Flavius Plesu

Flavius Plesu is the Founder and CEO of OutThink. Flavius was previously the Chief Information Security Officer (UK) at Bank of Ireland from November 2017 to February 2019. In this role, they were responsible for developing the UK cybersecurity strategy aligned to business goals and the delivery of a transformation programme aimed at reducing cybersecurity risk and improving key stakeholder relationships, both internally and externally (e.g., FCA, EBA, ECB).

Before that, they were a Practitioner Panel Member - Research Institute in Science of Cyber Security (RISCS) at UCL Department of Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy (University College London) from December 2016 to January 2019. The primary objective of the Institute is to develop novel, innovative social-science and socio-cultural techniques for cyber security. As a panel member practitioner, Flavius helped shape and improve the future research agenda in the cyber security space at UCL, and engaged with testing and validating the research outputs.

Flavius has also held the positions of Global Head of Cyber Security at IHS Markit from September 2015 to September 2017, and Head of Information Security at University of West London from November 2014 to August 2015.

Flavius Plesu has a MSc in Information Security from Royal Holloway, University of London. Flavius also has a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Universitatea „Tibiscus” din Timișoara and a degree from the Faculty of Automation and Computer Science at Politehnica University of Timisoara. In addition, they have completed coursework in Information Security and Risk Management in Context from the University of Washington and Computer Networks from Stanford University. Flavius is also certified by the IAPP - International Association of Privacy Professionals in CIPP/E and by The SABSA Institute in SABSA Chartered Practitioner – Advanced SABSA Risk Assurance & Governance (SCP) and SABSA Chartered Security Architect - Foundation Certificate (SCF). Finally, they have a CISM - Certified Information Security Manager certification from ISACA.

Some direct reports include Brian Barnacle - Senior Manager, Strategy & Development, Matt Slater - CTO, and Emilia Banea - Head of Content.