With Cingulum, our country has a new security specialist. Originating from Cranium, the company is shooting out of the starting blocks with expertise in hand. A focus on compliance and governance should make the difference in the market.
First there was Cranium, then there was Cingulum and the Cranium Group. “Cranium has been a well-known name with expertise around privacy, security and data governance since 2016,” said Anne Jansen, CEO of the company. “Within Cranium, support teams around talent and marketing emerged, combined with a strong operational core team to support our consultants. Our expertise grew deeper and more complex over the years.”
“Specialization, however, is crucial,” she continues. “You can hardly be a cybersecurity expert AND the best at privacy. Continuing under one brand was no longer possible. With separate entities, you can. That’s why we created the group.”
Welcome Cingulum
Cingulum is the first company within that group, and it immediately has a clear focus: cybersecurity. “The company is a full-fledged subsidiary of Cranium,” says CEO Dave Geentjens. “We have our own brand and management, but we brought expertise and knowledge from Cranium. Employees who wanted to focus on security made the jump with us. That still gives us an edge as a new player.”
Cingulum does not move or install boxes. The company wants to be a strategic partner for clients. “We focus on governance and compliance, and want to strengthen clients organizationally,” Geentjens clarified.
From plan to certificate
Companies looking to beef up their security and wondering what the best plan of action is can turn to Cingulum. There they receive guidance that focuses not only on technology, but earlier on the overall resilience of the organization.
“Not only cybercrime is a challenge,” Geentjens adds. “The regulator itself is also coming up with new requirements and conditions. This is not unjustified: the geopolitical situation demands it.”
Not only is cybercrime a challenge, regulators are also coming up with requirements.
Dave Geentjens, CEO Cranium
Cingulum therefore wants to offer customers a growth path to a mature organization, whose maturity level is certifiable. Geentjens: “This way organizations not only know themselves that they are in a good place, but they can also prove this to their suppliers and customers. Our portfolio is aimed at getting to such a level. Those who follow the path that we have mapped out together have the guarantee that certificates match that.”
It goes without saying that every path to greater security does have a technical component. For the installation of firewalls and other solutions, for example, Cingulum relies on an extensive partner network. The company already has those relationships, courtesy of the Cranium Group. “That offers economies of scale,” Jansen said. “The relationship with partners has lasted for years.”
Brain and Roman
With that, the focus of Cingulum is clear, as is the supporting role of the Cranium Group. One pressing question remains: where did the name come from?
“I came up with that,” Jansen says modestly. “First it was a working name with which we brought the idea to the board of directors. I thought about that working name, and it fit well with Cranium. At some point Dave got involved in the project, and he also thought it was a good name, which has stuck.”
Anyone who combines a certain anatomical background with an interest in history will immediately understand the link to which Jansen refers. For other readers, Geentjens briefly summarizes, “First of all, there is the cingulum in the brain. That brain part connects different parts of the brain.” Thus, the cingulum is naturally located in the skull or cranium. The connecting role is also relevant to the positioning of the business itself.
“There is a second meaning,” Geentjens gloats. “The cingulum militare is the name for the belt of Roman legionnaires.” That cingulum plays a protective role, again by analogy to the new company.
Expansion
A group of one is hardly worth the name, of course. The Cranium Group has bigger ambitions. “A next subsidiary under the wings of Cranium is coming in the relatively near future,” says Jansen. “At the moment, however, the focus is on Cingulum. We want to get everything running perfectly between Cranium and Cingulum first.”
That’s where Geentjens can indulge. The new company has a clear vision, which is all the more topical with the arrival of the NIS2 regulations. Organizations, under pressure from legislators, are becoming more aware of their security responsibilities, and also want to demonstrate through certificates that they are on board.
Geentjens addresses any organization in need of a growth project around cybersecurity, although he notes that a certain scale is a factor in practice. “Most of the customers are the larger SME, which has the resources to invest.”
The strength of the group is already helping. “Through Cranium we can offer a very complete range. There are also some multinationals that like that.”