Leadership

Scott Foote     

CISSP | CCSA | CCSP | CISM | CDPSE | CIPM | AIGP | CRISC | CISA | ISO 27001 Auditor 

Scott is a senior executive and entrepreneur, with more than 35 years of technology experience in cybersecurity and the broader software industry. He has an acute ability to understand and map business needs to models, architectures, solutions, and technologies.  An influential communicator skilled at “making the Complex, Simple” and “the Abstract, Concrete", Scott has authored several thought leading pieces on cybersecurity from the original "Risk Formula" (in the 90s), to "Risk-Based Access Control" and the Cyber SA model of "Network, Mission, and Threat" (in the 00s), to the recent "SOC Taxonomy" and “5 What Imperatives” of security awareness. 

Driven to bring “Order to Chaos”, his leadership experience includes building  and leading growth-dominated products and services teams, organizations,  and startups from 10s to 1000; and spans the solution lifecycle, with a  specific focus on complex systems engineering and solution roadmap  planning.  

Scott is also a frequent speaker at industry events, is a member of several industry consortia, sits on a number of advisory boards and has been a member of the board of directors for enswers, Inc., Axixa Corporation, Realocity, Inc., Protinuum, LLC, and the Boston Affiliate of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.   

Joel D. Jacobs

Joel is a nationally recognized CIO and CSO with more than 40 years of IT and cybersecurity experience. He leads Phenomenati’s vCIO engagements as a fractional CIO, delivering IT/security strategy consulting and advisory services, and coaching.  He is a member of the CIO Hall of Fame, has been twice named a Boston CIO of the Year, has received the Federal 100 Award, has been named to the Computerworld Premier 100 IT Leaders, and been recognized on the STEMconnector® list of 100 CIO/CTO Leaders in STEM. At present, Joel is a member of the board of directors for the Advanced Cyber Security Center (ACSC), a Distinguished Fellow at Avasant, a member of the BostonCIO Leadership Association Advisory Board, a member of the Independent Review Committee at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, a CIO Executive Coach with the CIO Executive Council, and a mentor in the InspireCIO Next Generation Leadership program. 

Earlier in his career, Joel was vice president, CIO and CSO of The MITRE Corporation, a $2B systems engineering and research firm. At MITRE, Joel was responsible for advancing the innovative use of information technologies to enable MITRE staff to serve the company’s sponsors. His responsibilities also included knowledge management, enterprise technical computing, information security, global security services, and corporate communications and public affairs. As CSO, Joel oversaw the integration and coordination among information security, global security services, industrial security, and information systems. During his tenure, MITRE received recognition from the CIO 100, InformationWeek, Computerworld 100 Best Places to Work in IT (11 times), and the Most Admired Knowledge Enterprise (MAKE) awards and Hall of Fame.

Steve Foote     

CISSP

Steve is an accomplished software engineering executive and Virtual CTO, designing and implementing impactful enterprise applications and development teams which provide a competitive advantage for his clients.

While leading software development organizations ranging from 4 to 600+ engineers, he has successfully applied his extensive knowledge of advanced software engineering, computer architecture, cyber security, mobile technologies, and enterprise applications to a variety of clients including finance, healthcare, pharmaceutical, commerce, law enforcement, intelligence, military, judicial, and treasury applications.

Presently, Steve is leading the instantiation of software factories for a number of clients. These factories apply state-of-the-art, secured engineering practices (agile, cloud, mobile computing, DevSecOps) to produce advanced capabilities.

Steve’s own interest in agile software development stems from his years of experience in the commercial software market. While working in industry for companies including Oracle Corporation, Steve applied agile methodologies to the design of financial applications and industrial control systems, using advanced AI techniques and distributed processing capabilities that were the precursor to today’s Industrial IoT devices.

Recognizing the need to better manage all of these distributed computing devices, Steve co-founded a company to deliver distributed systems management into the commercial marketplace. During that time, Steve patented a technique for implementing software agents on the early IoT devices for the purposes of securing them and managing them remotely.

Over the course of his career, Steve has published approximately 1,000 articles, reports, and white papers on topics including application development, advanced database applications, enterprise business applications (ERP), and cyber security (including the cover article for Information Security magazine in 1999 – 11/98). In recognition for his expertise in enterprise technologies, Steve was asked to serve as the lead judge for 3 consecutive years at the Best Practices in Enterprise Management Awards, an event covered by FORTUNE Magazine. In addition, Steve is the co-inventor of a patent regarding “Event management systems for distributed computing environments”. And Steve has served as an expert witness for multiple technology-related intellectual property lawsuits, at the U.S. state and federal level. He has also been a member of the board of directors for several companies including: the Hurwitz Group; enswers, Inc.; and Realocity, Inc.

Mark Dunning     

CISSP

Mark was the Global Head of Information Technology for L.E.K. Consulting, a global management consulting firm. Information is the lifeblood of any management consulting firm. For more than two decades, Mark crafted the IT strategy and led IT to drive dramatic growth of the top line revenue through digital transformation. Mark led the transformation of IT first from small local practices to regional centers and ultimately to a fully functioning global team with staff in more than a dozen countries. He was responsible for all aspects of IT operations including enterprise systems, service desk, network infrastructure, application development, and data management. Working closely with the General Counsel, Mark oversaw the development and implementation of information security and governance risk and compliance practices globally that led to ISO27001 and Cyber Essentials certification for the firm. 

Mark is passionate about effecting positive cultural change, including innovative approaches to team building in a hybrid environment and employee retention in a highly competitive global market. His novel ideas on career development resulted in high employee satisfaction and very low attrition while keeping overall salary costs at or below market.  His has experience in IT Governance helped clear roadblocks for the team while also ensuring that IT strategy and overall strategy were both closely aligned while providing transparency to senior leadership. 

The founder of two award winning non-profits has also fostered in Mark an expertise in accessibility. For twenty-one years the Decibels Foundation has provided specialized early intervention, educational services, family support, and access to essential technologies for children who are deaf and hard of hearing from infancy through high school. Founded in 2008, The Usher Syndrome Coalition has grown to be the leading advocacy organization in the world for the most common genetic cause of deaf blindness, supporting families in seventy-four countries.