Announcing the Well-Deserved Promotions of Reynaldo Kirton, Casilda Angulo, and Kathryn Shih

We’re excited to announce the well–deserved promotions of Reynaldo Kirton, Casilda Angulo, and Kathryn Shih. On behalf of the Forgepoint team, portfolio, and community, we’re pleased to recognize their outstanding contributions as we continue our mission of advancing cybersecurity, AI, and infrastructure software innovation globally. 

Reynaldo “Rey” Kirton, Principal 

Rey served as a Summer Associate in 2020, then joined Forgepoint as a Senior Associate in 2021 before being promoted to Vice President in 2023. Rey’s deep understanding of and passion for innovation in data security, distributed infrastructure, security operations, and risk management has made him an invaluable as a Board Observer to Cinchy, Lumu, Symmetry Systems, Synadia (NATS.io), and Surefire Cyber, which he helped incubate and launch in 2021 and continues to advise.  

In addition to deal sourcing, diligence, and thesis generation in critical investment areas, Rey has led the development of the Forgepoint Intelligence Platform, which integrates proprietary data, market research, investor and network insights, and team communications into a unified, AI-powered system that streamlines workflows by delivering personalized recommendations and enabling smarter, faster decisions as we monitor tens of thousands of emerging companies worldwide. 

Prior to Forgepoint, Rey was a strategy consultant at Altman Vilandrie & Co., where he managed over 30 operational and market due diligence efforts for clients across North America, Europe, and Latin America. He began his career at Cambridge Associates, providing research and portfolio allocation advice to private and institutional investor clients ranging from $50M to $3B in assets. Rey is a CFA charterholder with an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a B.A. from Harvard University. He is a Toigo Fellow and champions diversity initiatives mentoring others. 

Casilda Angulo, Vice President 

Casilda served as a Summer Associate in 2022, then joined Forgepoint as a Senior Associate in 2023. Casilda focuses on critical emerging technologies such as AI and Gen AI security, SaaS security posture management, identity, financial fraud, and risk management. In addition to her significant contributions to thesis development and deal diligence across these categories, she provides strategic guidance as a Board Observer for Lynx, Nudge Security, and SPHERE, and works closely with AKA Identity and Constella.   

With her background in startups, venture capital and tech banking across Europe, ease of navigating multicultural contexts, and highly collaborative nature, Casilda has played a pivotal role in our global expansion and strategic alliance with Santander. This includes identifying, sourcing, and mapping pipeline opportunities by country, engaging key startup communities, and working closely with our London-based Forgepoint Capital International team to develop its investment strategy and approach for Europe, UK, and Latin America.   

Prior to Forgepoint, Casilda worked as a Telecom, Media, and Technology investment banker for UBS in London and Madrid, specializing in enterprise software including major cybersecurity transactions. She also worked at Seaya Ventures, a Spanish VC firm that invests in Spain and Latin America. She holds an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management, and dual B.S. degrees in Finance and International Business from Northeastern University and Universidad Pontificia Comillas (ICADE). 

Kathryn Shih, Venture Partner

Kathryn joined Forgepoint at the start of 2024 as an Entrepreneur in Residence. She first worked across our portfolio to evaluate and advance each company’s AI strategy, from executing on AI feature development to utilizing AI and GenAI to enhance their operational efficiency and go-to-market impact. 

Since then, she has also helped define and hone Forgepoint’s AI investment strategy, which spans the full range of expected AI impact on cybersecurity- from securing the new AI stack to helping defenders fully leverage AI capabilities to preparing the digital ecosystem for new AI-enabled attacks. She and Casilda have been instrumental in deepening our understanding of the extensive landscape covering all aspects of the AI value chain- from data and training to governance and model security- while actively sourcing opportunities in AI infrastructure, security for AI, vertical AI applications and more.  

Kathryn brings extensive experience in product management solving the full spectrum of B2B use cases. Prior to Forgepoint, Kathryn was a Group Product Manager at Google where she most recently led the Security AI Workbench team and trained generative AI for security-specific workloads. She has spent over 15 years scaling global technologies including Google Ads, Android OS, and Amazon Web Services’ EC2 and EMR. She began her career as a software engineer at Akamai Technologies. Kathryn holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a B.S. in Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

Forgepoint is committed to a culture of learning and development that provides unique leadership opportunities, applying each team member’s personal interests and strengths. This is a proud moment for all of us as we celebrate Rey, Casilda, and Kathryn, whose intellectual curiosity, passion for innovation, professional acumen, and commitment to our entrepreneurs embody what sets Forgepoint apart. As we continue to grow, we know you’ll continue to be vital to the success of Forgepoint and our companies. Congratulations!