2010: Thoughts on this New Year

By Mark McCourt

I asked several leaders, whose opinions I greatly respect, to share their thoughts on 2010’s opportunities and challenges. Here is what they shared with us:

Regulatory:

“With the growth of the global economy, Universities are increasing their International student/researcher population. With this growth come additional challenges for federal law enforcement agencies’ central intelligence workload. Additionally, higher education organizations must balance the duty to assist in ensuring the highest level of Homeland Security and protecting the rights of their faculty, staff and students. The increased responsibility of managing the Homeland Security technology requirements and the costs associated with securing ‘Select Agent Research Labs’ is a critical challenge that requires new skills and resources.”

Maureen Rush, vice president of Public Safety,
University of Pennsylvania
For more information on Select Agents visit http://www.selectagents.gov/

Business Leadership:

“As always, being pro-active is what keeps you ahead in this game. Sharpening up your business continuity & crisis plans should always be part of your first quarter goals. Whether the challenge is brought on by terrorism, natural disasters, etc, your continuity plans are designed to maintain stability within your organization. The last thing you want to happen as a security executive is to be caught in a situation with an outdated plan.

For most of 2010, we should be seeing similar trends as we did in 2009. Security executives will be asked to continuously do more with equal or less financial resources. Working during this economic roller coaster has also required staffs to pick up additional tasks while also maintaining current levels of responsibilities. One way to help continue to achieve these positive results is to start paying closer attention to morale within security disciplines. An engaged, supported and well-trained staff will get a security director through a strenuous, unstable period. The important part is to remember to recognize these individuals.

Jerry Meade, corporate director of Security, Loews Corp.

Cybercrime:

“2010 will be the year that cyber security really gets the enterprise focus it deserves. To date, regulatory compliance regarding data security has firms implementing minimum acceptable standards for cyber security. Moving forward, a greater emphasis will be placed on the end-to-end security of supply chains to protect both intellectual property breeches and ensure brand integrity against product component fraud and piracy concerns. A subset of this issue will be the emergence of privacy concerns for both employees and partners, as critical information becomes more mobile and access priorities are monitored much more closely.”

Dan Dunkel, president, New Era Associates

Balancing Aggressive Corporate Survival Tactics with Innovative Security Measures:

Identify opportunity in adversity and capitalize. This corporate strategy is essential to survive, and even thrive, through the downturn. Collectively, it will be a key ingredient in stimulating the global economy’s re-emergence. This tactic simultaneously stretches global corporations in ways that elevate risk profiles. Despite CSO budgets having been fractionalized through belt tightening, protecting people and advancing corporate resilience have never been more essential. Doing so in the 2010 economic environment will challenge CSO creativity and innovation as never before. Understanding the threat and being prepared for looming crises remains our only option.

John Imhoff, Director

Office of Firm Security, Ernst and Young

2009 Security 500 Conference

The 3rd Annual Security 500 Conference was our best yet with more than 100 attendees and a dynamic day of industry leaders speaking, joining panels and creating a great networking opportunity.
Francis D’Addario was this year’s Keynote presenter. His presentation, Not a Moment to Lose…Influencing Global Security One Community at a Time, was right on target for our audience and gave the day a great start. D’Addario, as you may know, is the former global protection strategist for Starbucks Coffee and current faculty member at the Security Executive Council.

We are grateful to our industry’s best thinkers and leaders for their generous contribution of time and expertise:

Thomas Cellucci, chief commercialization officer - Department of Homeland Security
Steve Chupa, director, Worldwide Security - Johnson & Johnson
Kenneth Damstrom, managing director,
Global Security - Goldman Sachs
Edward Levy, director of Security -
Empire State Building Company
Alan J. Robinson, director, Corporate Protection
and Security Services - Atlantic Health
Paul Stone, vice president of Asset Protection, Risk Management and Enterprise Business Continuity - Best Buy

Special thanks to Lynn Mattice, who brought the conference together as our chair, making the day valuable for all. Lynn is a faculty leader with the Security Executive Council.