Crossword Cybersecurity Plc

CFO Transition

16 April 2024 - London, UK - Crossword Cybersecurity Plc (AIM:CCS, "Crossword", the "Company" or the "Group"), the cybersecurity solutions company focused on cyber strategy and risk, announces today that Chief Financial Officer Mary Dowd has decided to step down as a director of the Company. 

Mary has made a significant contribution to Crossword in her six years in the role, having joined in May 2018. Mary successfully led Crossword's admission to AIM in December 2018 and its subsequent growth and is now looking to pursue executive opportunities outside the Company. The Board has agreed that Mary will step down as Chief Financial Officer and as an executive director of the Company on 30 June 2024, following the finalisation of the 2023 Annual Report & Accounts.

The Board has appointed Rose Clark to succeed Mary as Chief Financial Officer. This will initially be a non-board position. Rose is an experienced CFO in businesses with £15m-£500m turnover. She has been CFO of several AIM companies, including as Group Finance Director of Jelf Group plc, which acquired 20 businesses over 2 years, growing revenue from £15m to £75m, and as interim Global CFO of the technology business Eleco plc. Rose began her career at KPMG, where she qualified as a Chartered Accountant. She will join Crossword in May to ensure a smooth transition.

It is intended that Rose Clark will join the Crossword Board following a satisfactory handover period with Mary Dowd, and a further announcement will be made at that time.

Tom Ilube, Crossword's CEO, said: "I would like to thank Mary for her huge contribution to Crossword over the last six years. During that time she has led our admission to AIM, helped the company navigate the financial challenges of the pandemic, executed multiple fundraising rounds and managed three successful acquisitions. Mary has laid the foundation for Crossword's path to profitability this year and our future rapid growth. Mary leaves Crossword with our best wishes for the future.

"Rose is a highly regarded CFO and leader. Beyond her financial credentials, her experience in rapidly scaling businesses will be especially valuable as Crossword moves towards profitability and enters its scale up stage. We look forward to welcoming her to Crossword next month."

- Ends -

The information contained within this announcement is deemed to constitute inside information as stipulated under the retained EU law version of the Market Abuse Regulation (EU) No. 596/2014 (the "UK MAR") which is part of UK law by virtue of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. The information is disclosed in accordance with the Company's obligations under Article 17 of the UK MAR. Upon the publication of this announcement, this inside information is now considered to be in the public domain.

Contacts

Crossword Cybersecurity plc - Tel: +44 (0) 333 090 2587

Email: info@crosswordcybersecurity.com

Tom Ilube, Chief Executive Officer

Mary Dowd, Chief Financial Officer

Grant Thornton (Nominated Adviser) - Tel: +44 (0) 20 7383 5100

Colin Aaronson / Jamie Barklem / Ciara Donnelly

Hybridan LLP (Broker) - Tel: +44 (0)203 764 2341

Claire Louise Noyce

For media enquiries contact:

Duncan Gurney, GingerPR

duncan@gingerpr.co.uk - Tel: +44 (0)1932 485 300

About Crossword Cybersecurity plc

Crossword offers a range of cyber security solutions to help companies understand and reduce cyber security risk. We do this through a combination of people and technology, in the form of SaaS and software products, consulting, and managed services. Crossword's areas of emphasis are cyber security strategy and risk, supply chain cyber, threat detection and response, and digital identity and the aim is to build up a portfolio of cyber security products and services with recurring revenue models in these four areas. We work closely with UK universities and our products and services are often powered by academic research-driven insights. In the area of cybersecurity strategy and risk our consulting services include cyber maturity assessments, industry certifications, and virtual chief information security officer (vCISO) managed services.

Crossword's end-to-end supply chain cyber standard operating model (SCC SOM) is supported by our best-selling SaaS platform, Rizikon Assurance, along with cost-effective cyber audits, security testing services and complete managed services for supply chain cyber risk management. Threat detection and response services include our Nightingale AI-based network monitoring, our Trillion™ suite of threat intelligence products, Trillion Breach, Harvista and Arc and incident response. Crossword's work in digital identity is based on the World Wide Web Consortium W3C verifiable credentials standard and our current solution, Identiproof, enables secure digital verification of individuals to prevent fraud.

Crossword serves medium and large clients including FTSE 100, FTSE 250 and S&P listed companies in various sectors, such as defence, insurance, investment and retail banks, private equity, education, technology and manufacturing and has offices in the UK, Poland and Oman. Crossword is traded on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange.

Visit Crossword at https://www.crosswordcybersecurity.com/