Carl Woerndle

Co-CEO, MyEmpire Group

Carl Woerndle is co-founder and co-CEO of MyEmpire Group. He is an experienced security consultant with more than three decades’ experience in IT, cyber security and business development. As well as a business owner and manager, he has advised and mentored individuals and teams in organisations from start-ups through to governments and ASX50 listed enterprises. Carl has also worked as a Cyber Security Advisor consultant for Deloitte and is a regular keynote speaker on cyber security.

Specialisations

  • Cyber Security / Information Security

  • Strategy

  • Cyber Security Governance, Risk and Compliance

  • Board presentations

  • Keynote presentations

  • Business development

  • Corporate management

  • Business operations

  • HR / Staffing

  • Business finance

Ready to mature your cyber security?

Founder's story

Carl has lived and breathed cyber security since a major hacking took everything he and his brother, Alex, had built back in 2011.

At the time, they were the owner/directors of DistributeIT, a leading Australian web services provider established in 2002. At its peak, the company serviced 10% of .com.au domain registrations with over a quarter of a million domains registered and 30,000 hosted clients. It was a business they had built over 9 years. 

On an afternoon in 2011, a malicious cyber attack was mounted on DistributeIT’s data centres. It was immediately clear this wasn’t just any attack, the hackers were highly skilled, breaking in at an administrator level, and intent on doing severe damage. Here is the full story. 

The short of it is the hack triggered a waterfall effect that wiped out DistributeIT in less than three weeks. It was a big enough cyber attack, the hacking group, Anonymous, sent Alex and Carl an email saying it wasn’t them. 

The major cyber security incident destroyed DistributeIT. Carl never forgot it.  

In 2013 he returned to consultant work. Over a few years, he had several roles, including working for Deloitte as a Principal Consultant where he helped build and expand their security business. After a lot of travel, and over 100 presentations to Boards, including Australia Post, ME Bank and AMP–to help improve their security–, Carl and Alex decided to get together again and start MyEmpire Group 

MyEmpire Group is the answer to ‘what would have saved us last time’ but with modern cyber risks considered. It is the in-house cyber security specialists, knowledge and resources needed to protect companies from today’s sophisticated cyber attacks.