This month’s member spotlight is Chad Whitman, Vice President, Security Engineering at Signet Jewelers. Chad had an interest in computers from a young age but was also interested in business. This dual combination led him to Purdue University’s computer technology program, which offered a blend of computer science, technology, and business courses. After Chad earned his bachelor’s degree, a friend connected him with Deloitte, where he worked as a consultant and helped grow the firm’s cyber incident response program from the ground up, eventually focusing on forensics and incident response. He found that his business background came in handy as he communicated with stakeholders about the business relevance of investing in cybersecurity.
After traveling the world as a consultant, Chad started to grow tired of the consulting lifestyle. He found companies such as Signet were now open to hiring remotely, as employees began to work from home at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. This switch helped him take the leap to leave Deloitte and accept a Vice President role at Signet Jewelers in July of 2020.
At Signet, he manages all security tooling, incident detection and response capabilities, and the security architecture of existing and new solutions. In 2022, one of Signet’s big focus areas has been to securely move to the cloud.
Signet Jewelers became an RH-ISAC member in November of 2021. Chad says, as a new member, there was a lot to take in at first, but he found immediate value in the Slack channel. Being able to read the threads with late-breaking information was helpful, particularly during developing security incidents such as December’s Log4j vulnerability. He has also found value in being able to see the pain points of other members in the industry, to use what others are doing and what they are still working on implementing, as a benchmark for his own organization’s program maturity. As he gets more acquainted with RH-ISAC’s resources, Chad says he is looking forward to being able to give back to the community and share valuable information with others.
Outside of work, Chad enjoys getting out from behind the computer, golfing, bowling, woodworking, and spending time with family.
To learn more about how RH-ISAC membership can benefit you, visit the RH-ISAC website.
