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Our Mission
The Boston-based ACSC advances member cyber defense strategies through regional, national and global practice-sharing networks of industry leaders and provides professional opportunities for rising talent.
Leadership Team
William Guenther
Executive Chairman
wguenther@acscenter.org
William Guenther is the ACSC's Executive Chairman and is Founder and CEO of Mass Insight Global Partnerships, a Boston-based consulting and research firm that creates competitive advantage through policy and partnerships of industry, universities and government. The firm’s focus on opportunities for pre-competitive, large scale technology R+D centers and collaborations shaped its Massachusetts Technology Road Map completed with Battelle in 2004 and the IT, Communications and Defense (ITCD) sector study produced with McKinsey & Co. in 2008. The Advanced Cyber Security Center (ACSC) grew out of recommendations by an Advisory Committee for the Mass Insight/McKinsey IT sector study. Bill leads the ACSC, and Mass Insight provides ongoing publication and research support. Bill is a graduate of Harvard College and the New York University Law School.
John McKenna
President and CISO Chair
jmckenna@acscenter.org
John McKenna is the President and CISO Chair of the Advanced Cyber Security Center. He has served as a member of our Board of Directors since 2017. He is also President of RoundTable Security and retired as Senior Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer for Liberty Mutual Insurance in 2018. While there, he had enterprise-wide responsibility for Liberty Mutual’s global information security strategies and programs.  John joined Liberty Mutual in 1979.  His career in Information Technology has included assignments as a software developer, data base analyst, program manager of enterprise data strategies and strategic development initiatives, Market CIO, and VP of IT Strategy and Planning. John holds a B.S. degree from the University of New Hampshire.
Jim Dinneen
Chief Operating Officer
jdinneen@acscenter.org
Jim Dinneen is the Chief Operating Officer for the Advanced Cyber Security Center, building a trusted network in New England to improve cybersecurity through collaborative defense. Previously he was the Director of Industry Partnerships at the Northeastern University Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute, where he worked with companies, research institutions, laboratories, and government agencies to build relationships and develop a better understanding of evolving cyber challenges. Prior to his role at Northeastern, Jim served as the Chief of Staff for the Private Sector Office at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. He also served as Acting Assistant Secretary for the Private Sector, advising the Secretary of Homeland Security on business perspectives and capabilities on topics including cybersecurity, transportation security, and trade security. Jim served as the Director of Boards and Commissions in Presidential Personnel at the White House, and he served as the Special Assistant to the General Counsel at the U.S. Department of Commerce. Jim has also held roles as the Deputy Executive Director of Priorities USA and as New England Deputy Finance Director for Obama for America. He received his B.A. from Hamilton College and M.S. in Cybersecurity Policy and Governance from Boston College.
Board of Directors
Don Anderson
Chief Information Officer
Tiger Global Management
Lavonne Burke
Vice President – Security, Resiliency & Digital at
Dell Technologies
Eric Clopper
Director, Cyber Operation
and Effects
MITRE Corporation
Mahi Dontamsetti
Executive Vice President Global Head of Non-Financial Risk and Chief Technology Risk Officer, State Street Corporation (retired)
Rick Grinnell
ACSC Board Treasurer
Managing Partner, Glasswing Ventures
William Guenther
ACSC Executive Chairman
Chairman, CEO & Founder, Mass Insight Global Partnerships
Joel Jacobs
Vice President, Chief Information Officer and Chief Security Officer, The MITRE Corporation (retired)
Anne Margulies
Vice President & University Chief Information Officer at Harvard University (retired) and Corporate Board Member
Fred Kneip
Head of Product Adoption
Diligent
John McKenna
ACSC CISO Chair & President
President,
RoundTable Security, LLC
David E. Luzzi
ACSC Board Clerk
PhD, MBA, Senior Vice Provost, Research and Vice President of the Innovation Campus at Burlington, MA, Northeastern University
Christopher Perretta
Chief Information and Operations Officer, MUFG Americas Holding Corp. (retired)
John Schramm
Senior Vice President
Global Head of IT Risk and Security
Munich Re
Joel Schwartz
Senior Vice President and General Manager,Global New Business Development, EMC (retired)
Jack Wilson
PhD, President Emeritus, The University of Massachusetts, Distinguished Professor of Higher Education, Emerging Technologies, and Innovation, The University of Massachusetts Lowell
Marc Zissman
Associate Head of the Cyber Security and Information Sciences Division, MIT Lincoln Laboratory
Counsel
As a governing member of the ACSC, our legal counsel not only provides legal guidance, but also actively shapes our cybersecurity-focused mission.
Colin Zick
Foley Hoag
Advisory Board
The advisory board is a group of business, academic, and public sector leaders who share a commitment to the ACSC’s mission, and provide ongoing advice, counsel, and support for that mission.
Michael Brown
ACSC Board Clerk, Rear Admiral, United States Navy (retired), President, Spinnaker Security LLC
Greg Dracon
Partner
.406 Ventures
Judith H. Germano
Founder, Germano Law LLC, Professor and Distinguished Fellow, NYU Center for Cybersecurity, Adjunct Professor, NYU School of Law
Kenneth C. Montgomery
First Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
Federal Reserve Bank of Boston
Senior Advisors
Lending their experience and expertise, these industry leaders are critical to the development of ACSC programming.
AI Co-Chairs
Dr. Marc Zissman
Associate Head of the Cyber Security and Information Sciences Division, MIT Lincoln Laboratory
Dr. Mark Maybury
Vice President, Commercialization, Lockheed Martin
Venture Capital Advisors
Rick Grinnell
Managing Partner, Glasswing Ventures
Greg Dracon
Partner
.406 Ventures
Legal Advisors
Colin Zick
Partner, Foley Hoag
Avi Gesser
Partner, Debevoise & Plimpton
Risk Advisors
Mahi Dontamsetti
Executive Vice President Global Head of Non-Financial Risk and Chief Technology Risk Officer, State Street Corporation (retired)
Howard Panensky
Partner, Pierson Ferdinand
Our History
2008
Mass IT Sector Study, MITRE propose a regional cybersecurity collaborative
Organized by Mass Insight Global Partnerships, industry CIOs, CISOs, and academic leaders convene to develop a platform for Collaborative Defense.
2010
Cyber Tuesday begins the practice of Collaborative Defense threat-sharing
​
After two years of workshops led by Mass Insight, key founding members convene bi-weekly to share tactical threat information at MITRE and the Boston Federal Reserve Bank.
2011
2012
Advanced Cyber Security Center (ACSC) is launched as a 501(c)(3) with a Participation Agreement
​
Counsels from a dozen cross-sector organizations, with support from Foley Hoag, negotiate a Participation Agreement with NDA to facilitate sensitive threat and practice sharing; the new entity is transferred to a nonprofit; Board of Directors appointed, chaired by Mass Insight.
2015
White House Issues Executive Order 13691
​
ACSC serves as the model for the new regional Information Sharing and Analysis Organizations (ISAO); the White House directs DHS to collaborate with ISAOs.
2018
ACSC conducts 1st annual Collaborative Defense table top simulation in partnership with DHS
​
Public and private sector members engage in cloud service provider attack simulation to understand the value of cross-organization incident response collaborations.
2018
ACSC publishes first two Collaborative Defense Research reports
​
A joint Mass Insight-McKinsey field research report identifying key elements of mature cybersecurity organizations and the first Mass Insight field research report for ACSC on the CISO perspectives on corporate board cyber risk governance maturity.
2020
ACSC re-organized under new leadership
​
The Board confirms William Guenther, Executive Chair; John McKenna, CISO Chair; Jim Dinneen, COO to replace the former ED leadership.
2020
ACSC-SimSpace Cyber Range Partnership launched
​
A program to develop hands-on incident response and threat hunting skills, individually and for defender teams through cyber range exercises with U.S. Cyber Command’s range partner.
2021
ACSC launches the Research Partner program to bring innovative start ups to members as thought leaders on emerging technologies and tools
​
Nominated by members and VC partners, a selected group of Research Partners participate in a series of briefings and discussions under the NDA to provide an efficient way for members to analyze market developments and start-up opportunities.
Get to Know Us
Launched in 2011 and led by member Chief Information Security Officers, the nonprofit Advanced Cyber Security Center is New England’s public-private cybersecurity leadership collaborative committed to strengthening member cyber defenses and preparing the region to respond to large scale cyber threats as national leaders in “Collaborative Defense.” The ACSC uniquely brings together leading private sector firms, universities, defense nonprofits, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, and is a regional partner with the Department of Homeland Security.
Covered by a robust non-disclosure agreement, trusted networks of member CISOs and their staff, legal counsels and risk officers share and benchmark effective cyber management strategies and board governance roles, engage in cyber range exercises and with communications staff, in joint annual tabletop simulations.
The ACSC is a 501(c)3 organization and was the model for Information Sharing and Analysis Organizations (ISAOs) when Presidential Executive Order 13691 was implemented in 2015. Currently, the ACSC has 21 members representing the financial services, healthcare, technology, and industrial sectors, along with founding members MITRE Corporation and MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Harvard and Northeastern Universities, the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.