Elissa Shevinsky

Elissa Shevinsky is an American technology executive, entrepreneur, cybersecurity expert, public speaker, and author.

Shevinsky attended Benjamin Cardozo High School, before studying for a Political Theory major at Williams College, where she also took classes in Computer Science, graduating in 2001.

In 2010, Shevinsky defended her company against New York Times, as co-owner of Neighborhoodies, over the use of the "New York Herald Tribune" logo on T-shirts. Shevinsky argued that the trademark had been abandoned. In 2012, she founded MakeOut Labs, a start-up known for casual Jewish online dating in NYC.

Shevinsky co-founded Glimpse, an encrypted photo and video-sharing app, with Pax Dickinson in 2013. At Glimpse, Shevinksy served as chief executive of the company. During her time at Glimpse, she experienced conflict with Dickinson over his defense of a pair of app developers accused of misogyny. He wrote on Twitter: "It is not misogyny to tell a sexist joke, or to fail to take a woman seriously, or to enjoy boobies". A few days afterwards, Shevinsky quit her job at Glimpse, citing the Twitter controversy as her reasoning. Shevinsky returned to Glimpse in December 2013, after Dickinson published an apology letter. In an agreement formed with Dickinson, Shevinsky would be the chief executive and public face of the company, would have to sign off on what he said in press conferences, and Glimpse would support women in technology.

After Glimpse, Shevinsky was funded by MACH37 for Jekudo Privacy Company. In 2016, Shevinsky joined Brave as Head of Product.

Shevinsky has spoken and written on enterprise security policy. She spoke on the potential for social media to influence election outcomes at HOPE XI. Shevinsky is the founder and organizer of SecretCon.

As of 2018, Shevinsky is speaking on information security at universities and infosec conferences. She is chief operating officer of SoHo Token Labs, building developer tools for smart contracts.

In 2018, Shevinsky was named "Woman of the Decade" by Williams College in a speech where she announced she wanted to lead the way for the development and protection of privacy for the following decade.

Shevinsky considered herself "a GamerGate neutral". In a 2015 post, Shevinsky wrote: "I'd like to see less harassment. That's my position. Less harassment, for everyone. I do hope this isn't a controversial statement."When James Damore was fired by Google, Shevinsky was widely quoted saying that speech "questioning the technical qualifications of people based on race or gender" was potentially within the purview of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. As a Press Lead for the 2018 HOPE conference in NYC, Shevinsky called for stronger enforcement of the Code of Conduct.

Shevinsky appears in the documentary CODE: Debugging the Gender Gap. She is also a cast member in the documentary Silenced.