Mike Boutwell

Giving Practical guidance to help aspiring cyber professionals start a lucrative career in cybersecurity.

➤ Serving in the capacity of a CISO to deliver key security related business strategy
➤ Presented security management reports to C-Level and auditors to address findings and close gaps. 
➤ Defined security requirements for customer systems and implemented security policies and SOPs.
➤ Developed company wide security requirements and selected third party tools aligned to needs.
➤ Led hackathons creating opportunities for software development teams to collaborate on projects. 
➤ Networked and stakeholder management to secure new business opportunities and win contracts.

Key Achievements
➤ Secured work with public and private financial service companies with 1000+ staff across UK and Europe. 
➤ Consistently achieved and maintained technology compliance rates of over 95% in diverse enterprises.
➤ Oversaw security and risk assessment for a national clearing house managing assets valued at $27 trillion.

Senior Information Security Consultant

Euroclear

➤ Overseeing critical initiatives to assure delivery is in line with risk tolerance
➤ Conducting risk assessments for critical business applications and processes
➤ Collaborating with executive stakeholders to apply risk management strategy
➤ Development and management of board level KRIs

Senior Information Security Risk Manager 

➤ Conduct risk assessments for critical financial applications and documents weaknesses for review.
➤ Design and develop security requirements based on the outcome of business impact assessments. 
➤ Work in collaboration with the CISO to build and create security requirements in line with NIST CSF.
➤ Assess third party risk in business and cloud applications and make best practice recommendations.

Key Achievements
➤ Lead for cyber risk assessments on bots and artificial intelligence
➤ Risk assessment of a critical financial application vital to capital markets processing $1Q annually.
➤ Identification of critical risks resulting in RFP to seek a new vendor to remediate open vulnerabilities.

Principal Information Security Consultant - CISO IT Risk

Takeda

➤ Digital transformation project lead in the setup of a US client’s Innovation Capability Centre in Slovakia.
➤ Defined the baseline security standards, security standard toolsets, and phased out unnecessary tools.
➤ Developed supporting SOP and policy documentation and standards and secured approval for rollout.
➤ Established endpoint protection team, a SIEM/SOAR capability, and vulnerability management program. 

Key Achievements
➤ Led global security standard for on-prem and cloud security deployments for digital transformation.
➤ Designed and implemented an executive dashboard to provide a data-driven security program.
➤ Improved executive decision making by enabling access to critical real time data and information. 
➤ Facilitated introductions for executives with Slovakian contacts helping growth from 30 to 300 staff. 
➤ Recruited and trained endpoint protection team overseeing 60,000 workstations and 120,000 servers.

Endpoint Security Team Lead

AT&T

➤	Led the security and IT strategy for the WPP Plc. account agile team, architects, and 30 engineers.
➤	Managed all client services to deliver secure architectures across EMEA, US, and APAC regions. 
➤	Worked in collaboration with the client CIO to implement technical solutions to drive cost reduction. 
➤	Technical SME conducting security analytics, control assessments, vulnerability, and risk assessments. 
➤	Mentored network team and architects to drive professional development and delivery to meet KPIs.

Key Achievements
➤	Transitioned WPP Plc. to enable a work from home setup in response to Covid from scratch.
➤	Created standardised workflows to deliver fast but consistent results for high priority projects.
➤	Appointed as Global Agile Team lead delivering a backlog of work and greatly reducing costs.

Senior Information Security Architect - Global Agile Program Lead

➤ Lead for the Citizens Financial Group account and the technology lead for the network engineers.
➤ Risk assessment and audit to identify all in scope assets and assessed existing configuration and gaps.
➤ Audited accounts to assess security posture, conducted risk assessments, and proposed improvements.
➤ Designed complex secure architectures in campus, WAN, data centres, SDN, and wireless environments.
➤ Produced documentation for RFP, RFI, and proposals, and architectural lead for projects over $100M.
➤ Developed security reference architectures aligned to business strategy and PCI-DSS requirements.

Key Achievements
➤ Achieved PCI-DSS compliance in a complex banking environment reducing enterprise IT risk by 68%.
➤ Responded to an RFP for Dow Chemicals architecting a secure solution resulting in a $100M contract. 
➤ Resolved instability issues which led to outages on 1200 ATMs and implemented enhanced logging.

Senior Network Security Architect - Lead for Citizens Financial Group

First Data Corporation

➤ Secured card and payment systems and networks in compliance with PCI-DSS on two continents.
➤ Strategic lead for disaster recovery planning, testing, and regulatory compliance for payment hubs.
➤ Compliance management including pre-testing, fault finding, resolutions, and regulator liaison. 
➤ Implementation and technical solutions for switches, routers, firewalls, VPNs, and load balancers.

Key Achievements
➤ Lead for 20 EMEA core credit card processing hubs exclusively managing London and South Africa. 
➤ Designed secure data centre and colocation architectures for multiple EMEA countries hubs.  
➤ Developed and rolled out cybersecurity policies and SOPs across EMEA to protect financial data.

Senior Network Security Engineer

T-Systems International GmbH

➤ Supervised the team and implemented security policies in a multi-vendor firewall environment.
➤ Network design SME providing input and advice on a wide range of critical business services.
➤ Deployed secure applications through engineering load balancing services for business continuity.
➤ Conducted risk assessments and made recommendations on best practice technology solutions. 

Key Achievements
➤ Project managed the deployment of the first 4G network in Europe for T-Systems International.
➤ Migration of a large-scale payment service to a greenfield ultra-low latency environment.
➤ Implemented network-based services for EverythingEverywhere’s search oriented architecture suite.

Network Security Engineer

Two words sum up my mission in information security: trust and expertise. With 15 years of security and 10 years of risk management experience under my belt, I've been fortunate enough to work with leading organizations like Cisco, AT&T, IBM, Kyndryl, First Data, and Euroclear.

My portfolio:

→ I help financial services firms secure their business and improve performance metrics with ISO 27001
→ Assessing AI risks in large complex environments and providing solutions to use AI in a risk-aware manner
→ I train teams and organizations on ISO 27001 implementation and auditing. 
→ Speaks to more than 30,000 people annually
→ Coaches and helps young professionals start and enhance their cybersecurity careers

My results:

→ Secured assets worth over $1 quadrillion
→ Delivered projects worth over $100M
→ Recently completed a major project with a world-renown vendor addressing cloud security risks
→ Consistently achieved security compliance rates of over 95% in diverse enterprises
→ Advised on the development of an innovative CNAPP security solution with a major vendor
→ Author of the Ransomware Handbook and Profit-Driven Cybersecurity

→ Contact: https://www.mikeboutwell.com/contact
→ X: @mikeboutwell4

HEC Lausanne - The Faculty of Business and Economics of the University of Lausanne

- Teaching Assistant:

1. Organizational Behavior- Professors Antonakis, Bastardoz, Dietz
2. Managing People - Professor Dietz
3. Evidence Based Management - Professor Dietz

- Doctoral student representative for the department of Organizational Behavior.
- CBO for Quasi and Natural Methods Class (B stands for breaks)
- Department CFO (F stands for Fridge)

Graduate Research Assistant

Revista Vistazo

-The need for reforms in paternity leave (La necesidad de reformas en el permiso de paternidad)

-The Roldós Doctrine, Guillermo Lasso's golden opportunity to become a regional leader (La Doctrina Roldós, la oportunidad de oro de Guillermo Lasso para convertirse en un líder regional)

-Free Trade Agreements are convenient for Ecuador (Le convienen a Ecuador los Acuerdos de Libre Comercio)

Independent Investigative Journalist

Universidad Hemisferios

- Interviewed the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mauricio Montalvo, the Vice President, Otto Sonnenholzner, a fomer Ukranian Senator, Pavlo Rizanenko and the Minister of Finance Pablo Arosemena.

-Mentored several students about their professional journeys. Got several students internships and job interviews. 

- 2 international academic conferences. 3 academic papers.

- 10 classes taught: Clash of Civilizations, Political History, Political History of Latin America, Theory of International Relations, International Organizations, History of International Relations, Geopolitics, Regional Studies, Communication, Diplomacy.

- Management consultancy: led project to teach informatics in the jungle with the help of the national oil company.

Professor

Journalist, 7 investigative articles, more than 1000 shares:

- Bad data and bad distribution in ministries / Malos datos y mala distribución en los ministerios

- Is it convenient for Ecuador to be part of ICSID? / ¿Le conviene a Ecuador ser parte del Ciadi?

- Problems and benefits of Chinese loans in Ecuador / Las ventajas y problemas de los préstamos chinos

- Ecuador’s health care improvements / Lo logrado en Salud

- Lenin, what are you waiting for? / ¿Qué esperas, Lenin?

- The debt die has not yet been cast / Celebrar antes de hora

- Gender Equality in the Workplace: Reality or Fantasy? / Equidad de género laboral: ¿hechos o labia?

Dentons Paz Horowitz

-Preparation of a business guide for Ecuador in support of Paz & Horowitz law firm: “Trade and Enterprise in New Zealand's international business development agency.”

Independent Consultant

Universidad de Las Américas (EC)

-Methodology and Research
-World Political History
-International negotiation

As an applied political science professor at UDLA, I realized that there is a lack of political awareness and involvement in my country. Students are eager to contribute to Ecuador’s development, but underestimate the power they have in their own hands to do so.

Assistant Professor

Municipio de Quito

- Developed a city plan to improve conditions for small companies applying design thinking methodology. 

- Developed open data policy for the city.

- Managed negotiations with the European Union delegation to implement creative or orange economy incentives.

- Corrected different consulting projects given to the Municipality.

Head of Productive Development

Ministerio de Salud - Ecuador

-Coordination between different areas to design a portfolio for a USS 23 million loan with the Inter- American Development Bank after cost benefit analysis.

-Planning and execution of the national campaign to improve quality services.

-Statistical analysis to plan how many vaccines are necessary for the Ecuadorian population.

-Planning and execution of the national campaign: "Treatment for good treatment" including ghost customers, service rankings among the different districts of the country and reformulating the model for the management of citizen complaints to line 171.

-Medicine Supply Management Analysis to achieve control of medicine inventories.

 -Support to the General Directorate of the National Secretariat to improve document management in the Ministry.

 -Monitoring of different areas.

Asesor Ministerial

Cruz Roja Ecuatoriana

-Started a structural reform of the organization and an audit process with the help of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

-Coordination of different areas.

Chief Executive Officer

Ministerio de Producción, Comercio Exterior, Inversiones y Pesca

-Part of the country's brand management team: Ecuador love life to attract tourism and investments.

-Research for the creation of the national gastronomy development plan benchmarking on Peru 10-year cluster plan.

-Creation of the gastronomy universities association, and creation and participation in an inter-ministerial committee to organize all the necessary action points for the plan.

-Content manager of the nation brand website: http://ecuadoramalavida.com.ec.

Analista de Marketing Internacional

Carlos’s most prominent weakness is his inability to talk about his strengths, so I’m writing this for him. This is Tessi, Carlos's wife.

Carlos rarely acts in his own interest, focusing instead on helping others fulfill their dreams with his innovative ideas.

He is from Quito, Ecuador. As the firstborn to young parents, he faced complex situations in a crisis-ridden country, developing a resilience that keeps him steady, even in the most stressful situations.

He excelled in school across various countries.

Following his dad’s diplomatic career, he grew up in Uruguay, Switzerland and Argentina where he faced his father’s death.

But Carlos is strong, adapts, and overcomes.

We met when he was studying a double degree at LSE and Peking University, with an excellence scholarship from his home country.

He was a nerd in the class, but the good kind of nerd, getting excellent grades and prizes while helping others along the way. That's how we met.

When he does something, he does it with more than 100% involvement, organizing people to learn from one another. This because Carlos embodies authenticity, excelling in emotional intelligence, social finesse, and street smarts.

His ability to see opportunities amid challenges and his love for people truly define his character.

Fast forward, we married and moved to Ecuador. There, he served his country by advising the Minister of Health, taking on the role of Red Cross CEO and finding his passion for education with his unique style, going the extra mile, getting internships, graduate programs and conferences for his students, doing a program at Harvard with Marshall Ganz, and supporting me advance in my career.

But, with Ecuador becoming unsafe, I wanted to return to Europe. After some thought, Carlos agreed. It meant the world to me, as I know how much Ecuador and its development mean to him.

On top, he started doing the Stanford LEAD program, which pointed more in the direction of us moving to the US.

But that showed me -once again- the power of his character, his values and his priorities.

Our faith and our family are paramount to him.

Despite the chaos of moving and a new pregnancy, Carlos excelled in the program, earning 7 Intellectual Contributions Awards, a record in Stanford Lead's history.

Currently, he pursues an OB PhD, supervised by one of top scholars in the field, while he supports & advises high officials in governments and international organizations informally.

If you connect with him, chances are you end up at our dinner table leaving it with a completely different outlook on life. 😊

Carlos E. Santos Saint Romain ✍🏼

5 moments that made my Birthday extremely Special!


1. The BestEST moment came right when I woke up.

I stepped out of the room and saw my wife and my oldest daughter waiting at the table, ready to sing to me “Happy Birthday.”


It wasn’t the song.


It was their joy, their pride, their pure excitement. 

It brought me right back to my own childhood:

To that tiny version of me who believed singing to my parents was the most important job in the world.

IT WAS!


The sort of joy that grounds you!

Maybe I’m reaching that age where the best gifts aren’t the ones we unwrap, but the ones we live.




2. I found myself in a film-analysis class on one of my teenage favorites, "The Devil’s Advocate": a masterclass in Cinema for my unethical decision-making class with Ulrich Hoffrage and Guido Palazzo.

Honestly, one of the best classes of my life: especially when you consider how complex corporate scandals feel while they’re unfolding, and how astonishingly simple their logic becomes once everything collapses into view.


Revisiting these themes now, through the lenses of Hegel, Adorno, Bandura, most recently Jennifer Freyd and so many others, gives it SUCH a different taste.

Rewatching the film felt like unlocking an old door and finding an entirely new room behind it: richer in the complexity of our mental tunnels, unmistakably darker, revealing the ethical blind spots any of us can slip into, and far more intricate than I ever remembered.





3. A round table with colleagues and later a private meeting with one of the WORLD's leading psychologists Elke Weber thanks to Isabelle Engeler and HEC Lausanne - The Faculty of Business and Economics of the University of Lausanne.

Rare conversations that stretch your thinking, challenge your assumptions, and expand what you believe is possible. A total blessing!



4. Riding the bike to dinner!

Three simple elements, one perfect scene: fresh air in a freezing night, good company, and the sense that life is moving forward. Not always as I would wish. But definitely, forward.



5. The day still had one last surprise. 
The cherry on top.


Professor Weber told the waitress it was my birthday…

Suddenly the lights dimmed, the music changed, and an incredible dessert appeared at the table like a small miracle.

A gesture so simple, so unexpected, so human that it stayed with me.



Life isn’t only deadlines, duties, and decisions, but also laughter, surprise, and gratitude.



And yes, life is indeed full of uncertainties: 

Storms we weather, choices we carry, paths we question.



But what is the point of the journey if we don’t pause to savor the lights along the way?

Despite the struggles and the beautiful chaos of adulthood, I have three unshakeable reasons to be grateful:



Love, learning, and above all the people who make both possible.

And for all of these… 

GRACIAS...¡¡¡TOTALES!!!

What’s your purpose? PhD Candidate at HEC Lausanne Simplifying Complexity 2 Clarity 4 Change Leadership Development Proud Dad 🫶

C'EST TOUJOURS NON ✊

Plot twist of the day:

Walked into what I thought would be chaos protesters blocking the way to class, disruptions, the whole nine yards.

Instead? I got handed fresh Ovaltine bread and coffee.

By the protesters.

And this happily surprised me: 

These people are fighting for what they believe in, but they're not fighting us. 

They're inviting us in. 
Breaking bread. 

Starting conversations.

That takes guts. And grace.

We live in a world where "protest" has become synonymous with anger and division. But this? This was different.

This was people saying "we disagree with the system, not with you."

The most powerful movements don't push people away: they pull them closer.

Today reminded me that real change doesn't come from making enemies. 

It comes from building community, one Nutella-covered slice at a time.

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Mike Boutwell

Carlos E. Santos Saint Romain ✍🏼

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The Battle

Mike Boutwell

Carlos E. Santos Saint Romain ✍🏼

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Posts

Engagements

Likes

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