Technology for Humanity. Educational Excellence. Inspirational Leadership. Innovative Solutions.
These categories describe the essence of ISACA. They also constitute the four categories of the Global Achievement Awards: the highest awards presented by ISACA for distinguished service, exemplary achievements and noteworthy contributions to advancing technology worldwide.
ISACA Technology for Humanity Award
Recognizes an individual, program or organization whose efforts in connecting with underserved communities or underrepresented individuals has helped bridge the digital divide.
Sushila Nair, CISA, CRISC, CISM, CDPSE, USA
“For leadership in creating and supporting programs that advance the next generation of cybersecurity professionals, women and underrepresented populations.”
Sushila Nair is Capgemini’s Vice President, North American Cybersecurity practice, providing services to Fortune 1000 companies. Sushila has most recently served as the Vice President for cybersecurity offers at NTT Data Services and has held the role of a CISO for 10 years. Sushila has over 30 years of experience in computing infrastructure, business and security risk analysis, preventing credit card fraud, and served as a legal expert witness. Sushila has been featured in global technical events, co-authored books and is regularly quoted in the press. Sushila is also the current Vice President of the ISACA Greater Washington, D.C. Chapter.
ISACA Educational Excellence Award
Recognizes an inspiring educator or academic at the primary, secondary or tertiary educational level or an educational institution with inspiring initiatives who has empowered students to pursue careers advancing technology.
Oleksii Baranovskyi, CISM, Ukraine
“For contributions to cybersecurity education in Ukraine and worldwide.”
Dr. Baranovskyi began his career as a security analyst at a software product company before transitioning into the banking industry and ultimately into a professional cyber security services company and academic institutions.
Oleksii has received numerous awards for his educational activities in cyber security, including awards from the National Security Council, State Telecommunication Service, and Cyberpolice. He was awarded the President of Ukraine Award for young scientists in 2018.
Oleksii has also lent his expertise to several international projects, serving as a subject matter expert for organizations such as OSCE, USAID, CRDF Global 2015-2023.
ISACA Inspirational Leadership Award
Recognizes a visionary leader who has inspired organizations and professionals to advance and adapt within a digital world.
Vladlena Benson, CDPSE, UK
“For contributions to cybersecurity education and inspiring the next generation of women leaders in technology.”
Professor Vladlena Benson is the Director of Aston University’s Cyber Security Innovation Centre. Her research on illicit money flows, AML, cryptocurrency forensics and secure by design FinTech, is supported by Horizon Europe, ESRC, InnovateUK exceeding £15M. Vladlena has served on the Board of ISACA Central UK and her work on diversity in cybersecurity workforce is recognised by multiple awards.
ISACA Innovative Solutions Award
Recognizes an individual or organization who has developed or utilized technology to solve business or societal challenges.
RiskOptics, USA
“For enabling organizations to have a unified, real-time view of risk and compliance to allow for risk-based, strategic decision making.”
RiskOptics redefined GRC with its latest update offering deeper risk observation, assessment, and remediation functionality- ROAR. Adding ROAR to the already powerful ZenGRC transforms GRC management and provides transparency and accountability across the organization. With built-in and custom frameworks, native integrations or OpenAPI, and outof-the-box threats and risks, organizations simply import the policies, processes, and technology currently in their security ecosystem, and then leverage the one-of-a-kind automation to obtain a tailored roadmap of remediation activity that simultaneously reduces risk and increases compliance.