Veteran Fraud Expert Mike Cook Joins Socure to Lead Commercialization and Increase Market Penetration of Its Industry-Leading Fraud Prediction Solutions

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Socure, the leading provider of digital identity verification and fraud solutions, today announced the expansion of its executive leadership team with the hiring of Mike Cook as vice president of commercialization, fraud solutions. Cook, a fintech entrepreneur and advisor with more than 30 years of experience in the industry, will lead Socure’s strategic plans to eliminate financial loss from all fraud types and efficiently validate 100% of consumer identities, capture market share, and increase growth.

“Building on Socure’s company momentum and success, I plan to support and strengthen existing solutions, drive Socure product adoption more broadly, and help our sales team optimize communication with prospects and customers,” said Cook. “I admire the level of professionalism and expertise I see from the Socure team, and continue to be impressed by the quality of employees Socure is adding every day. I’m excited to join Socure at this amazing point in its growth trajectory.”

Cook co-founded the industry risk company ID Analytics in 2002, and built it from conception to a high-growth, profitable company that was acquired by identity theft leader LifeLock in 2012. As COO of ID Analytics, Cook led operations, product development, marketing, and strategy development for the company. Cook was also a member of the executive team that grew Consumer Credit Associates into the fourth largest national credit bureau in the country, before helping to sell that business to FDR (now Innovis). He has held senior management roles with Experian, Early Warning Services, and American Express. With three awarded patents and four patents pending, Cook is a proven innovator in the fields of data breach, fraud, credit risk, compliance, and account management solutions.

“We are incredibly fortunate to have Mike join our fraud and risk leadership team while bringing his expertise and vision to our go-to-market strategy,” said Johnny Ayers, founder and CEO of Socure. “Mike’s entrepreneurial drive and passion for this industry will be yet another tremendous competitive advantage for Socure in helping us stop the very sophisticated fraud attacks that our customers and partners experience every day.”

In his career of 30+ years in the financial services industry, Cook has developed long-term, trusted relationships across customers, federal regulators, and privacy advocacy groups. Considered an industry expert in data breach, fraud patterns, and identity theft, Cook has also provided Congressional testimony on the potential impact of data breaches.

About Socure

Socure is the leading platform for digital identity verification and trust. Its predictive analytics platform applies artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques with trusted online/offline data intelligence from email, phone, address, IP, device, velocity, and the broader internet to verify identities in real time. The company has more than 500 customers across the financial services, gaming, healthcare, telecom, and e-commerce industries, including four of the top five banks, seven of the top 10 card issuers, three of the top MSBs, the top payroll provider, the top credit bureau, top crypto exchanges, top Buy Now, Pay Later providers, the largest online gaming operators, and over 100 of the largest fintechs. Marquee customers include Chime, Varo Money, Public, Stash, and DraftKings. Investors include Accel, Commerce Ventures, Scale Venture Partners, Flint Capital, Capital One Ventures, Citi Ventures, Wells Fargo Strategic Capital, Synchrony, Sorenson, Two Sigma Ventures, and others.

Socure has received numerous industry awards and accolades, including being named to Forbes’ Fintech 50 List 2021, Forbes’ America’s Best Startup Employers 2021, being awarded Best New Technology Introduced Over the Last 12 Months—Data and Data Services at the 2020 American Financial Technology Awards (AFTAs), being ranked number 70 in Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500™, being listed as a Gartner Cool Vendor, being recognized by Forbes as one of the Top 25 Machine Learning Startups to Watch, being named to CB Insights: The Fintech 250, and being awarded Finovate’s Award for Best Use of AI/ML, to name a few.