About Us

About Us

NATIONAL CREDIT UNION CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE

Credit unions represent a major segment of the financial services critical infrastructure with 6,600+ institutions in the US and globally more than 57,000 credit unions in 105 countries on six continents.  As credit unions continue to maximize technology and telecommunications to serve their members on a global scale and also continue to face more cyber regulatory scrutiny, regardless of a credit union’s size, these demands raise “cyber resilience, cyber security and mitigating risk” to the very top of the priority list.

CREDIT UNION CYBER RESILIENCE

Credit Union cyber resilience is dependent upon access to the real-time availability of proactive “actionable” threat intelligence, analysis, coordinated countermeasure response, best practice adoption, and role-based workforce education.  Protecting critical infrastructure requires an unprecedented level of cooperation, collaboration, and coordination supported by an infrastructure connected trusted sector and cross-sector communities.

OUR MISSION

The mission of the NCU-ISAO is to enable and sustain Credit Union critical infrastructure cyber resilience and preserve the public trust by advancing trusted security coordination and collaboration to identify, protect, detect, respond and recover from threats and vulnerabilities.

LEADERSHIP

The National Credit Union ISAO’s team is comprised of an experienced group of industry leaders in cyber security, information sharing and member associations.  Our organization is supported by a credit union industry leadership team and advanced technology partners to support our organization’s mission and it’s members with advanced intelligence management and analysis.

NCU-ISAO Credit Union Industry Leadership Advisory Board

The NCU-ISAO was formed in 2016 at Kennedy Space Center as a collaborative idea of credit unions, CUSOs, and Leagues to help the industry navigate the flooded waters of threat intelligence and alerts, and focus on credit union-specific issues around operations, risk, compliance through information sharing and collaboration.

True to this founding principle, the NCU-ISAO established a Leadership Advisory Board comprised of key stakeholders from a diverse range of backgrounds and roles from within the credit union industry.  The mission of this Board is to represent NCU-ISAO members from wide range of credit union, CUSO and league perspectives and to help advance the organization’s mission in the best interest of these stakeholders.

Corporate Officers

Gene Fredriksen, CISM, CRISC

NCU-ISAO President

Accomplished Industry CISO (Ret.)

Gene has over thirty-five years of Information Technology experience, with the last thirty focused specifically in the area of Information Security. In this capacity, he has been heavily involved with all areas of Audit and Security.  In 2019, he was named as one of the top three Information Security Executives of the last thirty years by SC Media.

Gene recently retired as long-time CISO and Chief Security Strategist for PSCU. He is also Co-founder and currently serves as a Director and President of the National Credit Union ISAO. Gene has held the positions of Global CISO for Tyco International, Principal Consultant for Security and Risk Management Strategies for Burton Group, Vice President of Technology Risk Management and Chief Security Officer for Raymond James Financial, headquartered in St. Petersburg, Florida, and Information Security Manager for American Family Insurance.  He is a member of multiple advisory boards for universities, organizations, and security product companies

He served as the Chair of the Security and Risk Assessment Steering Committee for BITS, as well as serving on the R&D committee for the Financial Services Sector Steering Committee of the Department of Homeland Security.  He also served as an advisor on various cyber security steering committees for the administration of George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, assisting in the preparation of the president’s Cyber Security Position Paper.

Brian Hinze, MBA

NCU-ISAO Treasurer

VP, Member Services & Operations at NCU-ISAO

Brian Hinze is the VP, Member Services & Operations, and serves as a Director and Treasurer for the NCU-ISAO.  Brian is responsible for overseeing the organizational operations and acting as the primary liaison for its members, leadership and working groups, as well as new member development.

Brian is committed to the success of the organization’s members and their journey to cyber resilience.   He joined the organization shortly after its inception and brings 20 years of experience participating in and leading member associations.  Brian has also worked in for-profit industry for international companies, while also leading small business-focused teams.  Brian has received multiple individual industry awards in his career, while completing several respected technical, sales and leadership training programs across multiple industries.

Deborah Kobza, CGEIT, JIEM

NCU-ISAO Secretary

President, International Association of Certified ISAOs

Mrs. Kobza is a Director and Co-founder of the NCU-ISAO, and also serves as Secretary.  She is also the President and Co-Founder of the International Association of Certified ISAOs (IACI).  Prior to forming IACI and the NCU-ISAO, Mrs. Kobza is the Founder and served as Executive Director of the National Health Information Sharing & Analysis Center (NH-ISAC or H-ISAC) for the nation’s healthcare and public health critical infrastructure,  working directly with health sector stakeholders,  the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, US HHS Office of the National Coordinator, and the FDA.

Mrs. Kobza serves as a strategist and has 30+ years of experience and expertise in the areas of strategic alignment of business/technology domains, governance,  cybersecurity,  IV&V quality assurance, technologies, workforce education and applied research and implementation of proven best practices for public- and private-sector organizations, continue to contribute to critical infrastructure protection.