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The role of the Police and Crime Commissioner on the Regional Centre Board is an important one as it promotes the Centre as a nexus for trusted security.
There will be several key tasks associated with the PCC commissioner –
The NEBRC has some excellent organisations and companies involved at the Board level. Board Members meet quarterly and are required to provide oversight governance for the NEBRC and review direction and progress against plans.
Simon Newton, who is the current CEO of ITPS, has been named Chair of the Board. He has a 25-year background in senior management roles, having played a pivotal part in the growth of businesses spanning the IT, financial, professional services and clean energy sectors, which will see him leading the esteemed Board.
Find out more about our Board Members below.
Rebecca is a Superintendent with 29 years policing experience across uniform…
A technology professional with more than 25 years’ experience. After moving to…
Paul has been a police officer for 28 years, starting his career in Tilbury, Essex. He…
Babak Akhgar is Professor of Informatics, co-founder and Director of CENTRIC (Centre…
Jonathan Evison is the Police and Crime Commissioner for Humberside, elected in 2021…
Graeme Tizard is the Portfolio Manager and Operations Lead for Network…
Neil qualified as a solicitor in 1976, and spent 25 years in general, mainly commercial…
An advocate and champion of Neurodivergence in Information Security…
Scott currently leads the Cisco Cyber Security for UKI, across all lines of business…
Lee has worked in financial services for 35 years, with over 20 years experience in…
Joy Allen is Police and Crime Commissioner for County Durham and Darlington…
Ed Renwick has over 25 years experience in Data Centre, Cloud and Managed Service…
Rebecca is a Superintendent with 29 years policing experience across uniform and CID disciplines, both at a district level and central departments. She has a keen interest in collaboration and the cyber world, having worked on many collaborative projects, she has a proven track record of delivery. Rebecca has been a Tactical Firearms commander, Post Incident Manager, Silver CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear) commander and works for the South Yorkshire Force. She is currently seconded to the NE Region as Collaboration Lead for Cyber and the CEO/Director of the NEBRC. Rebecca is married to a retired Police Superintendent , lives in Sheffield and has two teenage children.
CEO Simon Newton has a 25-year background in senior management roles, having played a pivotal part in the growth of businesses spanning the IT, financial, professional services and clean energy sectors.
ITPS delivers intelligent technology solutions across cyber security, cloud, connectivity, managed services, professional services, and data and analytics. Our specialist security team offers expertise including: assessing current security posture, identifying gaps and potential weaknesses, recommending the right solutions, then monitoring and maintaining them on an ongoing basis using the latest threat intelligence.
A technology professional with more than 25 years’ experience. After moving to the UK Costas joined R&R Ice-cream as the European Head of IT where he developed and implemented the technology strategy, which aided the company’s growth to become a global player.
Following this and a period of working as a business consultant and strategist supporting retail start-ups, Costas joined Greencore. There he held several Head of IT and Director roles within this business where he helped with the modernisation of process areas spanning across digital and physical security, operations, finance, and infrastructure. As well as supporting the M&A activity, implementing key systems across multiple functions.
In 2020 during a national lockdown, Costas joined MJ Gleeson plc in April of 2020 as the Director of IT and Digital Transformation, taking on a new challenge.
Whilst at the plc he has successfully navigated the very demanding pandemic times, keeping the teams digitally safe while setting and delivering a clear digital strategy, delivering very ambitious projects across all functions which contributed to the success of achieving the target set five years ago of doubling the number of homes built from 1,000 to 2,000.
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“I decided to join the NEBRC to share knowledge and experience, combined with developing our understanding and further improving our access to resources and skills. My aim is through my participation to help our partners in the industry improve their understanding and as a result improve their security posture. Most of all I am excited to engage with people who truly understand the unique challenges and pressures we all face in today’s Cyber landscape”.
Paul has been a police officer for 28 years, starting his career in Tilbury, Essex. He has experience across the ranks, from community and investigative posts, through to specialist operations.
Paul transferred to Nottinghamshire Police as a Superintendent in 2008 as the Operations Commander for City North, developing skills and experience in organised crime, community cohesion and commander of specialist operations around firearms and public order. He led performance and partnerships portfolio for Nottinghamshire county division where in 2014 he was promoted upon transfer to Police Scotland.
There, he undertook a corporate role, before being appointed Commander for Tayside Division, leading over 1,100 officers and staff across the region.
During 2018 he held the position of T/ACC East, leading operational policing for the East of Scotland, with additional responsibility for National Criminal Justice and was operational lead for several Specialist operations.
Paul is an experienced Gold Commander for Firearms, Public Order and CBRN and has accredited as a multi-agency Strategic Commander, where he has led a number of significant high profile policing operations. He has previous experience at Silver and Bronze levels within these areas, with UK wide experience.
Paul is a graduate of London University Southbank with a Masters Degree in Sports Science and a diploma in applied psychology. Through the Chartered Management Institute Paul obtained the level 7 diploma in executive leadership. Married with two children, Paul is a keen and active sportsman and coach, with an interest in staff engagement and wellbeing.
Babak Akhgar is Professor of Informatics, co-founder and Director of CENTRIC (Centre of Excellence in Terrorism, Resilience, Intelligence and Organised Crime Research) at Sheffield Hallam University and Fellow of the British Computer Society. CENTRIC provides law enforcement agencies with state of the art capabilities to conduct a wide range of open source based investigation from Organised Crime network to Counter Terrorism. Babak has extensive hands on experience in development, management and execution of Intelligence Management projects in large international security initiatives. He is currently the technical lead of 2 EU Security projects “Profits” on Cyber Crime and Cyber Terrorism and “Tensor” on identification of terrorist generated content.
Babak has co-edited a book on Intelligence Management (Knowledge Driven Frameworks for Combating Terrorism and Organised Crime). His recent books are entitled Strategic Intelligence Management (National Security Imperatives and Information and Communications Technologies) Emerging Trends in ICT Security, Application of Big Data for National Security and Application of OSINT for Investigation and Dark Web Investigation for LEAs. In 2016 Babak was chairman of the Police Strategy forum.
Babak is a member of the Academic Advisory Board of SAS UK, Board member of ECTEG (European CyberCrime Training and Education Group), Board member of European Organisation for Security (EOS) and member of Europol External Advisory Board on data protection and member of Europol EC3 Academic Advisory Board.
Jonathan Evison is the Police and Crime Commissioner for Humberside, elected in 2021 for a three-year term of office.
He has served as a councillor on North Lincolnshire Council for ten years and was Chair of the Humberside Police and Crime Panel for six years before becoming PCC.
As a councillor his roles included Ambassador for Steel and Heavy Industry, Vice Chair of Planning, Chair of Scrutiny Panels and he was Mayor of North Lincolnshire for two years.
As PCC his priorities include:
Jonathan has joined the NEBRC board to support businesses and assist them to become more resilient against fraud and cybercrime.
Increasing awareness of the threats to business is vital if we are to protect ourselves against criminal activity.
Graeme Tizard is the Portfolio Manager and Operations Lead for Network & Infrastructure Systems at Thales.
Graeme is responsible for the delivery of projects and programmes that ensure the security, integrity and resilience of networks that are critical for UK Public Sector and Defence customers.
Prior to his involvement with Thales, Graeme was the IT Director at Doncaster College, responsible for IS and IT Strategy, Operational Service Delivery, Web Development, Change Management, Financial Management, IT risk, IT Security, DPA, DR and BCP.
Neil qualified as a solicitor in 1976, and spent 25 years in general, mainly commercial and litigation, law practice. Since 2000, he has operated an independent legal and business consultancy which provides affordable legal and business assistance for SME’s. In 2013, Neil became accredited as a Commercial Mediator.
Neil has been a member of the Federation of Small Businesses since 1981 and held local and regional office. He is currently FSB English Policy Chair for the Home Office and Ministry of Justice portfolios, and also Intellectual Property lead on the FSB BEIS/Innovation Committee.
He was a member of Louth Chamber of Business from 1990 to 2015 and served as President for five years. He was board member of his local Town Partnership for two years. He undertakes mentoring for startups as part of the Prince’s Trust support scheme and has recently become an Enterprise Adviser for schools.
His varied experience in business, the community, and policy lobbying equips him to address a wide range of issues and situations from both technical and practical standpoints. He has been involved in setting up the Lincolnshire Cyber Security Forum which launched earlier this year and is seeking to enable any future East Midlands cyber resilience related centre to be located in Lincoln.
An advocate and champion of Neurodivergence in Information Security Adam can articulate the benefits that Neurodivergent individuals bring to the field and how, through “Passion Matching” it is possible to achieve maximisation of engagement and output in a Neurodiverse environment.
Adam, who is a Director – Cyber Security at CGI, is an experienced Senior Certified Cyber Professional (SCCP) and pride himself on a robust and resilient, change adaptive & critical thinking mind-set augmented with strong leadership characteristics and problem-solving capabilities.
Adam feels that CGI encourages individuals to “Bring your whole self to work” in an environment that is open to everyone, this has given him a setting where he can be himself and grow with no judgement!
Adams experience is founded in Governance, Risk & Compliance and he has significant experience of secure system assurance & accreditation gained working in HMG and large-scale corporate environments.
By adopting a pragmatic and business centric approach to Cyber and Information Security he can ensure that industry best practice and policy adherence is both achieved and maintained, in line with risk tolerance & appetite, by building solid trust relationships with key stakeholders and working collaboratively with business partners. This ensures that a robust security posture can be achieved, assured, and maintained in line with business strategy ensuring that security can be recognised as a “business enabler”.
Scott currently leads the Cisco Cyber Security for UKI, across all lines of business. Scott is focused on enhancing Cisco’s Security Architecture business by helping customers defend themselves before, during and after security incidents.
Manson leads a team focused on Cisco’s vision to deliver intelligent cybersecurity for the real world, providing one of the industry’s most comprehensive advanced threat protection portfolios of solutions across the broadest set of attack vectors.
In his previous role as Leader for Data Center (ACI) and Virtualization operations at Cisco, Manson led the region and partners across emerging markets driving and executing the company’s investment areas and strategy shifts for the architecture. He also sponsored the collaboration businesses.
Scott has over 18 years of experience in Information Technology sales and consulting. His technology background includes Data Center management, Middleware, Software and Application technologies. He is ITIL certified and versed in the principles of Business Service Management (BSM).
SMBs can access through our partnership support with Enterprise grade technology, education and support which has been perfectly curated for SMB’s.
Lee has worked in financial services for 35 years, with over 20 years experience in Economic Crime roles. Having worked across several global banking groups, his currently role is as the Director of the Economic Crime Risk Management Framework team at Lloyds Banking Group, responsible for Policy, Oversight and Reporting across the organisation. Lee is also active across industry roles and is the current chair of the UK Finance Fraud Committee, along with sitting on the Economic Crime Product and Services Board.
Joy Allen is Police and Crime Commissioner for County Durham and Darlington and was elected in May 2021.
Joy has spent most of her career working in the public sector for Durham Constabulary, Sedgefield Borough Council, Middlesbrough Council and County Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue Service, as Head of Service and Area Manager for Community Safety. She was elected to Durham County Council in 2013 and appointed to the Cabinet in 2015, where she held the Safer Communities Portfolio.
In 2017, Joy was appointed to lead Durham County Council’s Transformation Programme. She was then elected as Mayor of Bishop Auckland in 2019 and was a cabinet member for Transformation, Culture and Tourism, before going on to take on her current role.
Commissioner Allen is the APCC Joint Lead for Alcohol and Substance Misuse, looking to address the detrimental effects of addiction and substance misuse in our communities. She also holds the title as Joint Lead for Environment and Sustainability and Deputy Lead for Road Safety and Emergency Service Collaboration.
Please also see info on Joy’s role below:
The PCC is responsible for:
Liz Murray is the Enterprise Customer Success Manager at Cybsafe. Liz’s prior experiences were in the military where her security ethos and values were honed, then latterly in the global financial services sector moving from the wider risk and control arena to leading the creation and embedding of global organisational people risk-based programmes.
These roles have given her a depth of understanding of using a data driven approach to reporting, helping to address people risk for regulatory compliance whilst creatively engaging colleagues at all levels. Her aim has always been to positively influence security behaviours to help everyone understand how to protect themselves online. She uses the “would Mum understand?” test on creating memorable security analogies. If the technical detail can’t be turned into a physical world analogy that her Mum would understand, it’s still too technical to create the “what do I need to do, and why should I care?” hooks that help us all embed secure behaviours.
Liz speaks regularly at events covering the importance of human factors in security, of positively valuing security as part of an organisational culture, and understanding the role played by mental health and wellbeing in preventing security incidents.
Ed Renwick has over 25 years experience in Data Centre, Cloud and Managed Service solutions, with a focus on data storage, data management and security along with experience in virtualisation, backup and archiving. Ed is based in Yorkshire but comes originally from Newcastle and brings a wealth of experience to be the board and has worked for organisations such as Oracle, Pillar Data, Arcserve and Virgin.
Acronis protect the data, applications, systems and productivity of every organization – safeguarding them against cyberattacks, hardware failures, natural disasters and human errors. They empower service providers to protect their infrastructure and the infrastructure of their clients while maintaining high profit margins. They enable corporate IT teams and home office users to protect their business’ critical infrastructure with high reliability and a low cost.
Acronis Cyber Protection Solutions cover all five vectors of cyber protection – safety, accessibility, privacy, authenticity and security (SAPAS). Their unique automation features and ever-expanding network of integrations ensure that partners and customers stay protected at all five stages – prevention, detection, response, recovery and forensics – through a single comprehensive solution.
Debra Cairns joined Net Defence in 2018 as Head of GRC having dedicated over 19 years of her career to the multinational consumer goods corporation, Proctor & Gamble (P&G). It was in this previous role that Debra gained essential financial and IT experience that has become integral to her role as Managing Director of Net Defence, the position she took on in 2020.
Debra has successfully built a team of industry-leading specialists with expertise in cyber security, IT support, and telephony, and has assembled a UK-wide sales team to bring Net Defences services and solutions directly to the businesses that need them.
Debra and the Net-Defence team are focused on eliminating fear rather than exploiting it. Instead, they’re dedicated to shifting the current narrative, seeking to remove the anxieties associated with the cyber industry and educate businesses on how to effectively protect their infrastructure.
Debra is committed to simplifying cyber security and educating businesses on best practices, ensuring training, support and knowledge is affordable, attainable and available for all.
