CANCELED DT | Cyber-Security as a Strategic Imperative - The Impact of Digital Security on Agility and Sustainability - 11:45 a.m.

Strategy experts, even after doing SWOT analyses, tend to focus on the “O” of opportunity rather than the “T” in threat.  After all, seizing market opportunities, and turning them into a sustainable competitive advantage, is the Holy Grail of strategy making.  But as the recent stream of news stories about big data breaches shows, insufficient attention to nonmarket threats can hobble otherwise market-savvy organizations.  In this presentation, we demystify cybersecurity, an issue all organizational strategists must consider, but due to its technically complex veneer is frequently relegated to backroom IT staff.  (That is, until there is a cybersecurity crisis.)  We will pay special attention to the ways in which strategists can bridge communications between senior managers, who are often more comfortable talking about markets, and security professionals, who are often un-versed in the benefits of strategy, vision, and line-of-sight to overarching business goals.

In 1998, Kitty McCoy returned to Kansas City from New England as a computer aided design software demonstrator to architects and engineers. That same year, six firefighters died during an explosion at a highway construction project. Little did she know that her company would supply new Hazmat pumpers with hardware and software.

With a strong thirst for knowledge and a belief that the curve balls that life throws you only prepare you for the homerun, Kitty McCoy has surfaced time and again as someone who reaches for the stars in whatever she engages herself in.

She is President and CEO of Enterprise Control Systems, Inc., an IT strategy consulting firm with a strong emphasis on cyber security.  The firm provides solutions to protect networks, people, and devices.

As a community volunteer, she has served as Chair of the Central Exchange from 2001 to 2003 and had served on the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce Board for several years.  She was asked to be the liaison for a light rail task force and subsequently became Chair of the Kansas City Regional Transit Alliance.  Kitty was honored in 2012 with the Mid America Regional Council’s Regional Leadership Award for her tireless work to bring an actual streetcar to Union Station at an event called the Modern Streetcar Party.

Kitty graduated from Stephens College and is a member of the Association for Strategic Planning, the International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium-ISC2 and is an associate with the Balanced Scorecard Institute.