Building and Supporting a K-12 Cybersecurity Posture

Presented by Lenny Schad, Chief Information & Innovation Officer, District Administration; Keith Weisman, Senior Director and Engineer, SentinelOne; Rob Eidson, Security Product Manager, ENA; John Butler, Director, Cyber/E&O Industry Leader, CNA Finance; and Paul Caiazzo, Chief Information Security Officer and Senior Vice President, Avertium
Moderated by Dr. Tom Ryan, Co-Founder, K-12 Strategic Technology Advisory Group (K12STAG)

Sponsored by ENA

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Today’s school districts are facing ongoing cybersecurity risks that require teams to identify, analyze, and assess their vulnerabilities. Watch Dr. Tom Ryan, recently retired CIO and Strategy Officer of Santa Fe Public Schools, and Lenny Schad, Chief Information & Innovation Officer for District Administration, as they discuss best practices school districts are implementing to strengthen their K-12 cybersecurity posture. They are joined by security industry experts from SentinelOne, Avertium, CNA Finance, and ENA to discuss critical topics such as risk management, endpoint protection, cybersecurity insurance, and the evolving security needs of K-12 districts.

This recorded edLeader Panel is of interest to district leaders, education technology leaders, and chief technology officers at all grade levels.

About the Presenters

An accomplished CIO, Lenny Schad’s goal is to bring technology to the strategic planning table. He has transformed IT departments from afterthoughts into critically strategic and integral players in business strategy—all to empower industry-leading innovation and sustainable company growth.

As a former Chief Technology and Innovation Officer for Houston ISD, he led HISD to become the nationwide best-practice model for technology integration and digital transformation with multiyear initiatives, including: (1) mobile device deployment, (2) digital content conversion, (3) strategic partnership with mobile providers for free MiFi Internet, and (4) a new digital content repository and LMS systems. He has led companies of diverse sizes, from start-ups and joint ventures to mature global enterprises—sometimes leading multinational operations—and multiple business sectors, including investment banking, education, government, energy, and hospitality. He inspires leaders on all levels to embrace innovation and contribute their unique skills to accomplish our vision.

Lenny is an early adopter of boundary-pushing technologies and balances risk and reward in all IT decisions. By leveraging insights from business analytics, performance metrics, and financial acumen, he identifies, implements, and optimizes transformational technologies that benefit operational performance.

Keith Weisman has over 20 years of experience focused on endpoint detection, prevention and response, network security, security event management, computer forensics and incident investigation, remediation, and recovery. Keith has significant hands-on and advisory experience in cybersecurity and technology across multiple verticals, including education. Keith currently serves his clients as a senior director of sales engineering at SentinelOne.

For just over a decade, Rob Eidson dedicated his early career to military service, with a focus on security, operational efficiencies, risk management, and safety of life. Presently, he is focused on the technology industry where he is using the same skill set to help build technology for good. He is currently the security product manager for ENA.

John Butler is a Director-Cyber/E&O Industry Leader at CNA Financial, where he collaborates with cross-functional stakeholders in managing the overall cyber portfolio and underwriting strategy to achieve growth and profitability.

John has worked in the insurance industry for 20 years in various underwriting and leadership roles. He has achieved two insurance designations, RPLU+ and CPLP, from the Professional Liability Underwriting Society, reflecting his commitment to the Professional and Cyber Liability insurance industry.

Paul Caiazzo has dedicated his career to advancing the field of global cybersecurity. In his current role as Senior Vice President at Avertium, Paul focuses on business development and strategic initiatives. Prior to Avertium, Paul was the co-founder and CEO of TruShield Security Solutions, which was acquired by Sunstone Partners as one of the founding companies of Avertium.

His foundation in the finance industry gave him first-hand experience in how crippling cybersecurity issues can be for individuals, businesses, and even the Federal Government. This sparked his interest in building a company where he could help clients not just understand the risks they face, but also combat them with effective mitigation strategies.

About the Moderator

Tom Ryan, Ph.D. is Co-founder of K-12 Strategic Technology Advisory Group (K12STAG), which is led by public school chief information officers who understand the challenges school leaders face. He is an education professional with 40+ years of K-12 experience. He has a Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction and over 16 years as a chief information officer in large districts. He is engaged in leadership activities in several state and national organizations including Chairman of the Board for the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN). He is also active in the Council of the Great City Schools (CGCS) including large school district IT reviews of infrastructure, strategic planning, instructional technology, and digital transformation efforts. He also helps coordinate the CGCS annual CIO conferences. Dr. Ryan is a senior fellow for the Center of Digital Education and presents at several international, national, and state conferences throughout the year.

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ENA delivers transformative technology solutions supported by exceptional customer care. We work with our customers to engineer high-capacity and future-ready connectivity, communication, cloud, security, and data analytics solutions to education institutions and libraries across the nation.