This cybersecurity firm is expanding its Philly HQ and adding a Rochester office

Security Risk Advisors is expanding its Center City headquarters just two years after the cybersecurity and risk management consulting company moved most of its roughly 70 employees together in a physical office.

Until May 2017, Security Risk Advisors, which provides ethical hacking, risk assessments, compliance, engineering, managed detection and response services, operated as a virtual company with no official HQ.

Now, it’s taking over another floor of its 1760 Market Street building, with room for an additional 25 employees. The company is also opening an office in Rochester, New York.

Managing Director Tim Wainwright told Technical.ly Philly in 2017 that it was important for the team to put down roots in Philly to invest in cybersecurity talent.

“I always chuckle when firms say they want to hire the most experienced people,” Wainwright said at the time. “It’s better to assemble a team by building talent from the ground up.”

Since it moved in 2017, SRA has grown to about 140 employees, with a focus on hiring recent graduates from local universities. The cybersecurity talent coming out of Penn, Drexel, Temple, and Penn State are some of the major reasons for growing the physical offices, SRA said in a release.

Rochester Director Mike Pinch said that tech recruits coming from schools like the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) and the University of Rochester and Western New York’s quality of life made the decision for a second office an easy one.

“Security Risk Advisors looks forward to remarkable success delivering world-class consulting services, contributing high-quality cybersecurity thought leadership, and developing the next generation of security professionals here in Rochester,” Pinch said.

SRA said it expects to create up to 67 new jobs in the Rochester area in the next five years through a partnership with Empire State Development, which has offered up to $900,000 through the Excelsior Jobs program to aid the move to Rochester.

In the bigger picture, cybersecurity growth has come in the past few years as high-profile breaches have underlined the need for security, and the talent that can help protect networks and data. Late last year, Center City-based Robert Half Technologies found that cybersecurity topped the list of skills being sought in 2019.