Security career moves from Software to Silicon
Cybersecurity and Web3 executive Zoé Meckbach has joined Ledgerless as Chief Strategy Officer, marking a move into hardware security as the industry grapples with how to secure a new generation of AI agents, robots and autonomous systems.
The appointment continues a career that has spanned cybersecurity, data protection, blockchain and decentralised infrastructure, but takes Meckbach deeper into the hardware layer underpinning digital trust.
Ledgerless is developing open and verifiable secure hardware designed to provide a hardware root of trust for autonomous systems. Its approach is based on moving critical security functions away from software alone and anchoring identity, attestation, secure boot, key custody and policy enforcement in tamper-resistant silicon.
From Software to Hardware
For Meckbach, that shift is a response to the changing security landscape created by AI.
“Software in the age of AI is not secure anymore,” she said, arguing that increasingly autonomous systems create a need to move the “root of trust” down to chip level.
The company is targeting applications ranging from robotics and autonomous systems to defence, aerospace, secure communications and AI agents. Ledgerless says its technology is designed to make the underlying security architecture inspectable rather than relying on a proprietary “black box”, using open RTL, reproducible firmware and hardware verification.
Meckbach said the company is currently working towards its first commercial proof-of-concept customers, with another fundraising round expected around the end of the year or early next year. Her role will include helping shape the company’s strategy, commercial growth and fundraising as it moves from research and development towards industry deployment.
The appointment is a natural extension of Meckbach’s previous work at the intersection of security, privacy and emerging technologies.
Having worked on secure computing with specialization on Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) the previous 5 years, Zoé led growth and business development as Vice President around privacy-preserving and verifiable computation at Phala Network.
During that time she was deeply involved in the web3 ecosystem also serving as a global head ambassador of Polkadot.
Her work in that ecosystem included building developer and community programmes around decentralised infrastructure and helping companies and developers understand how blockchain technology could be applied to security and privacy.
Previously she worked at Silicon Valley cybersecurity and blockchain company Cryptowerk, whose technology focused on securing and verifying data using blockchain-based infrastructure. During her time with the company, Cryptowerk won a Gold Stevie Award for Best International Data Protection Solution as well as recognition as an innovative start-up.
She subsequently returned to Germany to become Chief Operating Officer of MH-IT, where she was responsible for expanding its New Technologies business. The company worked across cybersecurity and blockchain and served clients in areas including aerospace & defence and healthcare.
That experience now converges with a different technical architecture at Ledgerless: rather than relying principally on software or distributed consensus to establish trust, the company is seeking to enforce it at the hardware level.
Ledgerless
Ledgerless is being developed by Sureshot Labs, which describes its focus as hardware-rooted payment and AI safety infrastructure for the emerging machine economy. Alongside its secure hardware work, the company is developing technology that allows autonomous machines and AI agents to transact while enforcing policies such as spending limits and allowlists directly in hardware.
The broader move towards hardware-rooted AI security is gathering momentum as autonomous systems move beyond conventional software environments and into robotics, vehicles, industrial equipment and other physical systems.
Hardware security specialists and semiconductor companies are increasingly positioning chip-level roots of trust, secure boot and device attestation as important safeguards for physical AI. The underlying argument is that if an AI system or its software environment is compromised, security rules running in that same environment may also be vulnerable.
For Meckbach, this brings her career in security and privacy back to the foundations of computing.
She sees particular potential in autonomous systems where machines increasingly make decisions, communicate with one another and potentially exchange value without continuous human intervention. In those environments, she argues, policies governing what a machine is permitted to do need stronger guarantees than software alone can provide.
Ledgerless is initially exploring opportunities across aerospace & defence and autonomous systems, with potential applications also extending to connected devices (IoT), CCTV cameras, medical device technology and defence. The company says its open hardware approach is intended to allow organisations to verify the technology they are deploying rather than simply trusting a vendor’s assurances.
“We’re entering a really exciting time where hardware is becoming important again. As AI gets more autonomous and powerful, we need to think about security from the ground up and that starts with the chips themselves. The fact that we can build incredibly small, secure chips, thinner than a human hair, opens up so many possibilities to bring security directly into the devices and applications of daily use that will power a safe and secure AI-driven future.”
For Meckbach, who has spent much of her career working on technologies designed to establish trust in digital environments, the move represents less of a departure than a shift in where that trust is established.
After years working across cybersecurity, data integrity, privacy and decentralised systems, the next step is silicon.
Ledgerless delivers a robust security architecture that merges specialized firmware and attestation software, all anchored within the technical framework of its HoloDi S1 SoC.
The HoloDi S1 SoC functions as a transparent and sovereign security processor, engineered for independent verification across the entire stack. By enforcing critical safety protocols directly in silicon, HoloDi provides a verifiable safeguard for essential infrastructure.
