Meet the Team

We are a global and remote organization of more than 25 team members who believe that privacy matters in technology. Meet some of our team members below.

Aaron Hmel

Marketing / Communications Specialist

Aaron joined Least Authority in 2021. He brings over 20 years professional experience in commercial business, including sales, marketing, and event management to the team. He spends his free time at hockey rinks, soccer fields, and motorsports tracks.

Anna Kaplan

Security Researcher / Engineer and Trainer

She / Her

Anna is a mathematician and cryptographer, with experience working at Zcash Foundation and IBM Research. Besides being interested in new cryptographic advancements, she is also very passionate about communicating all things cryptography and privacy

Benoit Donneaux

Site Reliability Engineer

Toying with computers before the rise of internet, Ben has started as a software developer and subsequently became a network and system engineer. Fond of Free and Open-Source Software and the DevOps methodology, Ben strongly believes our privacy online is best supported by those two principles.

Burak Atasoy

Project Manager Security Consulting

Burak began his work in traditional finance as a trader and has since worked as a market analyst and risk management consultant at Fintech, where he consulted different institutional clients on various projects. He is particularly interested in decentralized systems and their potential to address many problems that mainly result from the current global financial system.

Chris Wood

Product Designer and Lead UI/UX Developer

Chris is a former academic philosopher with research and teaching interests relating to privacy, censorship, and the ethics of design. A long-time Free Software advocate and hobbyist hacker, Chris is passionate about tools and technologies that empower ordinary people. He is the lead developer of Gridsync, a cross-platform Tahoe-LAFS-based desktop application that aims to make secure and distributed storage easy and accessible for everyone.

Dr. Dorothee Landgraf, LL.M

General Counsel Least Authority Group

Adjunct Professor of Law, Duquesne University School of Law, Pittsburgh, PA (USA)

Doctor Juris (PhD), University of Cologne, Germany

Master of Laws (LL.M.) for Foreign Lawyers, Duquesne University School of Law, Pittsburgh, PA (USA)

Florian Sesser

Product Manager / Engineer

Florian has been wearing many hats in his career as an information technologist. He enjoys finding elegant solutions and practical short-cuts by combining his experience in Computer Science, Psychology and Entrepreneurship. He is also comfortable getting lost in systems engineering details and when creating abstract software architecture or implementing unique user experiences.

George Gkitsas

Security Researcher / Engineer

Over a decade on software and hardware security / cryptography. Excited with the potential of privacy-enhancing technologies.

Jasper Hepp

Security Researcher / Engineer

Jasper has a background in mathematics and computational economics. He is excited about cryptography.

Jessy Bissal

Technical Editor and Project Manager

Jessy has over a decade of experience editing professional and academic documents in the Information Technology, Electronics, Healthcare, Education, Financials, and Communication Services Sectors. Before joining Least Authority, she taught Rhetoric and Composition at the university level and worked as a B2B/B2C copywriter/texter.

Lauri Hmel

COO for PrivateStorage

Lauri has a background in accounting and finance, and more than 20 years of experience in business. She works on finance, reporting, and business operations and development for Least Authority.

Laurie Drinkhall

Client Account Manager

She / Her

Laurie is a highly experienced Client Account Manager (20+ years of experience) with a passion for building and maintaining client relationships by putting the client FIRST and ensuring customer satisfaction. In addition, she has a heavy operational background with skills in contract negotiations, forecasting/budgeting, marketing and product development.

Liz Steininger

CEO / Managing Director

Before taking over as CEO, Liz spent over 15 years supporting the advancement of digital rights, access to information, freedom of expression and open source software as a Program and Project Manager, Strategist and Analyst.

Mirco Richter

Lead Software Security Analyst

Mirco is a mathematician and computer scientist living in Berlin. He has been working and conducting research in the Blockchain space since 2011 and mostly focuses on Cryptography and Consensus Algorithms.

Poulami Das

Security Researcher / Engineer

Poulami is a cryptography researcher with a PhD in the design of cryptographic and consensus protocols, having authored 10+ research articles. She is passionate about taking forward advanced cryptographic techniques to web3 and beyond.

Sven M. Hallberg

Security Researcher / Engineer

Applied scientist of insecurity and freelance programmer. Cryptologist by night.

Tiffany Ou

Designer

Tiffany has worked as a graphic designer for 15 years, specializing in information architecture, brand identities, and multi-platform design and production. She has extensive experience working within start-ups as well as global corporate environments — covering a wide range of clientele industries, including technology, finance, hospitality, entertainment, and creative services.

Zooko Wilcox

Founder / Board Member

Zooko Wilcox-O’Hearn has more than 20 years of experience in secure distributed systems, free and open source software, and startups. Currently, Zooko is the Founder and CEO of the Electric Coin Company, the creators of Zcash.