From Wall Street to War Rooms: Why SEMPRE's New CIO Knows Resiliency is Everything
"Resiliency isn't a feature, it's the baseline," Caudell says. "Whether you're defending markets or missions, you build for failure. You assume pressure. You harden everything."
In the world of high-stakes finance, microseconds matter. On Wall Street, if systems go down, billions hang in the balance. For John Caudell, SEMPRE's newly promoted Chief Information Officer, that lesson wasn’t learned in theory: it was developed in the unforgiving world of low-latency trading systems and real-time financial networks.
Caudell’s path to SEMPRE is anything but typical. With more than 15 years of experience building, securing, and maintaining some of the most demanding infrastructure in the financial sector, he brings a unique—and vital—perspective to the national security mission. As the former VP of Systems Architecture, Director of Infrastructure, and Director of Technical Operations at firms like the New York Stock Exchange and Currenex, Caudell helped oversee global expansions, integrate cloud and on-prem systems, and maintain 24x7x365 operations with near-zero downtime.
It’s no coincidence that after the Department of Defense, the financial sector invests more in resiliency than any other industry. According to a Deloitte report, U.S. financial services firms spent an estimated $67 billion on cybersecurity and infrastructure resiliency in 2023 alone. Why? Because trust, like uptime, must be constant.
At SEMPRE, that philosophy translates directly into hardened, secure, EMP-resilient infrastructure for military, government, and critical infrastructure clients. Caudell’s new role as CIO bridges the gap between enterprise-grade innovation and warfighter-grade expectations.
Caudell’s’s not new to defense. His first internship was with a DoD radar systems contractor, and he grew up steeped in military service. His uncle handled communications on submarines and his family has a long history in the Navy. It’s this personal foundation that now fuels a very public mission.
"Bringing Wall Street-grade uptime to the battlefield isn’t just possible—it’s necessary," Caudell notes. "We’re seeing the convergence of technologies, where AI, edge computing, and hardened networks can’t just work, they have to always work."
Caudell is particularly focused on three goals at SEMPRE:
● Ease of acquisition: Making it simple for partners to get cutting-edge capabilities into the field.
● Speed to set-up: Think operational in minutes—not months. In some SEMPRE deployments, systems are floor-installed and online in under 10 minutes, with smart tools connected in 45 seconds.
● Cost savings: Resiliency should be efficient. SEMPRE’s architecture minimizes downtime and manual labor, saving both time and money.
Under Caudell’s leadership, SEMPRE is doubling down on its commitment to survivability, scalability, and simplicity. As the Defense Department accelerates efforts to modernize command and control, Caudell’s Wall Street edge brings a timely and proven advantage.
“Whether it’s a trading floor or a tactical edge, the stakes are the same: when systems fail, people lose,” he says. "At SEMPRE, we’re here to make sure that never happens."
Want to know more about SEMPRE? Check out our resource page.