With all eyes on privacy rights, forward-looking businesses are re-examining their social media, e-commerce and data mining strategies and looking for new ways forward. Motivating factors include the Facebook Cambridge Analytica scandal and the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which goes into full effect May 25, 2018. The takeaway – learn to play by the new rules or suffer the consequences.
Your company is probably wondering where it will find the leadership to help them avoid the landmines ahead in this new GDPR world order. Shifting the focus of ownership of data back to individuals is a boon for citizens, but it’s a nightmare for today’s companies and organizations that must comply regardless of their physical location as their sprawling global digital footprints expand.
Programs like Brown University’s Executive Master in Cybersecurity (EMCS) are preparing professionals to meet these demands. Tailored for industry professionals, over the course of 18-months program students broaden their skillset beyond their area of expertise to develop global, cybersecurity strategies that span IT, policy, human factors, and privacy.
They accumulate this knowledge by studying with Brown’s leading academics across policy and technology, and engaging with industry luminaries that makeup the program’s all-star speaking list. Professional students – who hail from various functions, industries and geographies – also gain insights into each other’s efforts to get ahead of not only digital attacks but a rapidly evolving regulatory environment.
In this unique program, students tackle a variety of challenging material. A sampling of courses may look like this:
- Applied Cryptography and Data Security with Brown University Computer Science Professor Anna Lysyanskaya— a leading thinker in the area of encryption and anonymity.
- Global Cyber Challenges: Law, Policy, and Governance with Brown University Watson Institute Senior Fellow Tim Edgar, who served as the first Director of Privacy on the White House National Security Staff under the Obama Administration.
- Privacy and Personal Data Protection with Brown Adjunct Professor Deborah Hurley, and a fellow of the Institute for Quantitative Social Science, Harvard University
Students such as Michael Mangold EMCS ’19, senior manager at Deloitte & Touche, LLP, are leading the way in GDPR compliance practices. In his role, Mangold works with Fortune 100 companies as they wrestle with the scope, strategy and program components for GDPR compliance. Mangold discussed the role EMCS’ interdisciplinary curriculum played in helping him lead through this tumultuous regulatory environment.
“EMCS is built around a recognition that strategy is the best security. It leverages this pedagogical approach to pull together the technical, legal, and business elements of cybersecurity. It has been an incredible experience that enables me to take my consulting game to the next level.”
To ensure you have the critical skills needed to be a cybersecurity leader, learn more about the Brown University Executive Master in Cybersecurity, an 18-month program for professionals designed to cultivate high-demand industry executives with the unique ability to devise and execute integrated, comprehensive cybersecurity strategies.
