Speaker Bio
Conrad has over 20 years information technology and information security / cyber security corporate and consulting experience spanning the domains of governance, security architecture and design, application security, cryptography, ICT risk management, compliance and investigations, operations security, physical (environmental) security, and network security.
I am currently the General Manager within the Group Chief Technology and Information Office - Group Information Security - OPCO Operations.
My portfolio spans the management of information and cyber security operations across all of it’s core functional aspects for the MTN Group Management Company (SA and Dubai) and all GSM Tier 2 / Tier 3 Operating Companies spanning across our African markets through a large team of information security heads, regional managers and local OPCO information security officers and specialists.
Prior to joining the MTN Group, I held the position of Group Information Security, Risk Management and ICT Governance Head for Maitland International Holdings / Apex Group. Maitland was a global advisory company which provided legal, fiduciary, investment and administration services to private, corporate and institutional clients. My role entailed defining the groups Information Security strategic direction (maturing it's associated ISMS), understanding it's threat posture (cyber risk) along with practically implementing the necessary controls in order to ensure that the organisation could mitigate against potential zero-day/advanced persistent threats faced by the organisation. As a previous member of the Association for Savings and Investments South Africa (ASISA), I contributed and collaborated with its members regarding our readiness to collectively respond and support each other when facing cyber security threats affecting the South African financial services industry.
In my former years I had started my own Information Security Consulting company and performed a number of Information Security Engagements for clients such as Old Mutual, Woolworths Financial Services, Allan Gray, University of South Africa, University of the Western Cape, MasterCard South Africa etc. A key engagement during this period involved assisting UNISA outsourced role of Information Security Architecture formulation. In Conrad’s early years of Research and Development at University (1998) he explored the area of deep learning algorithms (Recurrent Neural Networks) and it’s application to biometrics. This resulted in an international book publication at a later stage.