Privacy by Choice, Not Crisis

How Spectro Cloud Achieved Their Privacy Goals with Exterro

When you’re building the future of cloud infrastructure, data privacy can’t be an afterthought. At Spectro Cloud, it’s a mission.

Spectro Cloud delivers powerful Kubernetes management solutions to enterprises across defense, healthcare, manufacturing, and more–industries where resilience, uptime, and data integrity aren’t negotiable. And while Spectro Cloud doesn’t traffic in massive amounts of consumer data, the stakes are still sky-high: customer trust, global compliance, and operational excellence all demand that Spectro be a step ahead when it comes to privacy and governance.

“We might not get a ton of DSARs, but that’s not the point,” said Jamie Massaro, Senior Privacy Analyst at Spectro Cloud. “Implementing our privacy program early, before the requirements became non-negotiable, was a way to position ourselves for success. And Exterro is helping us get there.”

Ask Massaro why she developed her career in privacy, and the answer isn’t about regulations. It’s about purpose. 

“I like to think of us as secret superheroes,” she said. “We’re in the background helping protect employees’ data–or that of admins logging into our system. We protect their IP address, time and date stamp combinations, so they can’t be tracked. Nobody will ever know there’s somebody working behind the scenes to keep their data safe, but I like doing that. Most of us have had our identity stolen at some point, and I want to do everything I can to prevent that from happening to someone else.”

That mindset runs deep at Spectro. The privacy and compliance team isn’t there to tick boxes. They’re there to build trust, reduce risk, and support innovation from behind the scenes.

From Spreadsheets to Scalability

Today, Spectro is a vibrant, growing technology company, serving dozens of large enterprise and public sector customers, but five years ago, it was a scrappy startup that couldn’t buy technology solutions for every challenge they faced. So at that time, they handled privacy and compliance manually in spreadsheets. 

But as their team and responsibilities grew, they anticipated the need to scale. They wanted to be ready to meet regulatory requirements before they had to. And considering those requirements would include managing vendor risk assessments, records of processing activities (RoPA) documentation, privacy and compliance assessments, and data inventories and mappings across a growing global team, they knew they needed a more sustainable and secure foundation.

“This is our first real privacy platform,” Massaro explained. “Doing things manually isn’t sustainable long-term, and I wanted something that could help us manage everything appropriately.”

As RoPA compliance came into sharper focus, the team had already initiated conversations with Exterro. When an investor later asked about their RoPA readiness, it confirmed what they already knew: they were on the right path.

The team wasn't just looking for a checkbox solution.They needed:

• Integrated modules that talk to each other
• Reliable data discovery that actually works
• A partner to help them implement privacy with precision, not guesswork

They also knew what they didn’t want: complex, disconnected tools that made simple tasks harder. Massaro had used other privacy platforms at previous organizations and had run into poor support and clunky user experiences–something she was determined not to repeat again at Spectro Cloud.

Watching Out for “Smoke and Mirrors”

Spectro Cloud’s search for a solution was thorough—and honest. Members of the team had had difficult experiences getting privacy solutions to work at other organizations, earlier in their careers. Massaro recalled, “At one previous company, we spent four months trying to get a widely used enterprise sales platform to connect to the data discovery solution we bought. We had so many meetings with 20 or 30 of our developers trying to get it working, and it was still a nightmare.” Another privacy software vendor had required involvement from their development team every time they wanted to make a change in their setup, creating unnecessary delays in the process.

Exterro, in contrast, offered:

• Unified privacy, security, and governance tools
• Best-in-class data discovery and mapping
• A UX that users described as “intuitive,” “empowering,” and “transformative”

Spectro Cloud interviewed and took demos with several vendors, but none hit the mark like Exterro. Some had “pretty screens, smoke, and mirrors, but the back end felt a bit disjointed,” while others were non-responsive and difficult to work with.

White Glove Support That Raised the Bar

With Exterro, Spectro Cloud didn’t just find the right platform. They found the right people.

Massaro explains, “Our project manager remembers I’m a hands-on learner. She sends me personalized videos—real walkthroughs of our environment, not generic demos. Then she reinforces it live. I’ve never seen that kind of support from a vendor before.”

Whitney Barca, Senior Compliance Analyst, agreed. “Those videos empowered us to go at our own pace. We could pause, rewind, take notes. Everything was tailored to us.”

Beyond tutorials, Exterro’s team helped Spectro with real business outcomes—like building internal buy-in.

“Our account manager helped us create a custom presentation for leadership. He helped us make the business case and explain the technical details,” Massaro said. “It gave us insight from his perspective on what would benefit our company specifically.”

Early Wins with Privacy Tools That Work

Spectro is already putting Exterro’s platform to work. During implementation, they had begun using automated assessments for business impact analysis, and their RoPA documentation process started rolling out department by department early on with training support from Exterro. And their third-party risk management is fully centralized, eliminating the challenges posed by disconnected systems.

“I thought Exterro was just a privacy tool,” Whitney Barca admitted. “But it turns out it's also what we needed for vendor risk. The platform functions how it’s supposed to, because otherwise, if it’s disconnected, the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing.”

And because the platform is built with interconnected data in mind, everything flows–literally.

“Intuitive is a good way to describe it,” Barca explained. “It’s just a seamless flow. And you can’t accidentally delete things, which you can in some other platforms.” By not allowing accidental deletion, Exterro helps reduce the potential to lose data you need to demonstrate compliance with different regulations.

A Proactive Privacy Culture—Not Just Compliance

Spectro Cloud didn’t buy Exterro to put out fires. They bought it to demonstrate proactive compliance and to build a future-ready privacy culture. With Exterro, Spectro Cloud doesn’t just have an answer. They have a plan, a system, and regulator-ready reporting they can trust.

The team is also gearing up to evaluate Exterro’s cookie management and subject rights modules, even though requests are rare. “I love that Exterro doesn’t push us to buy tools we don’t need,” Massaro said. “They listen, they adapt, and they’re in it with us for the long haul.”

The Verdict: Empowered, Prepared, and All In

Would Spectro recommend Exterro? They already have.

“We’ve talked to our old teammates and told them to look into switching,” Massaro said. With a solution like Exterro, privacy and compliance management is easier, more intuitive, and more cost-effective.

The team at Spectro didn’t wait for a data breach or regulatory deadline to act. They made a choice—to lead with integrity, invest in smart governance, and be the kind of company customers can trust.

With Exterro behind them, they’re not just compliant. They’re confident.

To learn more about how Spectro Cloud can help you manage Kubernetes, visit https://www.spectrocloud.com.