Poppy Gustafsson, the co-founder and chief executive of the British cybersecurity firm Darktrace, is set to leave the company immediately following its $5.3 billion (£4.2 billion) acquisition by the US private equity firm Thoma Bravo.
Gustafsson, a prominent figure in the UK technology sector, established Darktrace in Cambridge in 2013 with financial backing from the late billionaire Mike Lynch’s Invoke Capital. Thoma Bravo, after previously abandoning takeover discussions in 2022, finalised a deal for the London-listed company, which analysts had considered undervalued by investors.
Stepping down with immediate effect, Gustafsson will be succeeded by Jill Popelka, Darktrace’s current chief operating officer. Gustafsson remarked, “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. Now is the right time to hand over the reins so Jill can lead Darktrace through its transition into private ownership and beyond. I remain Darktrace’s number one fan.” Gustafsson, who was honoured with an OBE for her contributions to cybersecurity in 2019, expressed her confidence in Popelka’s leadership.
Gustafsson’s departure follows her significant tenure at Darktrace, during which she floated the company on the stock exchange in 2021, achieving a share price increase of over 70% during that period. Previously, like several key members of Darktrace’s management team, she worked at Lynch’s software firm Autonomy, which gained notoriety due to Hewlett-Packard’s legal action alleging it overpaid in an $11 billion deal for the company. Although HPE won a civil case in the English high court in 2022, Lynch was exonerated of fraud charges by a US court in June. Tragically, Lynch and six others perished when their superyacht sank off Sicily last month.
In 2018, Darktrace received a subpoena from US authorities for information about Invoke, amidst concerns of potential money-laundering linked to the Autonomy sale. Despite these challenges, under Gustafsson’s leadership, Darktrace’s shares sustained growth after being listed.
Gustafsson has been a vocal advocate for gender diversity in the technology sector, an industry where the UK workforce remains over 70% male. Of Darktrace’s 2,400 employees, approximately 30% are female, aligning with the industry average. Her departure reduces the already scarce number of female leaders in the UK tech industry, where women hold just one in five senior roles.
Darktrace’s journey as a public company has not been without contention. Reports between 2022 and 2023 by short-sellers Shadowfall and Quintessential Capital Management (QCM) were notably critical, alleging questionable accounting and sales practices to inflate business value pre-IPO. Analyst commentary included perspectives like those from Peel Hunt, which cited anonymous clients describing its products as “snake oil”. As a result of these criticisms, Darktrace’s stock depreciated significantly, prompting Gustafsson to defend the company’s integrity in a detailed public statement.
Gustafsson’s background includes a mathematics degree from the University of Sheffield, followed by qualification as an accountant and roles at Deloitte and Amadeus Capital. Her formative experiences in Cambridgeshire, where her father managed an agricultural sales business and her mother was a journalist, set the stage for her significant contributions to the technology and cybersecurity industries.
As Darktrace transitions into private ownership under the leadership of Jill Popelka, Poppy Gustafsson’s departure marks the end of an era. Her contributions to the firm and to the technology sector at large will be remembered as Darktrace moves forward.