Brad Olive Announced as Executive Director of the Initiative
Princeton, NJ – June 2, 2022 – ISMG is pleased to announce the appointment of Brad Olive as executive director of CyberEd.io; and Kyle Schmechel, as product manager at CyberEd.io – ISMG’s edtech initiative focused on ongoing professional cybersecurity education. Olive and Schmechel are the latest additions to this fast-growing global team.
Cybersecurity programs all over the world lack qualified resources. The need today is far exceeding the current number of practitioners at all levels in the field. CyberEd.io aims to fill the skill gap in cybersecurity, by providing education and training globally at all levels – from entry-level applicants to mid-level professionals who want to focus on specific cybersecurity skills, and senior practitioners and C-suite stakeholders who desire to keep abreast of the latest cybersecurity topics and emerging strategies.
“At ISMG, education, awareness, and actionable insight for the cybersecurity professional community have been at the core of everything we have done since founding of the company. We believe that the demand for qualified cybersecurity practitioners in all disciplines will outstrip supply for years to come,” said Sanjay Kalra, CEO at ISMG. “The addition of Brad and Kyle is a step in the right direction on the journey to address that challenge and create a world-class cybersecurity education initiative, backed by industry certifications and partnerships.”
CyberEd.io’s courseware is developed by a panel of industry-leading practitioners and partners and focuses on technical, business, and managerial skills in cybersecurity. This extensive courseware is based on essential cybersecurity skills required for different job roles in a modern-day organization. The learning pathways designed for this coursework are based on industry standards and frameworks, including the widely accepted National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) NICE Framework.
Brad Olive joins the team as the executive director for CyberEd.io to lead this effort. With over 25 years of experience in business development and security, Olive was the learning services program director at IBM Security. He built the IBM Security Learning Academy that provides technical training on a wide range of cybersecurity topics, including training for IBM Security products.
“In over two decades as a cybersecurity practitioner, I have keenly felt the massive gap between the industry’s need for qualified cybersecurity practitioners at all levels, and the quality and quantum of available resource to meet this growing requirement,” said Olive. “This position is tailor made for my background in the domain, and I am truly very excited to be joining ISMG at this juncture and leading the charge.”
Kyle Schmechel joins the initiative as a product manager for CyberEd.io. He is a certified information systems security professional. In his previous role at Sony, he was senior manager, awareness and training, and was responsible for raising cybersecurity awareness by developing, implementing, maintaining, and measuring creative and effective solutions to “Secure the Human” element of Sony.
“I am thrilled to be joining the core team at CyberEd.io to help make the vision of a 360-degree cybersecurity education platform, a reality,” said Schmechel. “I believe that the work we are doing at CyberEd.io has the power to truly transform the cybersecurity domain, and create a new standard for ongoing, professional cybersecurity education.”
With a rapid increase in criminal activities on the web and in the underground and nation-sponsored attack on corporate networks on one hand, and the reliance on digital transformation on the other, the need for skilled and qualified cybersecurity practitioners in all disciplines is at an all-time high.
According to the (ISC)² Cybersecurity Workforce Study 2021, at the end of 2021, there was a cybersecurity workforce gap of 377,000 jobs in the U.S and 2.7 million globally. The Cybersecurity Workforce Estimate, along with the Cybersecurity Workforce Gap, suggests the global cybersecurity workforce needs to grow 65% to effectively defend organizations’ critical assets.
The appointment of Olive and Schmechel will help elevate CyberEd.io’s efforts in achieving its mission to ‘close-the-gap’ — including the skills, gender, education, time, distance, and anything else that’s coming in the way of having a level of workforce that meets the needs of the cybersecurity field today, through comprehensive cybersecurity education and multi-disciplinary training.
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About ISMG
Information Security Media Group (ISMG) is a global education and intelligence company focused on cybersecurity. ISMG maintains the world’s largest network devoted solely to information security and risk management. Each of our thirty media properties provides education, research, and news, specifically tailored to key vertical sectors including banking, healthcare, and the public sector; geographies from North America to Southeast Asia; and topics such as data breach prevention, cyber risk assessment and fraud. Our annual global summit series connects senior security professionals with industry thought leaders to find actionable solutions for pressing cybersecurity challenges.
About CyberEd.io
CyberEd.io is on a mission to ‘close-the-gap’ and provide comprehensive cybersecurity education to the industry. Millions of cybersecurity jobs go unfilled today globally due to essential skills shortage. From basic cybersecurity skills to jobs/role specific skills – the shortage for qualified resources is over the spectrum. And this gap continues to expand with every new attack, every new technology innovation introduced at an organization, with every new compliance requirement, and with every new business initiative that extends an organization beyond its physical boundaries and geographical reach. CyberEd.io provides the cybersecurity training and education needed to fill this gap. Taught by a faculty of industry renowned practitioners, the courseware on CyberEd.io is focused on building resiliency and improving the capability maturity for cybersecurity programs at organizations of every size.
