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Stefania Ranzato

Stefania Ranzato is an Italian entrepreneur who has been active for over ten years in the cybersecurity sector, with previous managerial and entrepreneurial experience in publishing and digitalization. She graduated in Economic Political Science from the University of Padua and built her path starting from a clear position: the digital domain is not a separate technical field, but an operational space where security, continuity, and responsibility are played out in real time.

From the early stages of her activity, she directed development toward national cybersecurity solutions, applied in institutional contexts and, increasingly directly, within the scope of Defense and critical infrastructure. In these environments, cyber is not a support function, but a domain—an exposed, continuous domain where the threat is not occasional but present.

Alongside this approach, she has built a team capable of operating at advanced levels, integrating expertise in Artificial Intelligence applied to security. Through the development of proprietary algorithms, also in the Defense field, these capabilities have been used in malware analysis and in the concrete strengthening of detection and response capabilities of SIEM and SOC systems within major central and local administrations. Not as a technological exercise, but as a tool to understand what is really happening in exposed systems.

This vision has progressively extended the scope of action toward operational contexts of the Armed Forces, including activities such as military exercises in real environments, particularly with the Air Force and Navy, and the development of skills in requirements engineering, a central element for the national aeronautical and naval industry. In these scenarios, security is not understood as mere design, but as the ability to be inside the system and understand its vulnerabilities before they emerge.

The evolution of geopolitical scenarios has further expanded the scope of intervention toward areas such as radio frequencies, satellite technologies, and UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) systems. A natural extension of an approach that does not separate cyber from its context, but considers it part of a broader system where technology, strategy, and operations overlap.

A distinctive element of Stefania Ranzato’s path is her focus on real competencies. The construction of a team of excellence in the cyber sector has not been aimed only at strengthening defensive capabilities, but also at developing postures typical of attackers—not for sterile simulation, but to understand threat dynamics from within. Because defending without understanding how attacks work means remaining one step behind.

In 2018, she founded DEAS - Difesa e Analisi Sistemi S.p.A., with the aim of building an Italian operator in the defense of the digital domain. Today, the company has over 200 professionals and reported a turnover of more than €25 million in 2024, operating in high-exposure contexts where risk has a direct impact on operational continuity and security. In this space, cybersecurity represents a starting point, but not the boundary: what matters is the ability to operate, interpret, and intervene.

Stefania Ranzato’s leadership is positioned precisely here—at a point of balance between institutional responsibility and concrete understanding of the domain. Where defense is not a statement, but a function exercised. And where understanding the behavior of attackers is not an option, but a necessary condition to truly defend.