Lisa Plaggemier – Infosec

Why nominated: Lisa Plaggemier entered the cybersecurity community after holding marketing roles at the likes of Ford Motor Company. Having started this path with CDK Global where she was the director of security culture, risk and client advocacy, she found that leveraging her years of global marketing and advertising effectively enabled her to convince employees, partners and clients the importance of bettering their cybersecurity knowledge and nix bad habits. As she established training and awareness programs for all levels of the organization, she also bolstered the reputation of CDK’s Global Security Organization as an industry go-to for creating solid and easy-to-understand and transparent communications on security. Her acumen and talent at making sometimes challenging and technical cybersecurity issues resonate with people having different levels of knowledge has resulted in an array of initiatives that are reaping benefits for industry practitioners, executive leaders, end-users and, ultimately, the organizations to which they belong.

Profile: Now at Infosec, she has duplicated and advanced those initiatives, creating yet another thought-leadership program driven by training and awareness offerings that go a long way to making security a part of the culture. By enabling employees to play a role in helping to safeguard their organizations, she helps to simplify security for a range of individuals as she deepens their engagement and knowledge. As a result, she shares the techniques and methods she’s practiced and refined over the years at industry conference, during peer-to-peer events, and through webcasts, podcasts and more.

As well, as more discussion has arisen to see the industry establish standards related to security awareness and training programs, she developed this year the industry’s first certification course related to such operations in the Certified Security Awareness Practitioner (CSAP) offering. Along with teaching the coursework around this cert, she also has been a board member with the National Cyber Security Alliance since 2018 where she is the director of the Cybersecure My Business program, a national program designed to help SME’s (small- to medium-sized enterprises) learn and adopt methods to be safe and secure online. The program offers both a face-to-face, interactive workshop series and regular webinars whose content is based on the NIST cybersecurity framework.

What colleagues say: “Lisa has proven to be a passionate and engaged thought leader at our workshops and webinars and shares her experiences, thinking and solutions in a pragmatic and relatable way that is understood by SMB owners and employees who can be challenged by the complicated and technical nature of cybersecurity risks. Her focus on changing organizational culture as a means to best combat cybercrime instead of the merry-go-round of laying blame at the feet of end-users has been impactful for our participants. Building a culture that empowers employees through regular education and training resonates strikingly with our participants.” – Daniel Eliot, director of Education & Strategic Initiatives, National Cyber Security Alliance

 -Illena Armstrong