PR Expertise
Get to Know Your PR Team
Advisors. Collaborators. Confidants.
Whether your marketing department is a team of one or 10, LaunchTech seamlessly integrates into your day to day operations. We are communicators through and through who aim to make external communications feel totally in-house.
Working with LaunchTech means having a flexible, hands-on, and responsive team that operates as an extension of your own organization. Our senior leadership is involved on all accounts, advising from day one and ensuring that high-level strategy is consistently executed.
For more than a decade, the LaunchTech team has played a role in dozens of markets of cybersecurity tech across more than 125 companies. Our team produces tailored strategies that align with each client’s business objectives.
LaunchTech is the public relations brand of CyberRisk Alliance, the parent company behind a portfolio of trusted cybersecurity media, events, communities, and intelligence brands. This connection gives our team a broader view of the cybersecurity market, its audiences, and the conversations shaping the industry, while LaunchTech remains focused on delivering strategic, high-touch PR counsel to our clients.
Meet Our Team
Wayne Schepens
Founder and Managing Director
As the founder of LaunchTech Communications, acquired by CyberRisk Alliance in 2024, Wayne brings decades of security, product and marketing experience to CyberRisk Alliance. With an advanced technical pedigree that includes experience in the Intelligence community where he led software development efforts for military and critical infrastructure partners, Wayne offers a unique perspective and keen understanding of the industry. He is known for his knack for boiling up deep concepts into intricate, differentiating messaging points for the marketplace, analyst community, and media in service of his early-stage clients as they navigate the challenges of building brand, credibility and thought leadership.
Taylor Hadley
Senior Vice President, Client Relations
Taylor joined LaunchTech in 2015 right around the time of the OPM breach, and has been a cybersecurity news junkie ever since. Her areas of expertise include media relations, analyst relations, writing, and building client trust with strategies that build thought leadership and third-party validation. Oh – and continuing to use em dashes even though AI ruined them for everyone with the good sense of how to use them.
Taylor grew up in New England and loves ice hockey (she plays, coaches, and runs a women’s college league on nights and weekends). She has lived most of her adult life in Baltimore, a city she and her husband adore and where they met as students at Loyola University Maryland. Taylor’s favorite hobbies include exploring new cities, hiking at national parks, swinging kettlebells at her neighborhood gym, and even though she is really not that much of a contributor, showing up every week for trivia night.
Cole Christy
Vice President
Cole’s background is in communication and writing, and at LaunchTech he brings a client-focused mindset and competitive drive to help clients sharpen their stories, earn media attention and build market momentum.
Originally from San Diego, Cole moved to Maryland to follow his dream of swimming at the Division I college level. After earning his bachelor’s degree at Loyola University Maryland, he briefly returned home to San Diego, where he worked as a nature preserve tour guide helping tourists and residents learn to snorkel, kayak and mountain bike while enjoying the county’s natural wonders. He considers himself a connoisseur of Mexican food, prefers sun and warmth to winter weather and counts the days until he gets back in the ocean for a surf session.
Sara Jacono
Senior Account Director
At her core, Sara is a storyteller. With experience across high-tech and cybersecurity in cloud, AI, defense tech, and threat intelligence, she brings broad technical exposure and a genuine passion for the creative side of PR. In addition to providing day to day counsel for clients, what she loves most is finding the story in a client’s message, connecting it to what the media is buzzing about, and making it stick.
A Virginia Tech grad, Sara moved to Baltimore to join LaunchTech and live the “city life,” but eventually found herself missing the Blue Ridge Mountains. She now lives in the Shenandoah Valley with her husband, daughter, and dog. Outside of work, she’s testing new recipes in the kitchen (a baking blog is the dream… once she’s done chasing a toddler), reading, or biking and running. Anyone else in the Peloton millennium club?
Tori Koller
Senior Account Manager
Tori thrives on building client relationships and loves traveling to industry events like RSA and Black Hat to connect face-to-face. Day to day, she collaborates with clients to develop creative media pitching strategies and brings fresh ideas and energy to every campaign.
Tori is from Harford County, Maryland, and attended college at James Madison University. She now lives in Annapolis. A Maryland girl through and through, summers are her favorite season filled with lots of Ocean City beach time with family, and a good crab feast here and there. Living by the Chesapeake Bay, Tori loves a coffee walk by the water, spending time with her husband and friends at trivia or happy hour (complete with an orange crush!), finding new recipes to try and reading a good book.
John Barreca
Account Manager
John leverages his interest in technology, media, and storytelling to support clients across cybersecurity and emerging technologies. He starts most mornings with a cup of tea and the latest industry news before diving into crafting timely media pitches to help clients connect with the audiences that matter most to them.
John grew up outside Annapolis, Maryland, and spent most of his adult life in Baltimore. When he’s not working, he’s at home making music, and practicing guitar. He loves staying connected with friends, whether it’s gaming, going out, or just finding an excuse to get together, and he makes a point to spend as much time with family as possible.
Natalie Sasscer
Senior Account Coordinator
Natalie’s passion in PR is helping cybersecurity companies build credibility and shape important narratives in their industry. She has built strong relationships with analysts, writes press releases through a media lens, and can help translate product details into customer stories.
Natalie hails from small-town Southern Maryland (Calvert County) and attended Rutgers University in New Jersey. Now based in Baltimore, she loves discovering local coffee shops, cafés, game stores, and bookstores. When she’s not out exploring, you can usually find her curled up with her three cats, a good book or show, and multiple beverages nearby — she is, after all, a beverage girlie.