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KPMG Australia today named Martijn Verbree as its new national cyber lead and appointed three new cyber partners to the firm: Stuart Mort, Natasha Passley and Gergana Winzer.
Martijn Verbree will be responsible for the firm’s fast-growing cyber team which provides specialist services to clients across a wide variety of industries. He replaces Gordon Archibald, who is taking on the new role of cyber futures and technology lead.
Archibald will drive cyber strategy development, innovation and thought leadership. He will also be responsible for directing investment to next-generation technology solutions and services focusing on accelerating the development of services across digital, platform, data analytics and AI.
Verbree returned to KPMG Australia from KPMG UK in January this year, where he led the cyber security team in the corporates consulting group, focusing on delivering cyber and risk transformations for some of the firm’s largest clients. He has more than two decades of experience as a technology and cyber security leader. Previously, he worked for KPMG Australia, leading a specialist group of cyber security professionals, and was European director for Australian start-up Localz between 2014 and 2016.
On his new appointment, Verbree commented his goal will be to evolve their whole-of-firm approach to cyber, drawing upon the large range of expertise within KPMG as well as bringing together the diverse ranges of competencies across the firm.
“I’m thrilled to step into this important role in one of the priority investment areas of the firm, at a time when Cyber continues to top challenges list at boardrooms across the country.
“Over 100 new cyber team members have joined this fast-growing team in the last six months.
“We are delighted to be adding some exemplary leaders to our cyber team, which now numbers 14 partners and hundreds of specialists – and we expect to continue to grow our team through 2022,” Verbree said.
The new cyber partners are:
Stuart Mort
Stuart Mort has 25 years of international technology experience and was previously chief technology officer – cyber and ICT solutions for Optus Enterprise. He joins from Law In Order, where he was chief security officer and global head of consulting. Previously, he spent 13 years at Oracle Corporation in Singapore and Sydney, where he was vice-president (Global CISO) - Global Information Security, heading cyber security for APAC, EMEA and the Americas, and acting as the global lead for investigations and the forensics team. He is a contributing author to CRC Press’ The Computer Science and Engineering Handbook, the co-author of the London Stock Exchange’s Risk Management Guide and has sat on the editorial board of The International Journal of Computer Forensics.
Natasha Passley
Natasha Passley has 20 years’ experience across the financial services industry in Australia and the UK, and joins KPMG from IAG, where she was executive manager - cyber strategy, architecture and consulting – a senior member of the security leadership team. She has also held technology leadership roles at Deutsche Bank, the UK Financial Conduct Authority and the Royal Bank of Scotland. Natasha was highly commended for “The Most Outstanding Woman in Cyber Security Australia” at the AWSN & CSO industry awards in 2020, won the Cyber Leadership Institute’s “Best Cyber Strategy” award in 2020, and is a mentor for security through ISACA. She joined the firm in March 2022.
Gergana Winzer
Gergana Winzer joins KPMG from Unisys, where she was industry director cyber security - Asia-Pacific. A passionate advocate and thought leader for cyber security, Gergana is a past-president of the ICT Sydney chapter of AIBC and ISACA and is a board member at AISA. She has been nominated for the 2021 Australian Women in Security Awards and Most Outstanding Woman in Security in 2020 and won the Cyber Leadership Institute Community award in 2020. She joined the firm in February 2022.
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