Michael Figueroa Email & Phone Number

Boston, Ma, Us

Work From Anywhere, Remote, Oo

I lead a global consulting practice that includes hundreds of professionally-vetted security experts and vCISO executive consultants. I oversee and direct all aspects of solution delivery, from talent onboarding through client engagement. Key accomplishments:- Consistent revenue growth (>10% QoQ average) while building a new global security services practice into a multimillion-dollar business.- Advised more than 100 client executives (CxO-level) at organizations of all sizes, from F100 multinational enterprises to emerging small businesses, on strategic planning for using independent professionals to achieve security objectives. I have helped global enterprises bridge leadership gaps, aided growing companies to establish new security operations functions, and assisted startups seeking security compliance guidance.- Built a global vCISO consultancy with dozens of former security executives from the ground up.- Wrote custom scripts and reporting workflows to build customized interface prototypes that ultimately influenced the development of new internal product capabilities, including a dynamic query tool and a comprehensive business reporting dashboard.- Collaborated with sales teams across all industry segments to define individual account strategies, design customized offerings, develop proposals, and nurture client relationships.- Launched Toptal Executive Guidance thought leadership series with inaugural blogs and podcasts after working closely with marketing and communications professionals on program design and execution.

Advises government officials on improving policy and procedures for defending against modern cyber threats and incident response planning as part of the Cyber Resilient MA Working Group (CRMWG). Roles include:- Developing cyber attack scenarios based on recent events and advising the design of in-person and virtual tabletop exercises for government officials.- Facilitating tabletop exercises (Lead: 2/2020, 11/2021; Breakout: 11/2020, 4/2021) for improving joint state, local, and federal response to large-scale cybersecurity incidents.- Assisting development of the MA Municipal Cybersecurity Toolkit and definition of a Minimum Baseline of Cybersecurity to aide the cyber defense efforts of under-resourced municipalities and local officials.

My research indicates that ~90% of organizations lack the resources to support a cybersecurity employee. To be part of the solution, I occasionally serve as a trusted advisor (paid or volunteer) providing executive-level strategic planning and cyber security advice for accelerations, startups, and non-profits. In my spare time, I hold professional volunteer roles, including as a Special Advisor to a state government cybersecurity initiative to improve municipal defenses and served as a member of the Cyber Advisory Board for Rep. Langevin of Rhode Island.My collaborative approach to judgment-free cybersecurity makes me well-suited for advising boards aligning cyber risk to business risk, facilitating results-oriented discussions from small roundtables to large (100+ participants) events, providing strategic guidance to help organizations set realistic security goals based on the resources they have available and their business priorities, and aligning personnel skills to cyber security priorities.

Burlington, Ma, Us

I served as the chief executive for this independent nonprofit following nomination by a former state CISO and competitive board-level executive search carried out over several months. An independent nonprofit ISAO founded in 2011 as the nation's leading model for community-level security information sharing, the ACSC faced significant membership decline and program stagnation. After basing my candidacy on a risky short-term program redevelopment, I executed a rapid improvement plan that stabilized membership and achieved >40% growth within 18 months.Of my many transformation achievements, the ACSC's Collaborative Defense program represented the most significant strategic effort that I designed and executed in partnership with the ACSC Board of Directors. Focused on improving how executives make decisions and engage the local counterparts in defending against advanced cyber threats, the program culminated in a large tabletop simulation of a large-scale cyber attack, designed and facilitated in partnership with DHS, that brings together public and private sector executive teams in the industry's only cross-sector, multidisciplinary exercise of executive decision-making in incident response. My key community support roles included: - Cyber Resilient Massachusetts initiative through the Mass Cyber Center.- Co-Founding the Cyber Education and Training Consortium (CETC) with the University of Massachusetts President's Office to build stronger relationships between security executives and New England educational security programs.- Cyber Advisory Board for Rep. Langevin (RI), congressional cyber caucus co-founder and co-lead. - Advising the Cyber Yankee regional National Guard exercise.Like any good nonprofit leader, I also managed most of the business, IT, and security operations.

Cambridge, Ma, Us

Hacking security by taking a more human-oriented approach versus blaming the human for being the "weakest link." Technology needs to serve our needs better. Specifically, I worked on:- Building a multi-organizational collaboration around a new inherent security paradigm (Contact me if you want to know more).- Managing customer relationships for Dover, the inherently secure computer processor based on the RISC-V.- Managing the DeepCode project under the DARPA MUSE program. DeepCode applies machine learning against open source code repositories to identify vulnerabilities in software as it's being written. - Managing a research project that is applying reverse engineering in an attempt to develop a verified emulation framework for industrial control systems to allow out-of-band scanning and penetration testing.- Transitioning emerging security technologies from research to practice. Our first service, Xavier, provides government customers with continuous software monitoring to determine when new vulnerabilities discovered in open source code impact internal code development.

Falls Church, Virginia, Us

Conducted advanced technology research focused on information security integration into novel computer and human system architectures. I was specifically focused on large-scale distributed (cloud) networking and designing new methods and protocols for protecting network communications. Roles included:- Principal Investigator under the DARPA Mission-Oriented Resilient Clouds (MRC) Program- Leading technology transition and commercialization efforts through strategy definition, market alignment assessment, briefings and demonstrations to potential customers, and functional architecture design.- Managing an agile software development team for a novel resilient distributed/cloud communications platform.- Briefing senior industry executives advising research efforts.- Providing cybersecurity perspective on new R&D initiatives and opportunities.

North Wilkesboro, North Carolina, Us

Served as an executive member of a strategy and technology consulting startup that infuses security into business solutions to protect client consumer, employee, and partner information. My client-service responsibilities revolved around designing complex business IT solutions for large-scale enterprise systems. Sample roles include:- Developing an enterprise system architecture for a large-scale asset management system.- Refining and prioritizing system requirements.- Designing an integrated identity management framework.- Assisting a large government agency in implementing an operational proof-of-concept.- Conducting strategic planning.- Facilitating information security integration activities.- Developing an ISO 27001 Security Policy Program for a large financial NGO.My corporate responsibilities included leadership roles for the DHS and VA Federal markets, identifying emerging technology investments, developing marketing materials and white papers, actively maintaining a public corporate blog, and building internal SharePoint applications.

Managed security and internal IT for a medium-sized financial services industry late-stage startup preparing for acquisition. Key accomplishments include:- Implemented a new ISO-27001 information security program.- Maintained an assured data storage for a 70 TB data processing function.- Negotiated vendor contracts, including a new mobile communications contract that reduced spend by 30%, a major bandwidth expansion to handle large secure data loads, and a managed security operations capability.

Mclean, Va, Us

Technical manager and thought leader for large scale infrastructure transformation and system integration projects, specializing in enterprise security architecture and management. I also facilitated the activities of the Booz Allen identity and access management community.

Charlottesville, Va, Us

Courses: BUS 502: Information Security Policy; BUS 505: Threat Assessment and Security Measures.

Washington, D.C., Us

- Co-Lecturer for CS 385: E-Commerce Security (Graduate-Level)

Montreal, Quebec, Ca

Bs, Brain And Cognitive Sciences

Masters Of Forensic Sciences, High Tech Crime Investigations