
Andy Ellis, Chief Security Officer, Akamai
The job of Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs), says Andy Ellis, is not to eliminate risks. “Our job is to help our companies make wiser risk choices,” is how Ellis describes the new cybersecurity paradigm. The way he sees it, the chief security officer is an educator, helping business executives understand the security risks and trade-offs involved in their decisions and actions.
Ellis is Chief Security Officer at Akamai, provider of Content Delivery Network (CDN) services, ensuring a fast, reliable, and secure Internet for its customers. For the last 17 years, he has worked in various security-related positions at Akamai and today he is responsible for overseeing the security architecture and compliance of the company’s worldwide distributed network. I maybe going out on a limb here, but I would venture to declare Ellis the only business executive ever to be awarded the quadruple crown of the CSO Magazine Compass Award, the Air Force Commendation Medal, the Wine Spectator‘s Award of Excellence, and the Spirit of Disneyland Award.