EC-Council Announces CISO Award Winners at Black Tie Gala

ATLANTA, Oct. 21, 2019 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- In a black-tie ceremony, EC-Council (https://www.eccouncil.org) honored leaders in information security by recognizing finalists and winners in four categories. The CISO Awards precedes both Hacker Halted (hackerhalted.com), EC-Council's largest annual cybersecurity conference, and the Global CISO Forum (https://ciso.eccouncil.org/ciso-events/), EC-Council's premier executive-level event. EC-Council's CISO Awards recognize leaders making an impact by implementing security programs and security awareness programs that break the mold and address the root problems of modern breaches. These awards are decided by a committee in an anonymous voting process.

The first award given was the Presidential Award for Excellence to Farooq Naiyer (https://www.linkedin.com/in/farooqwahab/), the CISO of ORION, Ontario's research and education network. The award was given based on Mr. Naiyer's immense contributions to growing the CISO and Certified CISO community in his region. He just helped EC-Council host the first CISO Forum in Canada (, bringing hundreds of CISOs to the Niagara region and he's led the charge to make Certified CISO the standard in Canada.

The next category was the Most Promising New CISO of the Year, an award given based on the strength of the nomination narrative, but all those considered for the award had to meet three basic criteria:

• Work for one of the largest 500 companies in the world
• Be younger than 40 years old.
• Hold the role of CISO or be the budget controller for company-wide security program

There were two finalists for the award: Joseph Tso, Chief Information Security Officer for Scotiabank US, and Marco Tulio Moraes, Head of Information Security – Brazil, Banco MUFG Brasil S.A.

The winner was Moraes, chosen because he is experienced in a broad range of industries such as finance, insurance, e-commerce, entertainment, fashion, and aerospace and his command over the various disciplines required to be a CISO is tremendous. He also has a rare ability to partner with the business while looking out for the security interests of the organization.

The next award was the CISO of the Year award. This award, one EC-Council has been giving since the start of the CISO program, is designed to honor a CISO who is going above and beyond the already formidable duties of a CISO and making a difference in the industry with groundbreaking projects and outreach beyond his or her own organization. The finalists for the awards were Dave Summitt, CISO of Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute; Lauren Dana Rosenblatt, Executive Director, Deputy Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), The Estée Lauder Companies; and Abdulla Bader Al Sayari, Chief Information Security Officer, Department of Health Abu Dhabi.

The winner was Summitt, and he was chosen because he has demonstrated exceptional leadership within his institution and beyond. He single-handedly built his organization's cyber security program from the ground up, and his team is recognized across the organization for diligence and thought leadership in an escalating threat environment. Moreover, through his outreach efforts and compelling message, there is now broad awareness of cyber security throughout all faculty and staff. He also has established credibility and respect with the Board of Directors and Executive Leadership team, relationships that are critical to harvesting support and funding for key investments.

The last CISO award is for the Certified CISO (https://ciso.eccouncil.org/cciso-certification/), or CCISO, of the year. The CCISO program has been an integral part of EC-Council and the security industry since 2011. It is a program specifically for information security leaders – those already in and those with the right experience and expertise to fill the role of CISO. By recognizing the best of this group of leaders, EC-Council highlights the elite members of information security leadership.

Two finalists for the award were able to travel and attend the Gala: Roota Almeida, Chief Information Security Officer Delta Dental of New Jersey and s Rob Johnston, Head of Operations, Integrated Financial Solutions at FIS.

The winner, Almeida (https://www.linkedin.com/in/rootaalmeida/), was chosen because ensuring that the safety of proprietary company and customer information for more than 1.7 million customers has been her number one priority. She has completely transformed the information security department in those four years by providing a level of structure and cohesiveness that centralized and refined programs, processes, and resources relied on to mitigate against various forms of risk and threat vulnerability.

About EC-Council
EC-Council has been the world's leading information security certification body since the launch of their flagship program, Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH), which created the ethical hacking industry in 2002. Since the launch of CEH, EC-Council has added industry-leading programs to their portfolio to cover all aspects of information security including EC-Council Certified Security Analyst (ECSA), Computer Hacking Forensics Investigator (CHFI), Certified Chief Information Security Officer (CCISO), among others. EC-Council Foundation, the non-profit branch of EC-Council, created Global CyberLympics, the world's first global hacking competition. EC-Council Foundation also hosts a suite of conferences across the US and around the world including Hacker Halted, Global CISO Forum, TakeDownCon, and CISO Summit. For more information about EC-Council, please see http://www.eccouncil.org.

SOURCE EC-Council