FIRST appoints new Chair Dave Schwartzburg and welcomes five new Board of Directors

Alexander Jäger, Senior Security Engineer of Google, continues in his role as Chief Financial Officer

July 8th, 2021 – During the recent 2021 AGM, Dave Schwartzburg, Information Security Architect from Cisco was newly appointed as the Chair of the premier organization and recognized global leader in incident response - Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST). Dave has 18 years cybersecurity expertise including three years as a FIRST Board Member. Dave succeeds Serge Droz, who has served as the Chair of FIRST for the past two years and continues as a Board Member. In addition, Alexander Jäger, Senior Security Engineer of Google, continues his role as Chief Financial Officer at FIRST.

Dave, the new Chair of FIRST says: “I am tremendously honored to be elected as the next Chair of the FIRST Board of Directors. FIRST is an organization that I am proud to have been a part of, and invested in, in for many years. I believe deeply in our vision and mission and I am incredibly proud of how well we have responded as an organization to the challenges of the past few years. I look forward to the many opportunities we have in front of us to continue to grow and advance FIRST in a way that benefits our members and the global security community.”

Five new Board of Directors with terms running until 2023 were also appointed during the AGM:

Tracy Bills - Sr. Cybersecurity Operations Researcher, CERT/CC
Tracy A. Bills is a Sr. Cybersecurity Operations Researcher at the CERT Division of Carnegie Mellon’s Software Engineering Institute, where her primary focus is on international cybersecurity capacity building. Tracy assists both public and private security operations centers (SOCs), computer security incident response teams (CSIRTs), and cybersecurity coordination centers to develop, implement, and refine effective processes.

Dr. Sherif Hashem - Visiting Computer Science Professor, SUNY Polytechnic Institute-USA
Dr. Hashem led key national cybersecurity efforts in Egypt, especially establishing EGCERT (2009) and drafting Egypt’s first National Cybersecurity Strategy (2017). Dr. Hashem was a member of the UN GGE (2012-13) and the Chairman of the ITU's CWG on Child on Line Protection (2010-17). He has spoken at several international events within the UN, ITU, African Union, OIC, OECD, OSCE, and the League of Arab States.

Michael Hausding - Competence Lead DNS & Domain Abuse, SWITCH-CERT
Michael Hausding works for SWITCH, the Swiss NREN and ccTLD for .ch. Michael holds a master’s in computer science from the University Darmstadt, a MAS in management, technology, and economics from the ETH Zürich, and a Diploma in Contemporary Diplomacy from the University of Malta.

Mona Elisabeth Østvang - Security researcher, mnemonic
Mona has several years of experience in security consulting and has been responsible for incident response in numerous large and complex security incidents. Mona has been involved in FIRST for over ten years.

Yukako Uchida - Manager Global Coordination Division, JPCERT/CC
Yuka joined JPCERT/CC in 2013 and has dedicated herself to global CSIRT engagement, especially as Secretariat for APCERT (Asia Pacific Computer Emergency Response Team). She also contributes to JPCERT/CC's blog as an author and translator.

“With the completion of the 2021 FIRST AGM, we have welcomed five new members to the Board of Directors. We were fortunate to have an excellent ballot of talented and qualified candidates vying for these positions. I am encouraged by the passion and excitement of the board and look forward to how we will respond and come together to drive the strategic priorities of the organization,” added Dave.

The new Board of Directors will join the existing Board of Directors; Javier Berciano of Citrix, Serge Droz of Proton Technologies AG, and Shawn Richardson of Nvidia. Their terms will continue until 2022.

Our Board of Directors is a group of individuals responsible for general operating policy, procedures, and related matters affecting the FIRST.Org, Inc. corporation. They are appointed through a thorough nomination process at the Annual General Meeting. You can find a complete list of board members here.

Also available in PDF

About FIRST

FIRST aspires to bring together incident response and security teams from every country across the world to ensure a safe internet for all. Founded in 1990, the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST) consists of internet emergency response teams from 575 corporations, government bodies, universities and other institutions across 98 countries in the Americas, Asia, Europe, Africa, and Oceania. https://www.first.org.

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