Optic Appoints Dynon Risk Manager
♦ Optic Appoints Dynon Risk Manager – Optic Security Group has appointed Nicholas Dynon enterprise security risk manager to empower the big security integrator to better help ANZ organisations grappling with a complex security environment.
“We’ve seen very clearly in recent months that the 2022 security environment has thrown up novel combinations of risks to organisations,” said Optic Security managing director, Mark Lloyd. “If it’s not international instability and pandemic-induced threats to supply chains and cyber defences, it’s the need to comply with increasingly rigorous privacy, data protection, and critical infrastructure security regulation.
“With his unique blend of government, military, academic, and private security sector experience, Nicholas will lead the delivery of specialist advice to clients around mitigating their security-related human, financial, regulatory, and reputational risks.
“Enterprise security risk management is about applying internationally accepted approaches to identifying and assessing the security-related risks organisations face and implementing solutions that treat those risks. As a security provider, we do it each day, and this new role will assist our clients in getting ahead – and staying ahead – of their risks.”
Earlier this year, Dynon received the 2022 New Zealand Outstanding Security Performance Award (OSPA) for Lifetime Achievement. According to the judges, “Nicholas had been the catalyst for major positive change within the industry, had outstanding leadership and had made a significant contribution to the industry over many years.”
Among his voluntary roles, Nicholas is co-founder of the New Zealand Security Sector Network (NZSSN), a group working to promote collaboration between the physical, personnel and information security, risk, and resilience sectors. The NZSSN organises the Women in Security Awards Aotearoa (WiSAA), an annual awards programme that since 2020 has sought to celebrate the contribution of women to leadership in security and resilience.
“Given the nature of the disparate and hybridised security threats that we’re seeing – from pandemics to state-sponsored cyberattacks, from great power competition to disruptive weather events, security is now about a whole range of things beyond what we traditionally call security,” Dynon said.
“For senior leadership teams, it’s about positioning your organisation to achieve visibility across its physical and cyber security, health and safety, and risk functions; it’s about being across the threat spectrum, from asset protection and life safety, to privacy, data protection, regulatory compliance, and organisational resilience.
“We call it ‘converged security’, but ultimately, it’s about developing the organisational ability to be circumspect.”
Having commenced his career in the then Australian Government Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (now Home Affairs), Dynon served diplomatic postings in Shanghai, Beijing, and Suva, developing a range of systems and frameworks to inform risk-based approaches to visa assessments. In Suva (2009-12) he managed the day-to-day operation of Australia’s travel sanctions regime against the Fiji interim government and military.
In New Zealand, Dynon has worked to promote joined-up approaches to security between the private, academic, and public sectors. In addition to his role as chief editor of New Zealand Security Magazine and Line of Defence Magazine, he is an editorial board member of Massey University’s National Security Journal.
His 2017 commentary on Australia’s Strategy for Protecting Crowded Places from Terrorism contributed to establishing discourse on the topic of crowded places among private security professionals in New Zealand. Following the introduction of a similar strategy by the New Zealand Government, Dynon has continued to contribute to this area as a member of the NZ Crowded Places Security Advisory Group.
A graduate of the Australian National University, the University of Sydney, the Royal Military College of Australia, and the Australian Army School of Signals, Dynon holds a Masters in International Studies, specialising in international security, and a certificate of approval as a security consultant and private investigator issued by the New Zealand Ministry of Justice.
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