During a distinguished career that spanned both the public and private sector, Sarah-Jill worked for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office before being appointed CEO and Accounting Officer for Her Majesty’s Government Communications Centre (HMGCC). More recently, Sarah-Jill worked as the Security Partner for Deloitte UK, combining the duties of Chief Security Officer and Chief Information Security Officer, and was responsible for Confidentiality and Privacy in both the UK and Switzerland.
Sarah-Jill worked in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, where she had postings to Montevideo, Brussels, Budapest and Washington. Her later career there focussed on operational technology and data. For her final three years in the Public Sector Sarah-Jill was CEO and Accounting Officer of Her Majesty’s Government Communications Centre (HMGCC) 2008-2011, shaking up the provision of technology to sensitive parts of government so that it was delivered to time, cost and quality.
Sarah-Jill then transitioned successfully to the private sector and was the Security Partner at Deloitte UK from 2012 to 2018, combining the roles of CSO and CISO, with additional responsibility internally for Crisis Management, Confidentiality and Privacy. Answering directly to the Executive, she ran a tight, holistic programme to deliver an uplift in the firm’s security posture across all the domains of security in two years, and subsequently designed and ran the firm’s GDPR readiness programme from 2016 to 2018.
Sarah-Jill now works as a Non-Executive Director, Trustee, Adviser and Consultant, focussing on cyber security, privacy and incident and crisis management. She specialises in demystifying cyber for Directors and the C suite, helping them to focus on what matters to their business. She is also a mentor and coach.
Sarah-Jill speaks French, German, Hungarian and Spanish. She is also an adept ‘interpreter’ between technical and non-technical colleagues.
