Cloud Security Alliance Announces 2018 Ron Knode Service 
Award Recipients

Volunteers recognized for dedication, efforts to furthering cloud security best practices

ORLANDO – Dec. 11, 2018 –The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA), the world’s leading organization dedicated to defining and raising awareness of best practices to help ensure a secure cloud computing environment, today announced the recipients of its seventh annual Ron Knode Service Award, recognizing six members from the Americas, Asia-Pacific and EMEA regions for their excellence in volunteerism. The honorees were selected by the CSA executive team and chosen based on their valuable contributions towards fulfilling CSA’s mission of promoting best practices to help ensure a secure cloud computing environment.

“This year’s winners exemplify the qualities that defined Ron Knode—passion, commitment and leadership. Although they come from different regions and backgrounds, they all share in the spirit of volunteerism that is continuing to shape the present and future of the Cloud Security Alliance,” said J.R. Santos, Executive Vice President of Research, Cloud Security Alliance.

Ron Knode was an information security expert and member of the CSA family who passed away in May 2012. He is remembered as an innovative thinker with endless energy and humor to guide his volunteer contributions. He also was the creator of the CSA CloudTrust Protocol, which today remains an important asset for the continuous monitoring and auditing for cloud assurance and transparency certification. Established in 2012, the Ron Knode Service Award is awarded annually to CSA members whose contributions reflect Ron’s passion for volunteerism and embody the spirit for which this award was established.

This year’s recipients are:

Angela Dogan, CSA Americas. Angela Dogan is the Director, Vendor Risk Management and Compliance Services for Lynx Technology Partners. Previously, she served as Senior Project Manager for the Santa Fe Group and Vendor Auditor for Resurgent Capital Services.

With 15 years in the financial services industry, she is well-versed in standardized control frameworks such as those created by the Shared Assessments Program and Cloud Security Alliance, where she is a member of the Cloud Controls Matrix (CCM) Working Group. Her expertise in the implementation and execution of third-party risk management programs has kept the Shared Assessments Program at the cutting edge of the industry’s best practice. Dogan is a Shared Assessments Program Steering Committee member and chair of the Standardized Control Assessment (SCA) Committee.

Jason Garbis, CSA Americas. Jason Garbis is Vice President of Cybersecurity Products at Cyxtera, a secure hybrid infrastructure company. He is responsible for the company's security product strategy and product management and works directly with numerous enterprise customers, helping them solve their security challenges. He has over 25 years of product management, engineering, and consulting experience at security and technology firms including RSA, HPE, BMC, and Iona Technologies, as well as at several smaller firms.

Garbis is co-chair of the Software Defined Perimeter (SDP) Working Group at CSA, where he led research initiatives applying Software-Defined Perimeter to Infrastructure-as-a-Service environments, and the forthcoming Software-Defined Perimeter Architecture Guide. He leads the Boston Cloud Security Alliance chapter, holds a CISSP certification, has a BS in Computer Science from Cornell and an MBA from Northeastern, and is also a published author.

Dr. Kai Chen, CSA APAC. Dr. Kai Chen is Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.’s Cybersecurity Ecosystem Specialist and responsible for cybersecurity ecosystem development. With 15-plus years of experience in applied cryptography, information and network security technical research, standard development, and policy and regulation, he has authored numerous research papers, delivered speeches at many security-related events, and developed over 10 security standards in wireless communication, digital rights management, and trusted computing.

He co-founded the Trusted Computing Group’s Great China Regional Forum (co-chair from 2008-2015) and the U.S. Information Technology Office Cybersecurity Working Group (co-chair 2007-2015). Kai has worked for Microsoft, Intel China, Bell Labs Research China, and Lucent Technologies. He is a senior member of the China Computer Federation and the Chinese Association for Cryptologic Research. He is co-chair of CSA’s Cloud Security Services Management Working Group and drove the development of the Guideline on Effectively Managing Security Service in the Cloud (October 2018). He holds a Bachelor Degree in Engineering Management, a Master’s in Computer Science and a doctorate in Cryptography.

Dr. Sak Segkhoonthod, CSA APAC. Dr. Sak Segkhoonthod is the president and CEO for the Digital Government Agency (formerly the Electronic Government Agency), the agency in charge of providing GIN, G-Cloud and other IT services to Thailand’s government agencies. He received a PhD in Electronic System Engineering from Essex University. After graduating, he joined the National Electronic and Computer Technology Center as a researcher at the Network Technology Lab, where he was responsible for projects such as the Information Super Highway Testbed and the Government Information Technology Services (GITS). At GITS, he was in charge of setting IT infrastructure for government agencies such as the Government Information Network.

Dr. Sak has served as the CSA Thailand Chapter’s chairman since its formation. His leadership has enabled the Thai chapter to be active in getting the government cloud to be STAR-certified and has led the way for the private sector to follow suit. The chapter also organizes the popular annual CSA Thai Summit.

Paolo Balboni, CSA EMEA. Prof. Dr. Paolo Balboni is a top-tier ICT, privacy and data protection lawyer and founding partner of ICT Legal Consulting. With his team, he advises clients in the fields of personal data protection, acting as a data protection officer in outsourcing, data security, information and communication technology, and intellectual property law.

Balboni is professor of Privacy, Cybersecurity, and IT Contract Law at Maastricht University’s European Centre on Privacy and Cybersecurity; president of the European Privacy Association; and cloud computing sector director responsible for foreign affairs at the Italian Institute for Privacy. He is involved in European Commission studies on new technologies and participated in the revision of the EU Commission proposal for GDPR. He co-chairs CSA’s Privacy Level Agreement Working Group and has acted as the legal counsel for such European Network and Information Security Agency projects as Cloud Computing Risk Assessment, Security and Resilience in Governmental Clouds, and Procure Secure: A guide to monitoring of security service levels in cloud contracts.

He is the author Trustmarks in E-Commerce: The Value of Web Seals and the Liability of Their Providers and numerous articles. Balboni has a Law Degree (University of Bologna) and a Ph.D. in Comparative Technology Law (Tilburg University). He is fluent in Italian, English and Dutch and has good knowledge of French, Spanish, and German.

Michael Roza, CSA EMEA. Michael Roza is a risk, audit, control and compliance professional with 20-plus years of experience with organizations such as Bridgestone EMEA, Komatsu International, Mitsui Novus International, Johnson and Johnson Inc., and Baxter Inc. He has worked with several hi-tech startups serving the network management and contact center software markets, in addition to disk manufacturing, and radiological cancer treatment markets.

He has held lead positions in SAP configuration and transformation teams, as well as SAP Segregation of Duties and IT General Controls projects. Roza also served as secretary or observer of various committees and councils such as internal audit, risk management, governance and risk, information security and corporate social responsibility. He is a Certified Information Systems Auditor, Certified Public Accountant, and Certified Internal Auditor. He holds an AEMBA from Claremont College, Peter Drucker Center, and an MBA from De Paul University.

He has served as lead author/contributor for 11 projects completed by CSA’s IoT, Blockchain, Top Threats, Cloud Control Matrix, Software Defined Perimeter and Cyber Resiliency Working Groups.

About Cloud Security Alliance

The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) is the world’s leading organization dedicated to defining and raising awareness of best practices to help ensure a secure cloud computing environment. CSA harnesses the subject matter expertise of industry practitioners, associations, governments, and its corporate and individual members to offer cloud security-specific research, education, certification, events and products. CSA’s activities, knowledge and extensive network benefit the entire community impacted by cloud — from providers and customers, to governments, entrepreneurs and the assurance industry — and provide a forum through which diverse parties can work together to create and maintain a trusted cloud ecosystem. For further information, visit us at www.cloudsecurityalliance.org, and follow us on Twitter @cloudsa.

Contact
Kari Walker for the CSA
ZAG Communications
703.928.9996
[email protected]