IMPACT 2024 USA white

Donald McFarlane

Cybersecurity Consultant, McFarlane Associates LLC

PANEL DISCUSSION

Our panel will discuss the topics covered in the preceding presentations. They’ll analyse the themes, and share what they see as most important takeaways for how the ideas can be applied in the work place.

Biography

Donald McFarlane is a transformational leader with decades of experience in IT risk and information security. As a former Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) for AIG Investments and Bluestone Capital Partners, and BISO at Merrill Lynch, Mr McFarlane brings a mix of passion and pragmatism to his work providing board consulting and vCISO services.

He serves on the advisory board of red-team vendor Xcape Inc. His experience implementing, operating and protecting IT systems started early on, running his own BBS in prep school and dumpster-diving line printer output from the local university. His first paid infosec job was to secure Unix systems for the UK’s version of DARPA. Since then he has secured online trading systems, global data center and branch networks in over 100 countries, and advised on several billion-dollar acquisitions, mergers and divestitures. Mr McFarlane is a well-known contributor at several hacker conferences, and helps run ‘Policy@DEF CON’. He lives with his wife, son and dog in a log cabin which he built himself on the side of a mountain in New Hampshire.