Technology doesn't fail in silos. It fails in cascades.

Translating geek into human.

Fractional CTO & CISO for founder-led companies. Strategy without the $250K hire.

Grab 30 Minutes Discover your Signal Score

25+
Years of tech leadership: 40+
Security programs built: 8+
Frameworks navigated: 0
Fear-mongering

A week in your inbox

Any of this land on your desk this month?

A client sent you a security questionnaire and your team is scrambling. Your cyber insurance premium just doubled. Someone mentioned SOC 2 and the room went quiet.

And every vendor in your inbox is selling urgency. Firewalls, endpoint protection, zero trust, AI-powered threat detection. The list never stops, and nobody's translating it into decisions you can actually make.

Sound familiar?

None of it ever shows up one at a time.

Why it cascades

Most leaders treat technology like it's complicated. It's complex.

Vendor access becomes an identity problem becomes a data problem becomes the breach. One weakness, four domains, all at once.

Complicated gets optimized. Complex must be governed. The tidy per-domain checklist is exactly what lets the cascade through.

I prove it by measuring what most frameworks skip: the cascade paths themselves.

You're not failing. The model you were handed is.

How it works

Tune in. Find the signal. Let it echo.

I help founder-led companies make confident technology and security decisions, and build the programs behind them, so you can grow without flying blind, or paying for a $250K hire.

No discovery calls that are really sales pitches. No "custom pricing" that means "whatever we think you'll pay." Here's exactly what it costs.

Tune

Strategic Assessment

Tune in.

$7,500 one-time

I map your technology and security landscape, interview your stakeholders, identify the highest-leverage fixes, and hand you a prioritized roadmap you can actually execute.

Stakeholder interviews + current-state assessment
Technology and security gap analysis
Prioritized roadmap with clear next steps

Grab 30 Minutes

Signal

Fractional CTO/CISO

Find the signal.

$10,000 /month · 3-month min

I join your leadership team part-time. Strategy sessions, vendor calls, team building, incident response, board prep, whatever the role requires that week.

10 hours/week embedded with your team
Staff meetings, vendor calls, board prep
Governance design + security program buildout
Roadmap execution and vendor negotiation

Grab 30 Minutes

Echo

Ongoing Advisory

Let it echo.

$3,000 /month · 6-month commitment

I stay in the picture for clients who've finished a Signal engagement. Monthly counsel, quarterly strategic reviews, and on-call support for the decisions that matter.

Monthly check-ins + quarterly strategic reviews
On-call for key decisions and vendor evaluations
Governance oversight and course corrections

Grab 30 Minutes

What you walk away with

Not a report. A program that runs.

A prioritized roadmap: The order to do things in, not a 90-page report that sits in a drawer.
Decisions you can defend: Technology and security calls you can take to your board and stand behind.
Programs built and running: The actual work in place, not a stack of recommendations to figure out later.
A team that can keep it going: Your people trained to run what we built after I step back.
A translator in the room: Someone who speaks both sides for every vendor call and board meeting.

Most clients start with Tune. No pressure, no lock-in beyond what's listed above.

Mike has the ability to communicate technical concepts to a non-technical audience. When assigned a task, you can trust it will be done with the same level of attention to detail as if you had done it yourself.

JD Helms

Technology Executive

Who you're working with

I'm Mike Faas.

25+ years and 40+ security and technology programs. Fortune 500 to high-growth startups. I've sat in the CISO chair. I've built the governance programs. I've had the vendor calls where nobody in the room knew what questions to ask.

I started Echo Cyber because smart founders are making million-dollar technology decisions with vendor slide decks and gut instinct. Not another consultant talking in acronyms. Someone who can walk into a board meeting and explain what's actually going on, in plain English.

Based in Raleigh, NC. Dad. Blue belt. Reluctant morning person.

What people say

What it's like to work with me.

“A key contributor to both strategic direction and client engagement. Exceptional at building authentic, trust-based relationships with customers.”

James L. Jackson

Cybersecurity Leader

Colleague

“A natural problem-solver who remains cool under pressure. A born leader who continuously takes on more responsibility.”

Jennifer Vosburgh

B2B Marketing Executive, Tego

“Strategic leader who builds trust with customers, vendors, and direct reports alike. One of the good guys.”

Karan Sorensen

Innovation & Technology Executive

Track record

Proof beats prose.

Names withheld. NDAs are a feature, not a limitation.

Pharma sciences CRO · regulated data

Growing Life-Sciences CRO

GxP-validated tools Per-seat licensing Acquired

Challenge. No security program, thin validation documentation, outdated servers, and a critical per-seat analysis tool whose licenses had drifted away from who actually used it.

Outcome. Security program built from the ground up. An access review turned license sprawl into savings. At acquisition, the buyer called IT and security one of the easiest they'd ever done.

National retail chain · brick-and-mortar

Fortune 500 Retailer

5,000+ employees Hundreds of locations Edge POS

Challenge. Security enforcement was nonexistent at the edge. POS systems across stores required manual intervention with no centralized governance.

Outcome. Cloud-native device governance framework. Enforceable, auditable security posture for the first time.

DTC ecommerce · rapid scale

High-Growth Ecommerce Brand

900+ users 32TB data 40 sites

Challenge. Outgrew their collaboration platform but couldn't afford downtime during a migration touching every employee and every business-critical site.

Outcome. Zero-disruption platform migration. Identity sync, policy-driven device reconfiguration, legacy infrastructure eliminated.

Free assessment

Not ready for a call? Start here.

15 minutes. 8 categories. Your A–F grade up front, no email required. The full report unlocks with a work email. Just clarity.

Take the Signal Score Assessment Or compare engagements

Next step

Ready to have a real conversation?

30 minutes. No pitch. Just honest questions and straight answers. You'll walk away with actionable next steps either way.

Grab 30 Minutes

Translating geek into human.

Weekly newsletter

Signal vs. Noise

Cutting through the chaos of cybersecurity and technology, so you can lead with clarity. One email every Sunday. No fluff, no vendor hype, no fear-mongering.

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