One assumes that, to the outside world, a CEO of a cyber security company would, by the very nature of their job, be largely unknown.
Poppy Gustafsson is the co-Founder and ultimately CEO of Darktrace, one of the world’s leading cyber security companies, based in Cambridge. Her time at the top was, not unlike the tasks many CEOs face, a fairly rocky one on occasions.
The acquisition of Darktrace into US private equity was the catalyst for Poppy to join Sir Keir Starmer’s government portfolio. Dynamic looks at the rise of this tenacious business leader turned Minister of State...
Poppy Clare Veronica Gustafsson, Baroness Gustafsson, OBE (née Prentis) was born August 24th 1982. Her father, John, ran an agricultural sales business, and her mother, Gilly, was a journalist for Farmers Weekly. She grew up in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, she attended Hinchingbrooke School.
She subsequently gained a Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree in mathematics from the University of Sheffield in 2003 before studying for an accountancy qualification at Deloitte, qualifying as a chartered accountant in 2006.
In 2008, Poppy married Roland Joel Gustafsson, a Swedish engineer, and they have two daughters. She took her husband’s surname after the birth of her eldest daughter.
In her early career, Gustafsson worked for the venture capital firm Amadeus Capital Partners. In 2009, she moved to Autonomy, working as a corporate controller until the company’s acquisition by HP. She co-founded Darktrace in 2013 and initially held the position of Chief Financial Officer. She eventually took on the role of co-CEO in 2016 and became the sole CEO in 2020.
She led Darktrace’s initial public offering in 2021, and left the company in 2024 prior to the completion of its sale to the private equity firm Thoma Bravo.
On October 10th 2024, Gustafsson was appointed to the government as Minister of State for Investment by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer. She was made a life peer as Baroness Gustafsson, of Chesterton in the City of Cambridge, in November to allow her to sit in the House of Lords.
A mathematician and cyber defence expert, she was named CEO of the Year at the 2021 Digital Masters Awards and Tech CEO of the Year at the UK Tech Awards 2021. In 2019, she — along with Darktrace CTO Jack Stockdale — was awarded an Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to cybersecurity.
Gustafsson was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2019 Birthday Honours for services to the cyber security industry. She was named Tech Businesswoman of the Year at the 2019 UK Tech Awards. In 2022, she was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science (DSc) degree by the University of Sheffield, her alma mater.
Darktrace
Darktrace was founded in 2013 in Cambridge, by a number of mathematicians and British intelligence officers from MI5 and GCHQ, and by cyber defence experts at Invoke Capital, a company once owned by Mike Lynch. There is also a Darktrace AI Research Centre based, with the company’s second R&D centre, in The Hague, Netherlands.
Lynch, as stated in a recent issue of Platinum, was co-founder of Autonomy, sold to Hewlett-Packard in 2011 in a transaction leading to accusations of fraud and to a legal fight over extraditing him to the United States. In 2024, Lynch and Autonomy’s former finance executive, Stephen Chamberlain were cleared of all fraud charges.
Many of Darktrace’s management personnel, including former chief executive Poppy Gustafsson, chief technology officer Jack Stockdale, and chief strategy and artificial intelligence officer Nicole Eagan, were recruited from Autonomy.
Under co-Founder Poppy Gustafsson’s leadership, the company experienced huge growth and global expansion, resulting in it being listed on the London Stock Exchange from 2021, until it was acquired by Chicago-based private equity firm Thoma Bravo in October this year.
During her tenure, Darktrace became a world leader in autonomous cyber AI, having created one of the first, at-scale deployments of AI for enterprises. Developed by mathematicians Gustafsson, Stockdale and fellow founders Dave Palmer, Emily Orton and Nicole Eagan, the company uses self-learning AI algorithms to detect and neutralise cyber threats across the cloud, IoT and industrial control systems and requires minimal set-up.
Darktrace AI also protects against previously-unknown vulnerabilities including ransomware, data loss and insider threats. The company has more than 4,700 customers worldwide.
Speaking at the Royal United Services Institute in 2022, Gustafsson herself called for a dedicated cyber task force designed to enforce accountability, citing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a turning point in cyber warfare and the global cyber threat landscape. She shared valuable Darktrace data that showed a huge uptick in global attacks on critical national infrastructure, with a 90% increase in high priority security incidents in Europe during the week of the invasion.
Short selling accusations
Darktrace’s accounting performance has seen some controversy in its 11-year lifespan. In January 2023, a New York-based hedge fund and short seller, published a detailed report alleging potential accounting errors at Darktrace, making claims about potential irregularities in contracts with resellers and customers, predominantly dating from before Darktrace’s public listing in 2021.
Darktrace has disputed this. The hedge fund pointed towards connections between Darktrace and HP Autonomy, the UK software company with which Darktrace shared many ties. Autonomy was accused of irregular accounting practices relating to its $11.7bn sale to Hewlett-Packard in 2011.
The company’s share price fell 12% when the accusations were first made, and a further 8% the following day. This led Gustafsson to publish a robust 1,200-word rebuttal, denying the accusations.
Six months later, Ernst & Young concluded its thorough review into the company’s contracts and internal financial processes. Its found a “small number of errors and inconsistencies” with some of the contracts but nothing that would be “material” to Darktrace’s financial statements.
Since then, all of the original accusations have fallen silent.
Mike Lynch case
As featured in the cover story of Platinum Busines Magazine #125, Mike Lynch and Sushovan Hussain had been accused of falsifying financial facts and documents in the run-up to an $11bn sale of Lynch’s software company Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard in 2011. Hussain was found guilty and sentenced to five years in prison in the US. In January, Lynch lost a high-profile civil lawsuit brought by Hewlett Packard Enterprise, the judge making a finding of civil fraud against him and Hussain.
However, in a spectacular move earlier this year, Lynch – who had been sold down the river by the then Home Secretary Pritti Patel to face these charges – was acquitted on all counts within the criminal judicial system in the US. The judge felt the prosecution’s case was poorly presented to relied too much on hearsay and innuendo.
During this time, Gustafsson charted a course between defending her former colleagues while making efforts to distance herself and the company from the Autonomy founder – and the potential reputational fallout of the association. She offered written testimony and was cross-examined during Lynch’s civil fraud trial, and she wrote a letter to the judge in defence of Hussain, describing him as a ‘close friend’.
The 59-year-old Lynch and six others died in August, when a superyacht sank off the coast of Sicily in a storm.
Given these to high-profile instances, it wouldn’t be a stretch to conculde that Corporate America really didn’t like these successful entrepreneurs operating in their homeland.
Invitation to government
In October 2024, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer invited Gustafsson into government, making her Minister of State for Investment, while elevating her to the House of Lords for a life peerage.
Upon leaving Darktrace, she told her ex-colleagues, “Darktrace has been a huge part of my life and my identity for over a decade and I am immensely proud of everything we have achieved in that time. Together we have revolutionised the marketplace for cyber security and brought our AI-powered technology to almost 10,000 customers around the world, keeping them safe from cyber disruption.
“This challenge has required tremendous personal and professional commitment from me. With the acquisition of Darktrace by Thoma Bravo nearing its completion and with us having identified an excellent successor, now is the right time to hand over the reins so that Darktrace can be led through its transition into private ownership and beyond. I am profoundly grateful to have had the privilege of leading such an exceptional team and I look forward to remaining engaged in this exciting next chapter of the business as a non-executive director after the transaction completes. I remain Darktrace’s number one fan.”
Prime Minister Keir Starmer said: “I am delighted to welcome Poppy Gustafsson as our new Investment Minister – an accomplished entrepreneur who brings invaluable experience to the role. We’re upgrading the Office for Investment to ensure it is fit for purpose and has the capability it needs to make the UK the first choice for investment and the best place in the world to do business, which is central to our mission to drive growth and make people better off.”
Upon her invitation to government, Gustafsson wrote, “I know working in government will be challenging. It might even be the most challenging job I’ll ever have. It requires strong people skills, strategic thinking, good communication, a clear direction of travel. Skills that I’ve learned in my time in the business world.
“So when the prime minister asked me, it was an easy yes. His mission-driven approach to government is the right one – something I’ve seen a lot of in my time in business. Also right is his focus on investment and full-throated backing of UK plc.”
While the leap from cyber security expertise to leading the Government’s investment policies is not necessarily an obvious one, Gustafsson’s appointment has, across politics and and business, been seen as a prudent one. So begins Poppy’s new career in amongst some real skulldugerry...