Passion. Experience. Diligence.

With exceptional and unique experience, Vaillance Group is a leader in the Insider Threat arena providing uncompromised delivery of services. We are a licensed partner with Carnegie Mellon’s Software Engineering Institute (SEI) to conduct vulnerability assessments utilizing the Cyber Emergency Response Team (CERT) Insider Threat Vulnerability Assessment tool. We additionally conduct SEI-Authorized Insider Threat training.

Areas of Practice

Vaillance Group is a proud member of:

• Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC) 

• INFRAGARD 

• International Association of Behavioural Detection and Analysis (IABDA)

• National Insider Threat Special Interest Group

Shawnee Delaney, Founder and Chief Executive Officer

As a certified Case Officer, one of the few Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) civilians to be trained at CIA’s iconic training facility, Shawnee spent nearly a decade with the DIA conducting clandestine Human Intelligence (HUMINT) operations all over the world. She served as a Supervisory Branch Chief supporting EUCOM, CENTCOM, PACOM and AFRICOM requirements. Shawnee has truly global experience as a human intelligence officer operating in Africa, Asia, Southeast Asia, the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, and the U.S.. She served four combat zone tours in Iraq and Afghanistan as a Case Officer and Detachment Chief. She additionally worked for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) coordinating and managing intelligence community relationships and partnerships in the protection of U.S. critical infrastructure and industrial control systems for the Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team (ICS-CERT). 

In Shawnee's ten-plus years in the private sector, she helped create a robust Insider Threat program for a major pharmaceutical company and spent several years building the first Insider Threat program for a prominent silicon valley tech company. Shawnee has led complex corporate investigations all over the globe involving fraud, platform abuse, internal data access abuse, counter intelligence, data exfiltration, and attribution of unauthorized disclosures. She holds a M.A. in International Policy Studies with a Specialization in Counter Terrorism and Counter Proliferation, and a M.S. in Cyber Security.  

Daniel N. Hoffman

Dan serves as a Senior Advisor on Intelligence for Vaillance Group. Mr. Hoffman has been a Fox News contributor since May 2018. Before joining Fox News, Hoffman had a distinguished career with the Central Intelligence Agency, where he was a three-time station chief and a senior executive Clandestine Services officer.

Hoffman also led large-scale HUMINT (human intelligence gathering) and technical programs and his assignments included tours of duty in the former Soviet Union, Europe, and war zones in the Middle East and South Asia. In addition, Hoffman served as director of the CIA Middle East and North Africa Division. During his 30 years of government service, Hoffman also served with the U.S. military including as an associate professor at the Army Command General Staff College.

Hoffman graduated from Bates College with a B.A. in History. He has a Master of Science from the London School of Economics and a Master of Public Administration from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government (2006). Hoffman is married and the proud father of two children.

James C. Lawler

Mr. Lawler serves as a national security consultant and is the Senior Partner at MDO Group, which provides HUMINT training to the Intelligence Community and the commercial sector focused on WMD, CI, technical and cyber issues.  Mr. Lawler has been the Lead Instructor and Supervisor of these training courses since 2007.  He is a noted speaker on the Insider Threat in government and industry. Prior to this, Mr. Lawler served for 25 years as a CIA operations officer in various international posts and as Chief of the Counterproliferation Division's Special Activities Unit.  His overseas assignments include Bern (1982-1985), Paris (1985-1989), Oslo (1989-1991), and Zurich (1991-1994).  

Mr. Lawler was a member of CIA's Senior Intelligence Service (SIS-3) from 1998 until his retirement in 2005.  He spent well over half of his CIA career battling the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.  As Chief of the A.Q. Khan Nuclear Takedown Team, Mr. Lawler was the recipient of one of the CIA's Trailblazer Awards in 2007, marking the 60th anniversary of CIA.  He also received the Director's Award from DCI George Tenet, the U.S. Intelligence Community's HUMINT Collector of the Year Award, and the Donovan Award from the CIA's Deputy Director of Operations.  

Prior to his career in intelligence, Mr. Lawler practiced law and was the president of a steel components company in Texas. He is a graduate of Rice University, Houston, Texas; and the University of Texas School of Law. He is married to Ellen and has three children and seven grandsons. He has completed two novels:  “Living Lies,” a story of the Iranian nuclear weapons program, and “In the Twinkling of an Eye,” about espionage and a devastating Russian-North Korean genetic bioweapon.  Both have been cleared by the CIA’s Publication Review Board.  He is currently writing his third espionage novel, “The Traitor’s Tale,” which is about treachery and treason deep within the CIA.

Joy Beland

Joy serves as a Strategic Advisor on the Insider Threat training programs for Vaillance Group. She joined Vaillance Group in 2020, after completing the Carnegie Mellon SEI Insider Threat Program Management and Vulnerability Assessor certificates. Joy also currently serves as the CMMC Program Manager for Edwards Performance Solutions, delivering live Professional Instructor training for all areas of CMMC, as well as an active participant of the Commercial Cybersecurity Assessment Team. Before joining Edwards, Joy served the MSP community as a cybersecurity education instructor, educating 3,000+ on cybersecurity fundamentals from 2019-2020. In addition to her facilitation experience, Joy owned a successful MSP in Los Angeles for 21 years.

Angela Madden

Angela serves as an Insider Threat Associate for Vaillance Group.  She is a forensics professional with over a decade of experience in both the government and private sector. Over the course of her career, she has served as a crime scene investigator in over 1,000 crimes.  She deployed to Afghanistan as a civilian Forensic Scientist where she processed improvised explosive devices for latent fingerprints and DNA. Additionally, she has trained over 500 military personnel and federal employees in sensitive-site exploitation. Currently, she is applying her passion for analysis and investigation in the digital realm as a Scholar in the SANS-ICMCP Diversity Cyber Academy. Additionally, Angela holds a B.A. in Criminal Justice and a M.S. in Forensic Science.  

Alex Hodgson

Alex is a Senior Advisor for Investigations for Vaillance Group. He is a fraud investigator, an England and Wales-qualified forensic accountant, and a former detective with the Metropolitan Police Service. He is currently the lead investigator in Europe, the Middle East and Africa for one of the world's largest tech companies, where he employs his range of technical and financial investigation skills to track down internal bad actors, as well as to combat organized, large-scale fraud rings attacking from the outside. He is an Oxford graduate and lives in the Netherlands with his wife and a small, talkative child.