Rod BECKSTROM

 

Global Cybersecurity Advisor, Price Waterhouse Coopers

 

Rod Beckstrom is a well-known cybersecurity authority, Internet leader and expert on organizational leadership. He is the former President and CEO of ICANN, the global Internet domain name coordination body, Founding Director of the U.S. Government’s National Cybersecurity Center in the Department of Homeland Security and Co-Author of the critically acclaimed book, The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations, which has been published in seventeen languages including Chinese. He currently serves as an advisor to multinational companies, governments and international institutions and is a Member of the Partnering for Cyber Resilience Initiative at the Swiss-based World Economic Forum. He is a frequent international media commentator and public speaker. As a graduate student aided by two Nobel prize-winning economists, Rod created CAT•S Software, a public risk management company, in his Stanford, California, garage apartment. As CEO, he grew it into a global enterprise and took it public on the NASDAQ before successfully merging it into another global organization. He has participated in founding numerous high-tech ventures, including Mergent Systems, a database company that was sold for $200 million within a year of its creation. He is a Director of PredPol, the leader in big data analysis for predictive policing, and is an Advisor to ZapFraud (an anti-spam firm) and American Legal Net. Rod engages in Track 2 and Track 1.5 peace efforts globally. He is currently involved in US/Iran, East Asia, and Internet and cybersecurity governance issues. He graduated from Stanford University with a BA with Honors and Distinction and an MBA, and was a Fulbright Scholar in economics at the University of St.

Gallen, Switzerland.