What if you could clone your best cybersecurity consultant and put them to work on five engagements at once?
In this episode of Cyber Security District, we sit down with Leslie Clement and Erie Berhitu, co-founders of Clember AI, an EU-first, AI-native platform built to automate the repetitive, time-consuming work that holds cybersecurity consultants back. Both Leslie and Erie spent years grinding through the same manual loops at major consultancy firms document analysis, gap assessments, risk reports, roadmaps before deciding enough was enough.
Rather than build another consulting firm or hire more headcount, they built a platform. Clember AI now enables security consultants to run five or more client engagements simultaneously, with consistent, high-quality output every time. And they did it entirely bootstrapped, no VC, no investor pressure, just product-market fit and a clear-eyed vision of where cybersecurity consulting is heading.
In this episode, we explore:
- How a company getting hacked on day one of the job launched Leslie’s career in cybersecurity
- The year-long frustration that led Erie and Leslie to build Clember AI instead of another consulting firm
- Why they chose to stay bootstrapped despite investor interest and why they don’t regret it
- How Clember AI automates the full consulting lifecycle: document ingestion, gap analysis, risk translation, and reporting
- Why consistency across junior and senior consultants is a bigger deal than most firms admit
- The shift from hourly billing to monthly retainers and how Clember keeps consulting firms “interesting” to clients year three and beyond
- Their vision: becoming the Datasnipper of cybersecurity consulting
- Why embracing AI is non-negotiable for CISOs and why helping early-stage startups matters for the whole industry
Timestamps:
00:00 – Introduction
00:15 – Meet Leslie Clement and Erie Berhitu
01:40 – How Erie got into cybersecurity (and why it wasn’t exactly planned)
02:45 – Leslie’s rough first day: getting hacked with no tech team
04:00 – The shared frustration that sparked Clember AI
06:10 – Why they chose to build a tech firm instead of a consulting firm
08:30 – The first product concept: automating the questionnaire
11:20 – Who Clember AI is actually for: cybersecurity consultancy firms
14:00 – Billable hours vs. scale: how Clember changes the math
17:30 – The shift from hourly billing to monthly retainers and staying interesting in year three
22:00 – Will AI kill traditional consultancy? Leslie and Erie’s take
25:10 – How Clember works: document ingestion, gap analysis, risk translation, roadmaps
29:00 – Consistency across consultant seniority levels
31:30 – Hiring technical talent as non-technical founders
34:00 – Staying bootstrapped despite VC interest and why pivoting was easier without investor pressure
38:30 – What made Clember appealing at an early stage
41:00 – The hiccups: work-life balance, family, and knowing when to step away
44:30 – Gut feeling vs. rational decision-making as founders
48:00 – The vision: Clember as the Datasnipper for cybersecurity consulting
51:30 – What’s next: new markets, sales hires, and scaling customer success
54:00 – Data privacy and security by design inside Clember
57:00 – Final message to CISOs: embrace innovation, and back the startups
Connect with the guests:
Leslie Clement:https://www.linkedin.com/in/leslie-clement/
Erie Berhitu:https://www.linkedin.com/in/eberhitu/
Website: https://www.clember.ai/
Follow Cyber Security District:
Laurens Jagt on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurensjagt/
Website: https://www.cybersecuritydistrict.com/
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