Mike Higgins

Mike Higgins is a veteran security executive with nearly 35 years of experience in commercial and Federal Government roles. As the founding director of the Department of Defense’s Computer Emergency Response team (DOD-CERT), Mike was an early proponent for comprehensive risk management which translated into the NIST Computer Security Framework (CSF) for risk based security.

Mike’s extensive experience includes executive risk advisor to diverse industries including Finance (Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Merrill Lynch, Depository Trust,…), High Technology (Sun Microsystems, AT&T, Akami, Amdahl,…), and Insurance (The Hartford, Guardian Life, and New York Life Insurance,…). 

Mike naturally transitioned into global CISO/CSO roles at LexisNexis, The New York Times, NBCUniversal, Haven (the Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, & JPMorgan Chase healthcare initiative) and most recently Amazon Healthcare.

For the last 25 years Mike has been an Visiting Professor at the McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia and has taught in the Masters of Science in Information Security Programs at Northeastern University and The George Washington University.

Mike holds a certification as a Certified Information Security Manager (CISM) and has been awarded the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Director’s Medal and Federal Computer Week’s Federal 100 Award.

Mike received his Bachelor’s degree from Northeastern University and his Masters’ from the Viterbi School of Engineering at the University of Southern California.