Findlay Whitelaw – An exceptional insider threat practitioner, leader and mentor
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Findlay Whitelaw - An exceptional insider threat practitioner, leader and mentor
Additional Info
| Job title of nominated professional (or team name) | Field CTO |
| Company (where nominated professional or team is working) | Securonix |
| Website | https://www.securonix.com |
| Company size (employees) | 500 to 999 |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Headquarters Region | North America |
Overview
With over two decades of distinguished leadership in financial services, operations, risk management, cybersecurity, and management consulting, Findlay has established herself as a transformative leader in the tech industry. Her journey began in highly regulated financial services environments, where she excelled in operational roles before advancing to strategic positions. These roles honed her technical acumen and deep understanding of global market challenges, laying the groundwork for her career in cybersecurity.
As the Field CTO at Securonix, Findlay transcends the traditional boundaries of her role. She is pivotal in integrating advanced cybersecurity measures with business continuity strategies across diverse sectors and industries. Findlay’s approach is characterised by collaborative innovation, guiding customers and teams through transformational complexities with stability, proactivity, and a forward-looking vision.
Findlay’s innovative efforts have significantly advanced Securonix’s insider threat agenda and risk reduction strategy for its customers. Her technical expertise, thought leadership, and insightful business strategies have enhanced Securonix’s market presence.
Colleagues and industry leaders commend Findlay for her exceptional cybersecurity and insider threat management contributions. Her transition from a customer to a critical team member at Securonix underpins her unparalleled expertise and the high esteem she commands in the industry. Findlay’s ability to architect, operationalise, and manage comprehensive insider and cyber programs is unmatched. She embodies the essence of dedication and passion, ensuring the success of the programs she is involved with.
Developing insider threat risk reduction frameworks, publishing regular blogs, eBooks, the 2024 Insider Threat Report, and hosted webinars and conferences, relentlessly sharing insights to advance the field and protect against evolving insider threats and cybersecurity challenges for the common good. A true team player, Findlay’s leadership in market and business development reflects her commitment to excellence and continuous improvement, making her contribution to insider threat management an invaluable asset and a standout professional in cybersecurity.
Accomplishments
Findlay has significantly contributed to insider threat research, notably through her recent academic journal publication, which addresses insider threats in financial services. She has also authored two eBooks, published the 2024 Insider Threat Report (with Cybersecurity Insiders), written numerous blogs and hosted webinars to disseminate her research and knowledge for the common good. Her efforts in sharing her insights have not only enriched the cybersecurity community but also provided actionable in-practice strategies to combat insider threats more effectively.
Findlay has been instrumental in the development and delivery of an innovative AI and psycholinguistics-based approach to insider threat detection by utilising her expertise in behavioural intelligence and insider threat profiles. As a SME, Findlay was able to build categories and dictionaries of vocabulary covering the range of motivations from insiders, and associated language. Considering semantic similarity of employees search queries to these dictionaries enables us to build a profile around an individual. Findlay has been crucial in strategising and operationalising the launch of this tool, with direct and significant impact already being achieved, including real insider threats being identified in customer environments.
Findlay is an exceptional leader and mentor. Her leadership style empowers those around her and she has been pivotal in the development and release of a highly impactful false positive alert identifier. This novel application automatically identifies false positive alerts and poorly performing detectors, allowing for proper tuning. Across 50 customers an average of 65% of alerts have been identified as false positives. Not only has this benefited customer satisfaction, but true positives, previously lost in the large alert volume, are now observable. Without Findlay, this project could not have been realised. Her constant drive for excellence, whilst maintaining clear and strategic approaches is an invaluable asset which has contributed significantly across a range of Securonix’s products and services.
