Jeffrey Brown has been named the new chief information security officer for the State of Connecticut, where he will be responsible for development, execution and monitoring of a world-class cybersecurity program.

Chief Information Officer Mark Raymond announced the news in a tweet Tuesday reading: “We are incredibly thrilled to have Jeff W. Brown join our team in building a safer state.”

According to his LinkedIn profile, Brown is a private-sector IT security veteran. He has held information security positions at several major financial corporations, including AIG, GE Capital, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch. He joins the information technology division at the Connecticut Department of Administrative Services. 

In addition, some of Brown's career highlights include launching the first ever application security program in the Goldman Sachs Investment Bank, creating the first centralized security policy and board-level security charter at GE Capital and executing a broad set of “fast track” initiatives to meet regulatory demands at Citigroup. He has established new programs from scratch to meet regulatory demands at AIG and GE Capital and have turned around struggling programs.

Raymond told StateScoop that Brown is essentially the state’s first chief information security officer. Former Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy in 2016 named Art House as the state’s chief cyber risk officer, but Raymond said that role was “more public-facing” and involved evangelizing for cybersecurity across the state, rather than focusing on the state’s internal IT security posture.