The West Midlands Cyber Resilience Centre have announced the appointment of their first three Advisory Group Members.

The group will provide the WMCRC with guidance, advice and influence the direction of the Centre which is headed up by Director Alison Hurst.  The first three members are: Lisa Ventura from the UK Cyber Security Association, Paul Street from Colmore BID and Stuart Hadley from CyberQ Group.

LISA VENTURA – UK Cyber Security Association 

Lisa Ventura is an award-winning Cyber Security consultant and is the CEO and Founder of the UK Cyber Security Association (UKCSA), a membership association that is dedicated to individuals and companies who actively work in cyber security in the UK.

On joining the Advisory Group Lisa said; “I am very honoured to join the Advisory Group of the WMCRC, the West Midlands has a huge concentration of cyber security organisations and individuals who are doing great work in the industry to bring cyber security to the forefront of people’s minds. The WMCRC is going to be instrumental in providing collaboration with the government, the police, organisations, education and the National Cyber Security Centre which is something that is very much needed in the region to help combat the growing problem of cyber-crime.

“Getting everyone to work from home quickly earlier this year has left many organisations wide open to cyber-crime, and much more needs to be done to raise awareness of this and to stop organisations falling victim to cyber-crime. It is important that businesses recognise where they might need to bring in additional measures and to ensure that their employees are cyber aware to mitigate the risk of attacks.

“I look forward to seeing the WMCRC becoming a strong resource in the West Midlands for businesses to call on to help them against the growing threat of cyber-crime, and I’m proud to be a part of it from the get-go.”

PAUL STREET – Colmore BID 

Paul Street joined Colmore BID in January 2019 as a Special Projects Officer for the BID’s Safe and Sound working group.  Safe and Sound focuses on delivering a safe and secure Colmore Business District for everyone who works, visits or passes through.

Paul is looking forward to his new role, he said: “I’m honoured to be asked to join the Advisory Group of The West Midlands Cyber Resilience Centre, on behalf of Colmore Business Improvement District.

“Colmore BID has a strong and proud history of collaborative partnership working within the community safety arena. I’m relishing the opportunity to offer my advice and feedback to the WMCRC’s public, private and academic cyber specialists to achieve our shared objectives of helping our businesses be more cyber aware and resilient to the very latest online threats and risks.”

STUART HADLEY – CyberQ Group

Stuart Hadley is the Global Commercial Director of Birmingham based CyberQ Group, an award winning cyber security services provider. Stuart has 23 years’ experience in the IT and security sector working in technical and project management roles.

Stuart explains why CyberQ Group wanted to work with the WMCRC: “Due to the recent global pandemic, the way the world conducts business has changed. The epidemic has had an immense impact on the ways businesses operate; increased adoption of remote working, increased use of Cloud platforms, SaaS, flexible working patterns, and an agile workforce. And as a result of these changes, there has been a significant increase in the number of cyber-attacks, affecting all businesses, large or small, with the consequences of financial losses, intellectual property theft, reputational damage and ultimately, business failure.

“Being cyber resilient is now not just a nice to have, but fundamental for a business to continue to exist and operate. By partnering with West Midlands Cyber Resilience Centre, we see this as a great opportunity to give SME’s in the West Midlands advice and support based on what we have learned and experienced working with global organisations.”

Director Alison Hurst welcomed the new appointments saying: “We are delighted to welcome our first three Advisory Group Members to the WMCRC. It’s really important that we form a group of industry professions from all backgrounds to help support the growth of the centre. Lisa, Paul and Stuart all have different experience and their wealth of knowledge will be invaluable to me and my team.

“I have been overwhelmed with the amount of interest we have had in our Board and Advisory Group from businesses across the region and we expect many more announcements in the next few weeks via our website and social media.”

Find out more about the Advisory Group Members on the WMCRC website: https://www.wmcrc.co.uk/