High Five: Meet Andre Gold, Head Of Technology Risk Management At INGHigh Five: Meet Andre Gold, Head Of Technology Risk Management At ING

Photograph by James Leynse

1

TRAILBLAZER
In 2002, Gold was tapped to be Continental's first executive-level security manager. The airline's former CIO, Janet Wejman, told him, "I want you to run security, but I'm not giving you a budget, and you can only take one person" from the e-commerce team he'd been on.

2

COMPETITION TAKES WING
Setting security priorities depends on the type of business you're defending. At Continental, logons and passwords became cumbersome when gate and ticketing agents had to share the same computer in a terminal so planes could be loaded promptly and customers kept happy. If they're not happy, "they don't even have to walk across the street to do business with a competitor." His job at ING is to deal with risk at a higher level: "Are we ready in the event of an unplanned outage?"

3

FLYING HIGH
Between 2005 and May of this year, Gold served on the Data Link Security Subcommittee, an aviation industry board that's "drafting security protocols that will enable not only Wi-Fi connectivity, but also determine the way future aircraft connect to respective carrier networks, offload messages, and upload data like gate information."

4

MAN ON THE RUN
Gold likens his day-to-day responsibilities at ING to a sprint, whereas the pace at Continental was more of a marathon. At ING, "we run harder and faster while we're at the office," but the work/life balance is more distinct.

5

GET A BACKBONE
There are many traits needed to do security well, not the least of which is "having a backbone. Your vision will be challenged all the time. And a lot of time, business units won't be able to deliver on projects once you work in the security considerations."