James “Jimmy” Blake is the Global Consulting Strategist for Micro Focus Cyber Defense Consulting. His role encompasses the creation and oversight of innovative consulting engagements Worldwide to assist enterprise customers solve problems around big data management and analytics; secure software development; and efficient and effective Cyber detection and response activities encompassing deception techniques; machine learning and manual analytics; hunt teams and traditional correlation. Jimmy has built or consulted on the Cyber Operations capability for dozens of organisations globally in the government and private sector.
Prior to Micro Focus, James was the Head of Global Cyber Security Operations Integration for JPMorgan Chase. His role involved designing, implementing and maturing end-to-end cyber security capabilities, including event detection through correlation, analytics and hunt; incident triage and intrusion analysis; integration and analysis of strategic, tactical and operational threat intelligence; and incident and breach response.
Before JPMorgan Chase, James was the EMEA Practice Manager for HP Security Intelligence & Operations Consulting (SIOC), the World’s leading consultancy practice in the field of building and maturing of intrusion analysis, security analytics, threat intelligence, breach response and incident response capabilities for enterprise, government and military customers across the globe. Since it’s inception in 2007, HP Security Intelligence & Operations Consulting has built over 81 Security Intelligence & Operations Centres from the ground-up and provided consultancy for over 200 others. James and managed the EMEA practice successfully delivering dozens of complex multi-year build from-the-ground-up or transformation engagements for government ministries, intelligence agencies, military and commercial customers.
Prior to his role at HP, James was the Chief Information Security Officer for Mimecast, Europe’s largest Software-as-a-Service vendor and placed in Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50 four years running, in the Sunday Times Tech Track 100 for two consecutive years and a cover story in SC Magazine. James oversaw the security of over a million subscriber’s data across 11 data centres and 7 corporate offices on 4 continents during a period of explosive growth.
Before Mimecast, James had gained over 15 years of information security and IT operations management experience as a contractor and running EMEA-wide consultancies for a number of leading vendors.
James is one of the co-founders and directors of the annual Security B-Sides London information security conference and is still actively involved in the event every year. He is the regional chair of the South West region UKCERT Cyber information Sharing Partnership (CiSP). James has made several radio and TV appears to cover topics related to information security and has presented at conferences across the World including ITWeb South Africa, IDC Cyber Security, Security B-Sides London, Security B-Sides Manchester, Storage Expo and InfoSec London.