Red Sift and the Royal Marines: A Radical Idea?

At first glance, putting a Royal Marine into a technology startup that focuses on democratizing cyber security is a radical idea. I certainly thought so. The Percy Hobart Fellowship was designed to test this idea and enable an unconventional and innovative learning experience for service personnel. Named after the engineer responsible for ‘Hobart’s Funnies’ in WWII, the Percy Hobart Fellowship is a bespoke 12 week course to give immersive, hands-on experience in innovation and technology to Royal Navy personnel.

Core to the program is a three-month placement with a tech startup, complemented by taught course material in business and finance, mentoring, and workshops. It is all superbly managed and delivered by the PUBLIC program team. Each fellow was assigned to a different fast-growing tech startup and I was lucky enough to be placed with Red Sift.

Delighted and nervous, I dialled in for a chat with Nadim Lahoud, the VP for Growth, at the end of June to confirm what I would be up to for the next three months. I was thrilled to find out that I would have scope to investigate a new project as well as be involved in other areas of the business. This work, and the access I have been granted, have been fundamental to my development over the last three months and I am immensely grateful to the team at Red Sift for taking the time, often individually, to boost my understanding of life in a startup.

I was involved in such things as competitor analysis, marketing, and pricing strategy for products in Red Sift’s armory. This was a strange new world for me, but I felt well equipped from my time in the military to add value and bring a different viewpoint. Under the tutelage of Nadim, I have learned firsthand some of what makes a technology startup successful.

The project I was given focused on applying InGRAIN to monitor the complex and integrated systems of a Royal Navy Ship. Working closely with Peter Parkanyi, the lead security architect of InGRAIN, we assessed the viability of applying it to a Royal Navy Ship. This also required engagement with Programme NELSON, the Royal Navy’s digital, data and AI transformation group. InGRAIN monitors complex cloud workloads and alerts on new, as well as known, threats.

I have some experience with cybersecurity but my mind was working overtime in trying to understand new concepts, such as eBPF and containerization. With Peter’s guidance, we were able to pull together the draft outline of a business proposal for the use of ingraind in new infrastructure being placed on Royal Navy Shipping in the future. The project was a really exciting endeavor that has the potential to add real operational value to the Royal Navy and I hope that the work continues.  

InGRAIN Alerts dashboard

I have heard it said that a startup embodies the philosophy of the founders and this is evident at Red Sift. The passion for innovation and fast development of user-centric products is intoxicating, but I was equally intrigued by the dedication to governance that is woven in to the fabric of the company. This fusion, and resultant organizational culture, could and should be adapted to many areas of the military.

There are a wide variety of initiatives that are driving the cultural change required in the Ministry of Defence. However, there does not seem to be the same drive to upskill service personnel to develop and utilize new technology. The growth mindset in Red Sift is one where failing fast is encouraged, challenging conventional thought is the norm and risk is seen as opportunity. The military can learn from this and should work on providing learning experiences for service personnel that develops that mindset. We need new ideas, we need to be able to trial them and we need to be able to scale them. We cannot emulate startups like Red Sift, but we can learn from them.

I think there is little surprise that the military can learn a lot from private sector technology, but it’s worth noting that service personnel can add reciprocal value. The Commando mindset of ‘be the first to understand; the first to adapt and respond; and the first to overcome’ is largely representative of life in a technology startup. This radical idea then, to mix military with private sector tech, may not be so radical after all. Working at Red Sift has been a truly formative experience for me.

Maybe it is exactly what the Armed Forces needs: the ability to learn from modern day sources of innovation and technological integration while upskilling its workforce and providing a service to startups for the privilege.

A consistent dialogue between tech startups and the military, with regular work placements, would benefit all. Should all Royal Marines spend time in a tech startup? No, but opportunities should be created for more to do exactly that. A skeptic at first, I am now an advocate for this radical idea. 

Red Sift are always keen to provide placements to those that show an interest in the cybersecurity industry, get in touch below if you have further questions.

PUBLISHED BY

Tom Patrick

30 Sep. 2020

SHARE ARTICLE:

Recent Posts

VIEW ALL
Certificates

TLS certificates are changing: What you need to know

Red Sift

Executive summary: TLS certificates are about to get significantly shorter-lived. Starting 15 March 2026, newly issued public-trust certificates will max out at 200 days—and just three years later, that lifespan drops to 47 days. Backed by Google, Apple, and Mozilla, this shift aims to make the web safer through fresher data, faster failover, and…

Read more
DKIM

The hidden threat: How misconfigured DKIM enables replay attacks

Red Sift

Email authentication isn’t just an IT concern. It protects your brand and customers. A single misstep can let attackers spoof your domain, send phishing emails, and destroy customer trust. One of the most dangerous methods? The DKIM replay attack. In this post, we’ll break down how undersigned DKIM keys and related misconfigurations open your…

Read more
BIMI

Why DMARC and BIMI are a business priority

Jack Lilley

Email threats aren’t slowing down, and neither should your authentication strategy. In our recent joint webinar with Marigold, “From DMARC to BIMI: Navigating the New Email Authorization Landscape,” we broke down what today’s evolving standards mean for both security and marketing teams—and how to take action now with our free Red Sift Investigate tool.…

Read more
ASM

Zoom stops zooming: Why active monitoring is essential

Billy McDiarmid

​On April 16, 2025, Zoom experienced a significant global outage that disrupted video conferencing services and access to its website for thousands of users, as well as their corporate email for all their employees. It was quickly identified as a domain name registration status problem. Despite being a critical name for Zoom, somehow, the…

Read more