's take those audiences one at a time, starting with customers. Why does this matter to someone buying cyber security solutions and managed services?
Tonkin: Cyber security capabilities and cyber resilience are what economists call a "credence good": you often can't tell how good it is even after you've bought it, not until something goes wrong. That's an uncomfortable position for a buyer to be in. So when they see leadership that's actually worked incident response is well networked in the local and international cyber security community, and has been in the room during a real cyber breach – that reduces the anxiety. It says, this isn't a team guessing at the problem.
Question: How does this impact the relationship with technology vendors and channel partners?
Tonkin: Due diligence is expensive for everyone. If a technology vendor partner already trusts the depth of our expertise, that shortens the runway. It doesn't replace technical evaluation. It shouldn’t. But it changes the starting point of the conversation.
Question: And what about shareholders, because presumably they're focusing on value creation?
Tonkin: They are, but early on, a niche player doesn't have ten years of financials to point to. What we do have is expertise, and under my leadership over the last four years, we’re building this history. It genuinely can't be faked overnight. That's actually the core of the theory – a signal is only credible if it's costly for someone without the real substance to copy. You can't manufacture a decade of hands-on threat intelligence in a press release.
Question: Let's talk about the Armata team. What role does leadership play in keeping the team engaged and connected to the business?
Tonkin: Enormously. People choose who they work for partly based on what that says about them. Working alongside people who are genuinely respected in the field is a career signal our team can carry with them too. It raises the bar internally, and it helps us attract people who could work anywhere. Several Armata top talents have followed me from previous roles because of the trust placed in growing their careers with meaningful experience.
Question: Attracting talent is one thing. As a niche pure-play, you're competing against much larger firms with deeper pockets – how do you keep good people once you've got them?
Tonkin: That's honestly the harder problem, and it's where the signal has to keep proving itself, not just open the door. We can't always out-resource the bigger players with bigger training budgets, bigger teams and more headcount to spread the load. What we can offer is something scarcer than money: direct exposure to real depth of expertise and a much shorter distance between where someone is now and where real growth happens. In a large organisation, a talented analyst might wait years to get near the decisions that shape their career. Here, they're in the room early.
Question: So the retention story is built on growth rather than resources?
Tonkin: Exactly. When resources are scarce, culture and career trajectory become the currency you can actually compete with. My job as MD isn't just to be a credibility signal to the outside world; it's to make sure that same track record translates into mentorship, stretch opportunities and a genuine pathway for people here to become the recognised experts of the next decade. If people can see a believable version of their own future in the leadership they're working alongside, that's a retention signal in itself. It tells them staying is a career move, not a compromise.
Question: I do want to push you on something, because it's an easy question for a sceptic to ask: isn't this just personal, professional branding dressed up in academic language?
Tonkin: That's a fair challenge, and honestly, the theory itself warns against exactly that trap. If expertise isn't backed by something verifiable – in this case, credible cyber security community networking and knowledge sharing, handling real-world cyber incidents, industry recognition and actual customer outcomes – it becomes "just talk". People see through it quickly, especially in this industry. So the credibility has to be earned and demonstrated, not just claimed. In cyber security, trust is our currency.
Question: There's also an obvious risk in what you're describing – what happens if the story becomes too tied to one person?
Tonkin: That's the key-person risk, and it's real. We're conscious of it. Our answer is to make sure the signal isn't resting on one individual but is reinforced by the Armata leadership team's outputs, our certifications, customer case studies and reliable service delivery teams. Increasingly, several team members in Armata are also becoming recognised cyber security voices in their own right.
Question: If you had to leave people with one takeaway from this conversation, what would it be?
Tonkin: In a market where buyers genuinely can't see what they're getting until it's too late, credibility isn't marketing; it's the product, before the product. We take that seriously, which is why we invest in expertise being visible, not just present. This is brand building.
* Armata Cyber Security – trust is our currency.
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