BACKGROUND
born in London, U.K. to a white mother & a non-white Guyanese father, growing up in the period of the 1960’s, through to the 1980’s, resulted in the negative experience & frustration of colour prejudice, particularly being labelled as a race targeted for abuse during that period. Being in solitude through not belonging to any ethnic group, allied to an impoverished upbringing, created the conditions for a later empathetic desire to give back to those in similar circumstances, which continues through the development of the current cyber security learning platform; available for free to those within certain geographies, as well as for the U.K. & E.U. small business sectors.
Business Law Degree LLB (Honours) UK
MBA High Honours; Belgium
Doctorate – Enterprise Resilience; France / UK
Certified ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
Certified GDPR Practitioner
Certified Agile Project Management
Certified Enterprise Big Data Professional
CPC Commercial Transport Operations
PERSONAL MILESTONES
The following are key points during my career development, from the early times, until today, which hopefully will reveal that wherever you commenced your cyber security & risk management journey, there is no reason for the past to prevent your direction into the future. From cold-calling to sell investment products to high net worth individuals in London, to attaining cyber security patents across the world, it is your interest & commitment that count where you will travel on your career path.
1980’s
First Experience in the Financial World Post-College = FRAUD!
Leaving college with a very poor law grade (forced to take law & not business by parents), together with extremely limited funds, a position on a 100% commission only basis selling investment products by cold calling using an area code, a local code and random dialling built resilience & perseverance, with a “do your job” mindset. It was later found that the company had defrauded its’ investors, including the likes of Lady Garrard (the crown jewellers). When visiting her husband in prison, the wide & mother were killed within close proximity to the prison itself – karma for the investors perhaps?
19080’s
Using the Previous Lessons
There was a property bubble in the UK during the period, due to double tax relief on mortgages, leading to individuals clubbing together to buy masses of properties. Having been in the financial markets, this lead to the use of prior cold calling to good effect within the real estate sector, followed by using it at Ryder. The company adopted my new office structure by having cold calling personnel hired, on a commission basis to attain leads for the sales personnel to follow-up on.
1990’s
Factory Owner – Industrial Finishing & Fire Protection
The time calling to prospective investors led to my becoming a part owner in an industrial finishing factory, with 35 employees. Following the UK Bradford City Football Club tragic fire, laws changed & another market opportunity was identified & exploited, leading to a contract for fire protective coatings for Nike, at their first ever EU superstore in Troyes, France. The factory attained clients ranging from Harrods, to the British Shoe Corporation, British Army, Rolls Royce, amongst others, within the first 6 months of establishment.
1990’s
Back to Education – As a Student & Contractor
After losing the factor in an arson attack by gypsies & tiring of working within antiquated sectors, the decision to undertake an MBA, still with limited funds creating a very short list of potential business schools, Solvay Business school in Brussels was chosen for the quality of the visiting faculty & the price(!). Focussing every effort on technology strategy & this new “thing” called the internet, the early recognition & quality of papers on business transformation via the internet, led to being hired by INSEAD to create cyber strategy content for its’ own e/MBA courses. A key factor was working under world-renowned academic, Soumitra Dutta – current Dead at Said, Oxford.
1990’s
Another Country & Business Culture
Hired directly from the INSEAD campus by a Dutch-HQ’d financial services, re/insurance & banking group, as international project director & responsible for creating the strategic e-direction & knowledge transfer for the holding, led to working across several countries with differing business cultures & ownership structures. Having had 25 nationalities on the MBA course was of great benefit. At the end of the fixed term contract, the entity retained my services for another 9 years, across various projects; from rebranding, secure extranets & SEC/FCA compliance, to managing major external entities such as Leo Burnett. Following from this, recruitment as the head of electronic channels at the national TelCo of Belgium followed.
2000’s
Predictive Cyber Threat Analytics Commences
One of the national brand re/insurance companies within the Dutch holding needed to develop a cyber cover product for its’ industrial clients. Having developed a security product as a “garage” team, I moved ahead to utilise the output of threat data to create models, working with major firms with high levels of expertise to provide input. The resulting products were then pending patent protection prior to going to market with them.
2000’s
Move to the US
2013 – 2017 in the US embodied research into the use of epidemiological models to enhance firewall false positive/negative performance & investigating potential joint ventures to go to market in the country. In-depth negotiations were held with Cyberpoint/Pivotpoint who realised that their new CRQ product-based company was infringing my US patents. No agreement was reached based upon equity versus cash consideration and Pivotpoint, the CRQ entity faded away.
Current
Cyber Security & Risk Management Training
With the broad baseline of professional certifications ranging from regulatory compliance, enterprise big data, ISO27K as well as academic journal publications and a doctorate in risk, coupled with real-world experience across cyber, including personally within enterprise grade software development, the role of course creator & trainer arrived in 2023, following a stint at PWC in IT General Controls auditing. This provided the opportunity to give back, commencing with my father’s home country of Guyana, which with the oil exploration/finds now paces an urgency in creating NextGen security leaders. Having relocated to the EU following family health issues requiring an urgent return, now the time has come to extend the platform to other countries.
Future
New Cyber Models & Expanding Training
The next phase will continue to create new cyber security & threat management models, with associated IP protection. To deliver against the goal of free cyber security training in lower income countries, the search for collaborating entities will continue.