Who we are
Sora Defense is led by a technical and strategic team with deep experience across cybersecurity, high-performance computing, national security, enterprise risk, venture development, and resilient systems architecture. Our team combines hands-on engineering depth with operational, financial, and government-sector experience to build systems designed for real-world pressure, not ideal conditions.
For security and privacy reasons, some technical team members are listed under professional pseudonyms. Together, we are focused on one mission: making critical communications, data, and infrastructure more survivable in contested, degraded, and adversarial environments.
Team
Oni Kabir
Oni Kabir is the CEO of Sora Defense, leading the firm’s strategic vision and enterprise engagement. With 30 years of expertise in enterprise architecture and cybersecurity, Oni specializes in managing high-consequence complexity at the intersection of risk and technology. His leadership is rooted in his tenure as the Chief Risk Officer for the City of New York’s financial infrastructure, where he oversaw the security and risk of over $115 billion in annual transactions.
This experience in protecting vital economic engines informs Sora’s mission to deliver resilient solutions for national security. In addition to his public sector service, Oni is a founding partner of Blackrail Group, where he identifies and scales the disruptive technologies defining the modern battlefield. By combining the perspectives of a large-scale operator, strategic investor, and entrepreneur, Oni ensures Sora Defense remains at the forefront of technical excellence and national resilience.
Chief Executive OfficerKory Beach, Ph.D.
Kory Beach is a physicist and systems engineer specializing in artificial intelligence, high-performance computing, nonlinear systems, and resilient distributed architectures. At Sora Defense, he leads research strategy and technical architecture for secure communications and data systems designed to operate in denied, degraded, and adversarial environments.
Prior to co-founding Sora Defense, Dr. Beach served as a Physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, supporting national security programs through experimental design, advanced simulation, and large-scale computational modeling. He previously led quantitative research at GSC Assets where he built automated decision systems for volatile markets. He holds a Ph.D. in Physics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute where he developed machine learning and quantum simulation methods for complex physical systems.
Chief Research OfficerEdison Carter
Edison Carter is a veteran systems architect and hacker with more than two decades of experience breaking, building, and hardening complex infrastructure. His background spans high-performance networking, supercomputing, cyber defense, malware analysis, incident response, and low-level systems engineering.
As CTO of Sora Defense, he leads technical architecture for systems designed to operate under surveillance, degradation, and compromise. His approach is grounded in real-world failure: reduce complexity, isolate damage, remove brittle trust assumptions, and build infrastructure that keeps working when the environment turns hostile.
Chief Technical OfficerEri
Eri is a senior systems and security engineer with deep expertise in high-assurance distributed architecture, malware analysis, reverse engineering, open-source systems, and compiler design. Eri’s background includes designing reliable rapid-deployment applications for diverse software platforms and securing communications across distributed networks for private and public organizations.
As CIO and co-founder of Sora Defense, Eri focuses on building and securing distributed systems designed to withstand adversarial pressure, infrastructure compromise, and real-world operational failure.
Chief Information OfficerStrategic Advisors
William V. Parker
William V. Parker is a retired senior U.S. diplomat and strategic national security advisor with 31 years of Foreign Service experience. He retired from the U.S. Department of State at the rank of Minister-Counselor, the diplomatic equivalent of Major General.
His career spans senior national security, diplomatic, and international engagement roles, including service connected to U.S. Strategic Command, NATO, India, the Philippines, Trinidad and Tobago, Ivory Coast, Qatar, and West Africa. At Sora Defense, he advises on defense strategy, government engagement, international partnerships, and national security positioning.
Strategic National Security AdvisorClare John Fairfield
Clare John Fairfield is Chairman of the Venture Capital Institute and a founding General Partner and Managing Director of Concerto Advisors. He brings more than 30 years of experience in venture capital, entrepreneurship, innovation development, and early-stage technology commercialization.
His work has included building venture funds, founding and operating companies, developing university entrepreneurship programs, and advising innovation ecosystems across global markets. At Sora Defense, he supports strategic growth, venture positioning, commercialization strategy, and international innovation partnerships.
Strategic Advisor