Mark Sawyer Email and Phone Number

Built from the ground up a team of 30 cybersecurity experts (4 direct reports), cultivating a culture of excellence, pragmatism and continuous development, innovation and artificial intelligence solutions.The creation from near green field of the full information security team structure consisting of Security Operations, Cyber Resilience, Identity and Access Management, 3rd Party Risk and Security Engineering.Responsible for the protection of critical data, resiliency of systems and networks and defence against cyber threats. A key decision maker for shaping technology strategy and solutions. Enabling the achievement of business and technology goals in line with risk appetite. Working closely with business stakeholders, governance, risk and the Executive Boards.CISO level responsibilities to the board/stakeholders and protecting the entire £7 billion revenue of the UK business.Developed and introduced a highly effective and comprehensive cyber incident response plan which included containment, recovery, and communication, integrating with the Business Risk, Compliance, Insurers and Legal functions.Evangelised and presented to Senior stakeholder a cyber strategy, vision statement and plans for the Cyber Security functions as part of an Annual Operational Plan (AOP) and budgeting exercise.Secured a multi-million-pound budget for critical security initiatives, including deployment of 24x7 SIEM, AI behavioural protection and advanced endpoint protection solutions.Successfully navigated compliance audits, ensuring adherence to ISO27001, GDPR regulations and industry benchmarked NIST CSF assessments.Procured and integrated Ping Identity access (IAM) and Saviynt Identity Governance (IGA) across mission critical corporate and for customer facing (550K customers) and high-risk systems. Headed up all Information and Cyber Security internal, governance, regulator, external audits, assessments, and cyber insurance coverage.

Heading up a team of 30, responsible for the global 24x7 InfoSec Operations, running, strategy and future developments of the global IT security infrastructure, cyber defence and operations. Responsible for safeguarding the data of the Firm and working in partnership with its many FTSE 100, local and central governmental clients; retail, commercial, investment and challenger banks.• Managed a combined budget for IT and Information Security of £10 million.Established an internal security operations centre and cyber response and operations team that operated 24x7, with additional support from external service providers.Working with the NPSA as part of the Critical National Infrastructure to provide cyber resilience and protect against nation state actors.Represented the organisation in comprehensive Banking and Financial service audits for regulators and banking clients.Secured the ISO27001 certification for all global offices. Ensured GDPR compliance within the deadline and budget.Reviewed and updated the business continuity system across all offices. Provided high availability for all critical business systems. Obtained the ISO22301 certification.Introduced one of the first online M&A due diligence and litigation management systems that streamlined workflows and reduced costs.Participated in the development team that introduced the first AI due diligence review product, marketed as Luminance for Invoke Capital. Secured, commercialised, and productised the offering before release.Rolled out several vertical legal centric mobile applications that improved user experience.Implemented systems, processes, and IT framework to achieve a gold standard global availability of 99.999% for all core systems.Conducted monthly reviews of operational performance. Presented KPIs demonstrating compliance of SLAs and OLAs, as well as ROI on cyber, data privacy and information security.

Responsible for the running of the firm’s 24/7 technology customer services function, providing 1200 users with handling and resolution of IT Problems. A team of 15 people delivering 1st to 3rd line support of PCs, applications, mobile devices and the telephone system.Responsible for the firm’s management (procurement, disposal, relocation and engineering) of IT hardware, telecommunications services and software.

Database and programming consultant for the private banking and pensions industry.