Optiv Security, the world’s leading security solutions integrator, announced it has named Nigel Gilhespy as European services director and Rob Lay as director of solutions architecture in Europe, two key appointments that support the company’s global services expansion and international growth strategy. Gilhespy is focused on developing and expanding Optiv’s security services capabilities in Europe to meet the evolving cybersecurity needs of locally-based organizations and global clients. Lay is responsible for working with clients to help them select the right technology and solutions to rationalize infrastructure, optimize operations, and meet unique business objectives.
“Chief information security officers and other technology executives in Europe – and around the world – are facing unprecedented challenges,” said†Simon Church, general manager and executive vice president, Europe. “Their adversaries are unrelenting, creative and effective. Their defenses are complex, expensive and manpower-intensive. They have little, if any, empirical insight into how much money their organizations should be spending or on which areas that money should be spent. And, their ability to effectively measure and report on the security operation’s impact against corporate business goals make it difficult for them to gain a ‘seat at the table’ in the executive suite and the boardroom. The cybersecurity industry has gotten into this predicament largely due to a reactive approach, buying technologies based on latest trends and vulnerabilities rather than investing in the right people, processes, and technologies to balance security and business needs.
“Optiv is uniquely positioned to help global clients improve the consistency and effectiveness of their security programs, and minimize cost. We are seeing solid momentum in Europe as clients embrace our ‘inside out’ risk-centric approach to security, where security investments are driven by corporate objectives rather than fear of external threats and vulnerabilities. I am extremely pleased to welcome Nigel and Rob to the Optiv team, and look forward to leveraging their business, technical and client service experience to help more public and private entities build sustainable risk-centric foundations for implementing proactive and measurable cybersecurity programs.”
Gilhespy brings to his role at Optiv more than 30 years of business, leadership and technical expertise, including building, running and growing world-class professional services and consulting organizations for top cybersecurity companies in EMEA. He was previously head of consulting and professional services EMEA for Palo Alto Networks, where he achieved 90 percent customer satisfaction and 100 percent year-over-year growth. Gilhespy also served as head of professional and consulting services, EMEA enterprise for Juniper Networks, where he managed global practices for security, mobility, SDN, core routing, and OSS, among others. In addition, Gilhespy has held leadership positions at IBM and Equinix.
Lay is an information security strategist and disruptive thinker with more than a decade of experience in information security consulting roles. He joined Optiv from Fujitsu’s UK&I where he led the pre-sales organization. Lay previously served as senior information security consultant for Integralis, and as principal information security consultant after the company rebranded as NTT Com Security. In those roles, Lay was responsible for operational management, development, and strategy of client-specific onsite security operations centers; and provided security operations consulting to major account clients, including designing, building, oversight, operations and ongoing optimization and strategy.
