VENDOR BLINDNESS
You have no idea if third parties are living up to expectations, pose a concentration risk, or if their tools have access to your critical data.
Your startup survived the incident. Now, let’s make sure you survive the recovery.
Halberd serves as the “interim CRO” for startups recovering from operational failures or vendor issues. We build the governance, privacy, and cyber controls you needed yesterday, so you can get back to building value.
Operational Risk Management
Work with a team of risk professionals who will audit your present and build for your future, without sacrificing your agility.
What you get:
- Complete data & vendor risk assessment
- Creation of "The Core 5" Policy Documents (Privacy, Access, Incident Response, Vendor, Data)
- Remediation roadmap
- Monthly vendor security reviews
- Fractional CRO availability for board meetings and investor Q&A
The “Compliance & Control” Retainer
Best for: Startups that need ongoing oversight without the headcount.
$5,000 / month
· 3 month minimum
The “Rapid Triage” Sprint (30 days)
Best for: Startups reeling from a recent scare or preparing for a specific audit.
$12,000
· One-time
→90% less than a senior risk manager salary→Less than 1% of the cost of breaches and third-party failures
Problem
IGNORING OPERATIONAL RISK WORKS… UNTIL IT DOESN’T.
You thought you were too small to be a target. You thought your vendors could never do wrong. Then reality hit.
Now you're facing:
DATA CHAOS
You don’t know where your sensitive IP lives, how it gets there, and who has permission to see it.
REACTIVE PANIC
Every time a risk emerges, it freezes your company. Your whole team drops what they're doing to fight fires because there is no playbook.
The trap
You know you need structure, but you can’t afford a $250k enterprise CRO or a Big Four consulting firm to spend six months writing PowerPoint slides.
How can we help?
PRACTICAL GOVERNANCE. DEPLOYED IN WEEKS, NOT MONTHS.
Halberd is the “Operational Triage” team for lean startups. We don't just tell you what went wrong: we implement the controls to ensure it doesn't happen again.
We replace "hope" with documented process.
Data Privacy & Cyber Governance
We map your data flow and lock down your perimeter.
- Data Mapping: We inventory exactly what data you collect and where it lives.
- Access Control Implementation: We deploy RBAC so interns don’t have admin keys.
- Privacy Framework: We write and deploy your internal data-handling policies to ensure you aren't liable for negligence.
Third-Party Risk Containment (TPRM)
We vet your supply chain, so you stop inheriting other people's risks.
- Vendor Audit: We review your most critical vendors, partnerships, and/or agreements to identify security gaps.
- Contract Triage: We help you renegotiate third-party contracts to enforce SLAs, protect operations, and mitigate risks.
- Offboarding Protocols: We ensure that when you fire a vendor, it's done seamlessly.
Operational Resilience Playbooks
We write the manual for “what to do when things break.”
- Incident Response Plan: A step-by-step guide for your team during a breach, outage, or risk event.
- Business Continuity Planning: Protocols to keep the business running even if a key system goes down.
- Centre of Governance: We create a committee of risk champions within your organization to break down silos, unearth insight, and promote ongoing risk planning.
Let’s talk