Mark Weatherford, Alert Enterprise CISO has been inducted into the CSO Hall of Fame. This recognition is bestowed upon the individuals whose work has advanced the CSO/CISO role, secured business, and inspired others in the industry. Mr. Weatherford will accept his award at the CSO50 Conference + Awards held on November 16-18, 2021.
Mark is a former member of the DHS Homeland Security Advisory Council, a current member of the DOE Idaho National Labs Strategic Advisory Council, and has held numerous executive-level cybersecurity roles including, Vice President and Chief Security Officer at the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC); the Department of Homeland Security’s first Deputy Under Secretary for Cybersecurity in the Obama Administration; and the first Chief Information Security Officer in both the state of California and the state of Colorado.
“I attribute much of my professional success to simply caring about people,” said Mr. Weatherford. “Life is all about developing relationships and very few successful people do it all on their own. One of the greatest compliments I get today is when people say that what they remember most about me is that I cared and was always made time for them. My life goal is to simply be kind to people.”
Mr. Weatherford is a renowned leader with the ability to get teams to work together and support each other, developing incredible loyalty and becoming a force multiplier in information security. In both Colorado and California state governments, Mark was able to leverage the buying power, staffing, and budgets of more prosperous agencies to help smaller agencies and departments who had limited visibility and insufficient funding to accomplish their security goals. At NERC, Mark guided his team with the noble mission of ensuring the reliability of the power grid. Mark and his team delivered great success in the ever-evolving transformation of the electric utility industry by working daily with over 3,000 companies to raise the bar on cybersecurity across the nation.
“As organizations face new and evolving threats and shifting risks amid changing business conditions, the value experienced security leaders bring to the business has never been greater,” said Amy Bennett, Executive Editor of CSO. “Our CSO Hall of Fame inductees for 2021 have built their careers by innovating, leading, and contributing within the security community across many organizations. We look forward to recognizing them at the upcoming CSO50 Conference + Awards and hearing their perspectives on IT security, risk, and business leadership.”
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