Summary
Overview
Work History
Education
Skills
Accomplishments
Technical Skills
Certification
Timeline
Generic

Zahid Syed

Cyber Security Expert
Abu Dhabi

Summary

Dynamic Professional with over 21 years of wide-ranging experience in Information Technology primarily focused on Information security; who has a proven record of establishing information security governance, risk, compliance and architecture in multi- billion mission critical environments. I have the capability, experience and drive to establish information security governance from ground up to the globally recognized accreditation level. I am a visionary strategist who benefits from his broad technical competency to understand the real life challenges in the modern era of digital and cloud transformation and address those challenges by applying my unique set of experience in Information Security Governance, Risk, Internal and Regulatory Compliance, Enterprise Architecture, Information Security Management System, IT Risk Management, Business Continuity, Disaster Recovery, IT Infrastructure Solution Planning, Designing & Implementation . I demonstrate superb presentation, communication and Interpersonal skills with proven ability to manage resources effectively and deliver quality professional services.

Overview

21
21
years of professional experience
4
4
years of post-secondary education
14
14
Certificates

Work History

Lead Information Security

Abu Dhabi Ports
Abu Dhabi
02.2015 - Current
  • Formulate & implement Information security strategy, Information security framework, security architecture, and security incident response to minimize the risk of cyber-attacks on the enterprise and its cloud environment.
  • Provide leadership to the enterprise wide information security function and develop staff capabilities.
  • Develop and enhance an information security management framework.
  • Define and report on information security metrics to the top management.
  • Help management understand security risks and their mitigation strategies for any current and new strategic initiatives, including the recommendation of technical controls.
  • Provide the direction to protect AD Port information, information assets and the intellectual property of the organization from intentional, unintentional loss, disclosure, alteration, destruction, and unavailability at all times.
  • Collaborate with internal and external audits, legal, federal and state authorities to ensure security programs are in compliance with relevant national and international laws, regulations and policies.
  • Implement and manage data protection mechanism including identifying, classifying, labelling and protecting data as per the classification level.
  • Develop strategies to handle security incidents occur within the enterprise or on cloud environment and trigger investigations
  • Implement and manage the following On-Prem & Cloud capabilities:
  • Security Operation Center with Incident Response
  • Identity and Access Governance and Management.
  • Privilege Access Management
  • Anti-Malware and EDR
  • Threat Intelligence
  • Vulnerability Management
  • Data Leak Prevention
  • Promote information security culture and drive its improvement by working closely with other stakeholders in the organization.
  • Provide assistance in developing and implementing business continuity plans to ensure service continuity in the event of any operational or security incident or where the disaster recovery plan needs to be triggered
  • Organize and run awareness campaign using, LMS and phishing simulation tool and spread awareness across the organization and its stakeholder on security issues, best practices, current threats and vulnerabilities

Sr. Information Systems & Technology Architect

Abu Dhabi Ports
Abu Dhabi
05.2008 - 02.2015
  • Plan, design & integrate all architectural components of the infrastructure and security solutions.
  • Define clear and effective transition strategies for individual solution. Identify and incorporate all the components, activities and resource types required to achieve the secure target state.
  • Create and maintain a technical architecture roadmap that documents the current and the desired target architecture.
  • Provide a customized infrastructure secure solution tailored for every specific AD Ports requirements.
  • Benchmark, analyze and make recommendations for improvement and growth of the IT infrastructure and systems.

Sr. Infrastructure Specialist

Injazat Data Systems - UAE
Abu Dhabi
06.2006 - 05.2008
  • Interact with customers & gain understanding of their business requirement to plan, design, develop, test & implement integrated and scalable systems and network solutions.
  • Provide technical consultancy with cost effective, scalable and resilient solutions to address customer’s capital and operational expense challenges yet flexible for future expansion.
  • Produce deliverables for assigned projects including business proposals, Technical Architecture Specification (TAS) and Detail Technical Specification (DTS) following EDS document standards.
  • Lead technical projects by working closely with SMEs to deliver robust solutions meeting customer expectation.
  • Conceptualize, construct, test and implement integrated network, hardware and software solutions, distributed computing solutions, and/or physical and logical communications networks for the clients and architects client/server solutions and environments
  • Establish and maintain security, integrity and business continuity controls and documents.
  • Confirm and prioritize project plans and deliverables with the customer.

Network Manager

Europa Associates
London
05.2000 - 09.2005
  • Plan, design, Implement and maintain IT Network Infrastructure to meet the organizations operational requirements.
  • Ensure that the network infrastructure is setup in accordance with the standards and industries best practices.
  • Establish network security procedures and policies inline with Corporate IT security policies.
  • Contribute to and maintain, network usage policy, Internet usage policy, data classification policy, physical access policy, password policy and incident response.
  • Review audit logs & corporation user security instruction manual.
  • Provide 2nd & 3rd line software/hardware support to the users.
  • Document all the problems experienced and their solutions for future references.

Education

B.Eng - Network Technologies

Middlesex University
London, UK
09.2003 - 07.2005

Bachelor of Science - Computer Science

Preston University
USA
01.1998 - 12.1999

Skills

    Digital Security Governance

undefined

Accomplishments

Established Information Security Governance, Risk and Compliance.

Established Cyber Threat Intelligence and Brand Monitoring System.

Established Resiliency Framework Including Cloud Environment.

Developed and Enhanced Corporate Information Security Culture Established Cloud Security Strategy for a large Enterprise

Designed and Developed Security Monitoring Solutions such as SIEM, SOAR, Vulnerability Management, Data Leak Protection, Source Code Analyzers, EDR, MFA, NAC,

Technical Skills

SIEM, EDR, VM,

Certification

Certified| Risk Information Systems Control

Timeline

Certified| Data Privacy Solution Engineer
07-2020
Certified| Cloud Security Professional
05-2020

Certified| Risk Information Systems Control

04-2019
Certified| Information Security Manager
03-2019

Certified | Chief Information Security Officer

03-2019

TOGAF| The Open Group Architecture Fjavascript:;ramework

10-2018
Certified | Information Systems Security Professional
10-2017

Lead Information Security

Abu Dhabi Ports
02.2015 - Current
Cloud Architect,Virtualized InfrastructureSpecialist
08-2013

Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist

02-2012
Cisco Certified Network Associates, 4 Publications
02-2012
ISO/IEC 2000 Consultant
06-2010

Sr. Information Systems & Technology Architect

Abu Dhabi Ports
05.2008 - 02.2015

ITIL Foundation

07-2007

Sr. Infrastructure Specialist

Injazat Data Systems - UAE
06.2006 - 05.2008

B.Eng - Network Technologies

Middlesex University
09.2003 - 07.2005

Certified Lotus Professional

08-2001

Network Manager

Europa Associates
05.2000 - 09.2005

Microsoft Certified System Engineer

01-1999

Bachelor of Science - Computer Science

Preston University
01.1998 - 12.1999
Zahid SyedCyber Security Expert