About us
We give companies access to the technical leadership they deserve.
Great technical leadership is often the difference between companies that scale confidently and those that slow down under the weight of bad architecture, security debt, and the wrong hires.
Cybersynaptics was built to make that leadership accessible — not just to companies with the budget for a $300k/yr executive suite, but to any company with the ambition to build something great.
We started this at an inflection point — when AI is simultaneously the greatest opportunity and the fastest-moving source of new technical debt, security risk, and architectural regret for teams without the right leadership in the room. The companies that navigate this well won't be the ones who moved fastest. They'll be the ones who moved with clarity.
We work as true partners: embedded in your organization, accountable to your outcomes, and honest about what's working and what isn't.
How we work
- Embedded, not advising
We don't send decks from a distance. We're in your systems, your standups, and your hard conversations.
- Senior-only
Every engagement is staffed with senior practitioners who have done this before at real scale.
- Honest above all
We'll tell you what you need to hear, not what's comfortable. That's what partners do.
The team
Gage Russell
Co-Founder & CTO
Technical leader with 10+ years building and scaling cloud-native systems, data platforms, and AI-integrated products across early-stage startups and growth-stage SaaS companies. Gage has led Kubernetes adoptions and cloud migrations, built petabyte-scale data platforms on Airflow and Snowflake, and shipped production AI systems including RAG pipelines and LLM-integrated applications. He brings the architectural depth to design it and the leadership experience to own it from roadmap to delivery.
Mike Russell
Co-Founder & CISO
Transformational cybersecurity executive with 20+ years leading enterprise security programs for Fortune 500 and high-growth organizations across healthcare, logistics, and SaaS. Mike has served as Head of Security and acting CISO at companies including GoHealth, Crane Worldwide, and Spok — leading compliance programs across HIPAA, HITRUST, SOC 2, ISO 27001, and FedRAMP, and pioneering AI governance frameworks aligned to NIST AI RMF and ISO/IEC 42001. A trusted board and C-suite advisor who translates complex cyber risk into executive strategy and measurable outcomes.