NZX COO Mandy Simpson to head new cyber security centre, Cyber Toa

Total Risk Management has split of its former cyber security division as Cyber Toa and has named NZX COO, Mandy Simpson as it is CEO.

Announcing the move, Total Risk Management said: “Establishing Cyber Toa allows the team to focus exclusively on the requirements of our clients in this specialist area. … Christopher Ward, director of cyber operations and Lisa Turner, director of cyber training bring decades of technical and operational experience and will provide expert leadership to the Cyber Toa team.”

Since May this year the division has been offering Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute (SEI) certified cyber security courses in New Zealand in conjunction with Victoria University. It is Asia-Pacific’s only SEI Partner, and one of only nine partners worldwide.

The SEI is a not-for-profit research and development centre at Carnegie Mellon University, established by the US Department of Defense to focus on software engineering and cyber security, and funded by the US Government.

According to Victoria University, “SEI courses are the recognised industry standard for the best continuing education and credentialing for engineering and software professionals in government, industry and higher education.”

The university welcomed Simpson’s appointment saying it was “further testimony to the quality and impact of Cyber Toa.”

Professor Dale Carnegie, Dean of the University’s Faculty of Engineering, said: “Cyber Toa’s status as one of just 10 certified training partners in the world of the gold-standard Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at Carnegie Mellon University in the United States and Mandy’s extraordinary leadership skills makes for cyber security capability and potential unmatched in New Zealand.”

The University also announced that a new Master of Cyber Security, course would be added to the cyber security training it offers in partnership with Cyber Toa. A range of undergraduate degrees is also proposed.

“In addition, Cyber Toa’s existing SEI-accredited cyber security training delivered in association with Victoria is being expanded to eventually include all 42 courses the SEI has available,” the University said.

“Cyber Toa and Victoria will be the only provider in the Southern Hemisphere to offer all the courses, teaching them in Wellington and Auckland, and if demand requires in Australia and other Asia-Pacific countries.”

The partnership also sees the establishment of a commercial computer security incident response team, or CSIRT, run by Cyber Toa and based at Victoria’s Kelburn campus, where it will offer proactive and reactive cyber security support to businesses and other clients.