Accenture Security Adds To Its Ranks, Hires Financial Services Cyber-Risk Expert
Accenture over the past year has made a number of moves to bolster its new Accenture Security practice and Thursday appointed cyber-risk management specialist Valerie Abend as managing director of the Financial Services, North America, division.
Abend brings more than two decades of industry experience to her new role at Chicago-based Accenture, including expertise in both the public and private sectors deploying cyber-risk management and mitigation strategies as the financial services industry faces a barrage of new, more sophisticated threats.
’I can tell you, there are more folks that need help than ever before, and we are excited to be able to come to them. … The issue [of security breaches] is not going away,’ Abend said in an interview with CRN.
Most recently, Abend served as senior critical infrastructure officer at the U.S. Department of Treasury, advising U.S. banking regulatory principals on cybersecurity.
She also previously led of Bank of New York Mellon’s global business partnerships for information risk management and headed the bank’s external relationships with government, trade associations and industry groups.
’Financial institutions are on the front lines of a very significant threat … and my whole career has been focused on helping financial services from a security and resilience perspective, and the idea that I can come here and help solve these problems is very exciting,’ she said.
Abend said she is looking forward to working with Accenture as it continues to develop its security practice, noting that businesses working within the financial services market are facing unique challenges when securing themselves against threats.
’Financial institutions are highly complex, and our business is based on trust and confidence, so the level of assurance that we need to have is just at a higher level,’ she said, adding that there has to be a ’demonstrable capability’ to show customers that they can trust the security of the institution.
However, customers aren’t only trusting these organizations with their money, but also trusting them with the data surrounding their financial actions – a challenge she says is becoming more difficult as new technology means transactions and data are being generated more quickly.
’Of course ’bad guys’ are targeting financial institutions because that is where the money is, but beyond that financial institutions really hold vast amounts of data, not only on individuals, but on all kinds of products and services. … All of that needs to be protected at the data level as well as the business processes level,’ she said.
In her new position, Abend said she is excited to take on those new challenges, leveraging her experience with the federal government and the private sector with the capabilities of Accenture.
’Accenture is incredibly talented, … so to bring what is new and innovative and help [clients] with cybersecurity with this new team we are building is unparalleled,’ she said.
Accenture, No. 2 on the 2016 Solution Provider 500 list, in June brought on former Deloitte cyber-risk services executive Kelly Bissell to lead all of Accenture’s security capabilities under a single unit, called Accenture Security.
Since that time, Accenture has added a number of high-level cybersecurity experts to the unit, including former CIA CTO Gus Hunt, who now leads the company’s federal security services unit, and former Fidelis CSO Justin Harvey, now Accenture’s incident response unit leader.
’There is a very good foundation that we are building off. Accenture has been in the security game for a long time, and we are incredibly talented,’ Abend said.
’It is actually quite humbling to stand alongside colleagues like Justin and Kelly -- they are real industry legends, frankly, around cybersecurity, and the fact that I can team with them and partner with them to help solve these problems is just fantastic,’ she said.