Farooq Naiyer is an accomplished cybersecurity leader and is currently serving as the Chief Executive Officer of NKST, a platform dedicated to cybersecurity research and collaboration.
With over 20 years of extensive experience in cybersecurity, privacy, technology compliance, and assurance, Farooq has held prominent roles in global organizations. He has also served as the Global Lead for Technology and Cyber Assurance at Munich Re, one of the world’s leading reinsurance companies.
Farooq has an impressive career trajectory, including serving as the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) for ORION, Canada’s largest research and education network, and as a virtual CISO for Ontario’s higher education sector. He has also held C-suite positions in leading financial institutions across the Middle East and South Asia and has previously worked with Big Four consulting firms. His groundbreaking initiatives as CISO of DIB Bank earned him the CSO Compass Award in 2010. He was also honored with the Presidential Award by EC-Council in 2019 for organizing Canada’s first EC-Council CISO forum and championing the Certified CISO standard in Canada.
Farooq is a sought-after speaker and educator, having delivered lectures and workshops on IT assurance, information security management, and IT compliance at renowned universities in North America and South Asia. He has contributed significantly to the cybersecurity community, serving on boards for local chapters of the Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA) and governing bodies for leading cybersecurity conferences in North America. He is also an advisory board member for the EC-Council’s Certified Threat Intelligence Analyst program, the Technical Advisory Committee for AI-Hub at Durham College, and the Master’s in Cybersecurity & Threat Intelligence program at the University of Guelph.
Farooq’s vision and dedication to advancing cybersecurity standards have cemented his reputation as a thought leader and innovator in the field.
