White Tuque Names Cyber Risk/Resilience Expert Kevin Sandschafer as COO and Vice President of Cyber Risk and Assurance

[Chicago, IL] - White Tuque took a massive first step forward in building their team of elite cybersecurity experts by naming Chicago based Kevin Sandschafer as their COO and Vice President of Cyber Risk and Assurance.

Sandschafer's name is well known and widely respected in North America across multiple industries. He previously was in charge of leading BMO's Global Financial Crimes Unit Exercise Management Program that heavily focused on cyber risk and preparedness. Prior to his time at BMO, Sandschafer was program manager of the Enterprise Business Resiliency Program for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois, providing leadership for the organization's Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery programs.

"When Kevin said he was in, that is when White Tuque became real for me. I knew we had something. Bringing someone with his experience into the White Tuque core wasn't just justification of the idea, it's a flat-out honour for me," said Robert D Stewart, Founder and CEO of White Tuque.

"I think one thing that makes Kevin's background very unique is his North-South experience. There are not many people that have experience with regulatory risk on both sides of the border or that have hands-on experience working with government entities in both the US and Canada. That's a pretty narrow list of people and Kevin's on it."

White Tuque is a boutique cyber risk and protection firm that seeks to bring enterprise-level cybersecurity services and risk assessments to small to medium-sized businesses that have traditionally been challenged to defend themselves from sophisticated cyber-attacks. They are focused on taking the best practices and strategies that protect some of the most targeted organizations in the world and sizing them to fit the needs of any sized organization.

When asked what excites him about White Tuque, Sandschafer says that he thrives on new challenges and looks forward to the opportunity to have a real impact on the traditionally underserved SMB sector.

"While working for complex global organizations, I realized that making a meaningful organization-wide change can be like trying to turn the Titanic with a broken oar. It can happen, but you may spend so much of your team's time and energy on it that they have nothing left when the job is done," said Sandschafer.

"Seeing Rob's vision, the energy and the support he has gained was truly inspiring and made me realize I wanted to be a part of it. I see White Tuque as a sleeping giant."

Sandschafer and Stewart already have a strong working relationship, dating back to their respective roles first within BMO's Cyber Fusion Center and later when they both took on expanded roles within the newly formed Global Crisis and Continuity Management within BMO's Financial Crimes Unit. It was during this time they developed a sense of mutual respect and trust. In fact, Stewart jokes that there would be no scenario in a corporate world where he would be in a position to hire someone with Sandschafer's experience.

"My first interaction with Kevin was when he was running the cyber exercise program at BMO. He was the first person I had met who wanted to know what really happened during incidents, not just what was in the report or summary," said Stewart.

"He understood our playbooks, but he wanted the truth on how people really responded during adverse situations, because that was the only way he was going to be able to help. You could tell he cared, he was invested."

White Tuque is far from finished building their roster of some of the industry's most respected names and coveted talent. They will continue to announce more exciting additions in the coming weeks.

"Everyone on our team will have large enterprise experience, but we're going to be much more agile because we're going to eliminate overhead and be very focused on what our clients really need. We can just go in and work with our clients to identify key risks, execute on what is needed and then move on to help the next client achieve their objectives," said Sandschafer.

"I'm looking forward to this challenge. I love challenges. I love learning new things, working with great people, and working hard to solve problems. Challenges are how you grow."

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About White Tuque
White Tuque's mission is to give companies a trusted partner and a framework of best practices for cyber defence.

Now, SMBs have access to a battle-tested and crisis-proven team of Canada's leading cyber-security experts. White Tuque has made this level of protection affordable by condensing simple and repeatable tactics into a digestible and scalable format for all organizations. These tactics are the backbone of what is currently protecting the financial industry, the gaming industry, and even The Department of Defence… And now, they're available to any business.

To learn more about White Tuque services you can reach out to them at info @ whitetuque.com or visit their website at https://whitetuque.com.