I am excited to share with you our story of how we all came together “under the Dome,” and more importantly, why the cleverDome cybersecurity solution is so critical to not only the financial services industry, but to the general public.

To get started, I want to share with you first why cleverDome was created, and then explain exactly why it’s structure as an Arizona Benefit Corporation is so critical to its purpose and mission, and ultimately to its success in solving the unsolvable.

Today’s cybersecurity challenges are unsolvable because cybersecurity products and services are based on a broken security model. Confidential consumer information is shared, sent, received, stored and accessed on or through the open internet which is unsecure. Today’s secure solutions are tomorrow’s compromised controls.

The only real solution is to take confidential consumer information “under the dome”, which is secure and off the open internet. But to do that requires the creation of a global standard of trust, a trust network where participants know that other participants are secure under the dome.

cleverDome was created to deliver the first community built and proven secure trust model to protect the most confidential data and information of consumers in the cloud. We did this in partnership with financial services industry thought leaders who understood and agreed that cleverDome’s mission to protect confidential consumer information required not only a technology solution, but a community solution with a commitment to a global standard of trust that benefits all stakeholders including the general public.

That leads us to why cleverDome is a Benefit Corporation and why that organizational structure is critical to cleverDome’s purpose and its mission. The mission and purpose of cleverDome is to solve an industry need for conducting business through safe, reliable and fast internet connections. It operates like a Co-Op to offer its community based cybersecurity solution to its participants or “members”, i.e. broker/dealers, registered investment advisers, financial advisors, vendors, service providers or custodians. To come under the dome, members commit to a global standard of trust with end point protection, minimum cybersecurity requirements and due diligence standards.

The cleverDome solution was created to protect consumer confidential information. For cleverDome to be successful, it must benefit not just its shareholders, but all members of cleverDome, the financial services industry and the general public. cleverDome’s mission and purpose is to solve an industry need for conducting business through safe, reliable and fast internet connections, and a Benefit Corporation is the most effective way to ensure that cleverDome creates benefits for the general public, the industry and all members of the Co-Op.

Traditional organizational structures such as C or S corporations, partnerships or limited liability companies exist to create values to its owners, and the individuals managing the entity have a fiduciary obligation to act in the best interest of and to maximize value for the shareholders/owners.

A Benefit or B Corporation is different. It exists to create a general public benefit or one or more specific public benefits. Benefit Corporations have a higher level of transparency and accountability. Unlike privately held companies, a Benefit Corporation must file an Annual Benefit Report stating how the entity has met its requirement to provide a general public benefit or its stated specific benefits.
We established cleverDome as a Benefit Corporation to create a solid foundation to ensure that it fulfills its purpose and mission, and to protect its public benefit purpose through capital raises, leadership changes and other events which may threaten its core purpose and mission.

We believe that cleverDome’s Benefit Corporation status exhibits a solid and permanent commitment to delivering a community based solution because our purpose will always be to create a public benefit and we are held accountable to not only cleverDome’s shareholders, but to all stakeholders.

Aaron Spradlin
Founder and CEO of cleverDome