Ralph Nerette

Provide one-on-one mentoring and guidance to students in the cyber security career track.

-Build a comprehensive cybersecurity program that provides actionable and measurable controls designed to improve the cybersecurity posture -Manage third-party vendor assessments and MSSP to ensure a collaborative and productive partnership - Evaluate and recommend appropriate courses of action for privacy and security-related matters as a part of the privacy and security group - Develop cyber security program to account for significant areas of risk and security operations - Develop and implement a Vulnerability management program to provide visibility and accountability for all layers of the organization. - Audit security controls, develop and implement remediation plans according to NIST CSF, 800-53

- Cultivated a culture of growth and service that increased productivity and customer retention over 50% in 3 months. - Aligned sales and marketing targets to industry metrics and increased in tore traffic over time using Google Ads and Meta (Facebook) Business Platforms - Developed a customized client retention playbook focused on simplicity to improve productivity and help employees attain their monthly goals

-Drove the Information Security team in developing processes and procedures for incident response, change management, monitoring and threat intelligence reviews. -Built relationships with internal business owners to collaborate effectively in the implementation of Secure Software Development practices to significantly decrease the attack surfaces. - Integrate Security in the CI/CD pipeline and move towards a DevSecOps model in leveraging continuous vulnerability assessment and remediation -Modernized the vulnerability management program to convey improved visibility into the global information security posture of the organization and optimized the reporting of KPI to stakeholders - Partnered with external vendors to align security and business objectives to the security operation center's practices to institute recurring reviews and evaluations of vulnerabilities industry best practices using NIST, ATT&CK and CIS best practices.

Direct efforts for the overall maintenance of the Network and Security groups, development of processes to improve network uptime, visibility, and agility, through the implementation of risk-awareness and key performance indicators to efficiently validate process effectiveness. - Manage department budget per CIO direction for Capital and Operational expenses to maintain operational effectiveness of the network and recommend new technologies that keep the business competitive. - Recommend, purchase, Design, implement and maintain security solutions to enhance defense in depth layers across all data centers and branch offices based on NIST best practices for Risk Management Framework (RMF) - Ensure operational effectiveness of security and monitoring tools and maximize their value for the Enterprise and with external vendors to provide early identification and visibility across all infrastructure assets. - Audit network configurations and security policies to ensure they meet industry best-practices and identify where vulnerabilities exist to develop Plans of Action and Milestones for remediation. - Develop process and procedures for SOC operations to include: Incident response, threat evaluation and mitigation plans. - Implemented new monitoring platform to analyze several hundred data points from servers, applications, and network and security devices in order to identify problems early and engage the right resources for remediation. - Created procedures for Network and Security Operation Centers on how to respond to incidents and engage with external and internal stakeholders for escalation and resolution through alerts and notification systems. - Designed and Implemented SSL decryption for ingress and egress traffic to ensure complete end to end visibility to meet audit and compliance requirements.

Served as an adjunct faculty in the school of computer information systems. Developed curriculum material, syllabus, for teaching undergraduate classes in the following areas: - firewalls - intrusion prevention systems - digital forensics - information security ethics - ethical hacking - database systems - networking - client/server systems - wireless

Headed overall Information Technology and Security Systems direction for all system operations to support extensive enterprise expansion and growth. Coordinated the implementation and conversion of Student Information Systems and other supporting portals. Selected Contributions/Achievements: -Strategically designed and implemented the server virtualization strategies across the entire enterprise, which resulted in a reduction of data center footprint, increase in service reliability, and focus on rapid service delivery. -Directed and planned the migration of legacy Student Information Systems to a new platform through extensive data analysis used to support the new growth and increase in student population. -Created and then implemented strategic backup and disaster recovery procedures used to accommodate and reduce RTO and RFO with the use of software data deduplication. -Implemented process improvements such as a Helpdesk Management Tool, used to facilitate end-user support through a self-service support portal. This drastically increased customer satisfaction. -Executed an IT Service Delivery architecture using COBIT software for the improved efficiency and overall assurance of IT best practices, meeting the growing IT demands of the organization. -Deployed solutions and maintained PCI Compliance for the Business and Accounts Receivable office.

Headed Server and Network groups to support operational network stability, growth, and performance aligned with all business requirements and constraints. Managed the Server infrastructure support including: multiple windows servers, storage, and virtualization platforms. Led operational readiness assessments during the implementation of new technologies. Selected Contributions/Achievements: -Integrated Server and Network operations to improve process efficiencies, troubleshooting, and time-to-market of all newly launched technologies and products. -Proposed and managed annual budgets to maintain operational support obligations. -Designed, implemented, and then supported the migration to Microsoft Azure and Office 365 from Exchange and Skype Business. -Conducted organized vendor assessments to negotiate accurate Master Services Agreements and discount levels aligned with business objectives. -Enforce Anti-Virus deployment and policy compliance to protect all network assets and provide remediation alternatives

In my role at ACS / UNCF, I successfully managed helpdesk escalations, server and network administration, and telephony support. Additionally, I led team building efforts, implemented KPI metrics, and oversaw enterprise backups and disaster recovery processes.