Simon Pope is the Head of Security at Sonos and former Director of Incident Response at the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC). He holds a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from the University of Queensland, a Masters degree in Cognitive Science from the University of New South Wales, and a Graduate Certificate in Scientific Leadership from Melbourne University. Before Microsoft, Simon was the Chief Technology Officer and Founder of Veriluma, a public company specializing in Predictive Intelligence Analysis tools and systems. Prior to this, he worked as an applied scientist at a number of research institutions, including Australia’s Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO), specializing in intelligence estimation, as well as the CRC for Enterprise Distributed Systems Technology, and at IBM T. J. Watson Research Laboratories in New York.
He has also worked as a management consultant, professional writer, programmer, and engineer – but asks people not to hold that against him. He has never been a member of a secret society (though if he were he probably wouldn't tell you), but would like to be asked all the same. He considers himself something of an expert on Harry Potter but acknowledges the few job opportunities this affords. His goal in life is to become filthy rich doing something that he loves doing (like that's any different to anyone else), but will gladly accept cash donations in return for absolutely no consideration. He paints acrylics and plays classical Spanish guitar (badly) and briefly attended the Queensland Conservatorium of Music where he studied music composition before realizing this wasn't going to pay the bills unless you want to write jingles for the rest of your life (this part is true).
He likes music of all kinds, but prefers the sort with at least two tones. If threatened with violence he will admit that his favorite artists are AC/DC, Courtney Barnett, Midnight Oil, Crowded House, Katie Noonan, Katie Melua, John Williams (the guitarist, not the other one), Fleetwood Mac, Joy Division, The Clash, P!NK, Dire Straits, Los Rameros, the Beatles, Blondie, Beethoven, Strauss (Ricard not Johann), Chris Isaak, and of course, David Bowie. He likes other music artists as well but is still negotiating royalties for their paid mentions in this bio. He blathers on for no apparent reason when asked to write biographical summaries in the faint hope that someone, somewhere will one day laugh.
