Each year about 25 students graduate from the Kellogg School of Management’s JD-MBA Program, which prepares them for careers at the intersection of business and law. The cohorts tend to be close-knit and stay in touch, leading to professional opportunities and relationships that last long after their time in school. 

That was the case for Scott Kannry ’11 JD, MBA; Daniel Hirt ’11 JD, MBA; and Sam Skinner ’22 JD, MBA who all work with Axio, the cybersecurity business Kannry cofounded in 2016 and now leads as CEO. Hirt is Axio’s COO, while Skinner works as director of business development.

Their shared Kellogg connection helped bring them together, and their JD-MBA training and network figure heavily into the growth and success of Axio, which now employs over 50 people. Including Keating Crown ’11 JD, MBA and Shawn Ellis ’11 MBA, both of whom are investors, Axio counts five graduates from the class of 2011 as meaningfully involved in the company’s success.  

As Kannry says, “Axio wouldn’t exist without the business and financial support of people in the Kellogg community. We are big believers in Kellogg and Northwestern.”

Where the world needs to go on cybersecurity 

“Our mission is to solve cybersecurity, a major global problem,” Kannry says. He likens the effort to dealing with the risks of fire: “Things still burn down, but fire can be effectively managed through multiple measures.” That is, while cyber threats will always exist, there are things organizations can do to diminish and address the risk. 

Indeed, many see cybersecurity as one of the largest threats to businesses and individuals worldwide, with potential costs well into the trillions. “We think of cyber as a business risk to manage versus a technical problem requiring only technical solutions,” Kannry says. “We help our customers best defend themselves from a cyber event happening, but also understand that minimizing impacts and effective recovery is just as significant in an overall cybersecurity strategy.” 

In line with this, Axio offers a comprehensive SaaS platform to assess, quantify and manage cyber-risk. “We help CEOs and boards understand management of cybersecurity as part of their duty of care,” Hirt says. 

He continues, “CISOs [chief information security officers] need to be able to tell their CEOs and boards things like, ‘We have $1 billion in cyber-risk but investing X dollars in specific initiatives can bring that risk down by Y%. They need a single language to communicate about cyber-risk, just like they have balance sheets and income statements for financials.” Axio enables that. 

“It’s thinking about the problem from the point of view of the executive team,” Kannry says. “That includes getting the General Counsel and risk manager involved, HR to ensure employees are up to speed on security policies, the right insurance coverage, taking care with procurement and suppliers, and the CFO understanding how to spend money across all these buckets. It’s where the world needs to go.”  

Skinner adds, “Think of what we offer as similar to an accounting or workforce management system — a cybersecurity management system that tracks and quantifies cyber-risk, like knowing how much money you have in the bank. That’s the big bet we’ve made, and everything we’ve predicted has come true.” 

Indeed, Axio has grown over the past eight years to serve thousands of businesses, including some of the largest financial institutions and electrical utilities in the world. Renowned insurance marketplace Lloyd’s of London recently became a minority investor in Axio, based on its confidence that Axio customers are more favorably positioned for cyber insurance.

The road to Axio 

The alumni have used their professional backgrounds and Kellogg resources to build and grow Axio. 

Kannry “grew up in insurance” at Aon before attending the JD-MBA Program, where he met Hirt on “day one.” Post-graduation, Kannry rejoined Aon, but with growing recognition of the large opportunity that the cybersecurity space represented. “We’d go into meetings to pitch cyber insurance and customers would ask questions like whether purchasing coverage was the best use of funds, versus giving additional resources to the security team for technology,” he says. “That really brought to light the business aspect of the problem.”  

Hirt attended Northwestern as an undergraduate then worked in tech consulting with Accenture before joining the JD-MBA program. “I was looking for a less typical post-MBA role,” he says. He found it in Vista Equity Partners, the software-focused private-equity firm where he worked for five years. But he kept in touch with Kannry, and in mid-2017 joined Axio to apply what he’d learned as an investor/operator to growing a new business.  

Skinner, too, worked in consulting — at PwC — followed by a tech startup on his road to the JD-MBA. Just before starting the program, he connected with Kannry, who knew Skinner’s father. “Scott was very reassuring and pointed out what teachers and classes I should aim for,” Skinner says. He also encountered Kannry at JD-MBA events, helping him understand Axio’s mission. After practicing law for some time post-graduation, Skinner joined Axio in 2023. 

The Kellogg connection 

At every step, Kellogg has helped the Axio team thrive. 

Kellogg connections have been critical in Axio’s funding, for example. They received a seed investment from Chicago’s Crown family, thanks to their friendship with Keating Crown, who was a classmate of Kannry and Hirt. Subsequently, Distributed Ventures, led by Shawn Ellis, another classmate, became a Series A investor.  

The Axio leaders continue to draw on the Kellogg curriculum, as well. “MORS [Management & Organizations] classes helped me understand how to make arguments based on emotions or data,” Hirt says. “I used what I learned in Negotiation class when negotiating a large government agreement recently. On the law side, classes like Contract Drafting have been of great value.”  

“The problem we’re solving is about business, legal and risk,” Kannry says. “So there’s a clear alignment with the JD-MBA curriculum. We use so much of what we learned in school. Our legal knowledge helps us avoid large fees others would spend on attorneys. But the community is the most amazing part. I love calling CFOs or board members who have a Kellogg or Northwestern connection and seeing how receptive they are.” 

“The Kellogg and Northwestern community is always about ‘How can I help?’” Skinner says. “People go to events and want genuine connections with fellow Wildcats. It’s never transactional.”  

Of course, the alumni continue to give back to Kellogg. For example, Kannry and Hirt recently spoke at the Entrepreneurship Law course, where they presented “perspective from the trenches,” as Kannry said. “The students were eager to hear how it’s rarely a straight line for entrepreneurs.” 

No surprise, Kellogg also influences how the team leads together. “The KWEST trips and other travels and team projects show the power of people with different backgrounds and experience coming together,” Hirt says. “It leads to better results. We’ve used that to put together the right collection of team members and skills as we’ve grown Axio to over 50 people.” 

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