Netskope appoints Samantha MacLeod and Nicholas McKenzie to CxO advisory board

Cybersecurity company Netskope has appointed two leaders to its international advisory board for Asia Pacific.

Samantha MacLeod and Nicholas McKenzie are set to join the Netskope as CxO board advisors in order to support customers navigating security transformation projects.

According to David Fairman, CIO and CSO for APAC at Netskope, "Samantha and Nicholas are two of the most experienced cyber security professionals in our region, and I couldn’t have hoped for better leaders to join us and kick off our CxO advisory team in APAC.

Nicholas McKenzie and Samantha MacLeod, Netskope International Advisory Board

“Samantha and Nicholas bring diverse and unique sets of knowledge, and have experience driving major security transformations involving complex conversations with executives and boards. These are rare skills that our customers and teams will be able to tap, and I thank them for their involvement."

MacLeod brings 20 years’ experience in technology and security, with her most recent role as general manager at NBN in charge of security risk, consulting, privacy and security assurance. She was also previously the CISO at ME Bank, and at AGL Energy. Prior to this, Macleod held senior leadership positions at GE Capital, NAB, GE Money and Oracle.

"Many organisations, especially SMEs, continue to be challenged by cyber security problems in APAC. This advisory role is an opportunity for me to share knowledge with more executives, and help strengthen cyber risk management practices across more organisations, including through advocacy of Netskope’s platform.

"In doing so, I hope to create more opportunities for Netskope to help customers automate the protection of their data and improve their overall understanding of complex security challenges,” she said.

Alongside her work for Netskope, MacLeod will continue to operate as an independent cyber security consultant.

McKenzie also brings over 20 years’ experience to the Netskope advisory board. He is the CISO at Bugcrowd, and has held previous CISO and CSO roles at NAB, Standard Chartered Bank, JP Morgan as well as responsibilities at Royal Bank of Scotland and UBS. He has also held advisory board CISO member roles for Google, AWS, La Trobe University and Digital Shadows as well as chairing Red Piranha’s advisory board.

"Cyber security is a team effort. The more cyber security companies and professionals collaborate with one another, the more we will achieve cyber resilience among organisations,” he said.

"A board advisory role for Netskope as an opportunity to embrace this philosophy. Using my industry knowledge and global network, I’m aiming to help more APAC executives and organisations with advice and guidance, and, as a Netskope user myself, help them understand how the solutions better enable security transformations."