With 25 years of experience in technology, Manuel specializes in developing security focused strategies, architectures, and products. Past positions include Chief Architect/CTO for Seagate Federal, Inc., Senior Director at Seagate Research, and Engineering Director for Seagate ClusterStor. Manuel joined Seagate in 2001 and became key contributor in the newly created Security Engineering team, responsible for the launch of the world’s first Self-Encrypting Drive. In his role as a security architect, he participated in several international standard organizations and co-authored multiple storage security specifications. In 2017 he became Engineering Director in the Seagate ClusterStor organization where Manuel was responsible for the launch of Seagate’s first MLS scale-out storage appliance for HPC. After moving to Seagate Research, Manuel started a Data Security group focused on research of storage security & transparency. He joined Seagate Federal in 2022 as Chief Architect and CTO. Manuel is a named inventor on more than 10 patents and holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree from the University of Groningen, The Netherlands.