“It is an honor to be named to the president’s advisory committee that is tasked with safeguarding the United States’ communications infrastructure,” said Stratton in a statement.
The NSTAC, formed 30 years ago, provides the president with industry-based counsel on issues related to implementing national security and emergency preparedness communications policy. It is composed of up to 30 industry senior executives representing major communications, information technology, finance and aerospace companies, and membership turnover is not common.
Stratton, an 18-year veteran of Verizon, oversees the company’s enterprise solutions portfolio for businesses and government agencies, including mobile, cloud and IT, strategic networking and advanced communications offerings, all with an eye toward security.
Stratton previously served as executive vice president and chief operating officer of Verizon Wireless, as well as CMO for both Verizon Wireless and Verizon Communications.
Stratton is known for his thought leadership in the space, advocating that VES take a lead role in reports and whitepapers detailing the steps to securing a cloud installation, or how to manage the BYOD phenomenon securely. Risk management has been an increasing focus under Stratton’s leadership.
Of particular interest to VES under Stratton is how security requirements are changing as the world becomes more digital – the nature of how information is shared is rapidly evolving. The competitive differentiator is now about expanding connections beyond company walls, and sharing ideas and data with partners, suppliers and customers.
“Data now flows in and out of the business in enormous volumes and rates. It is more difficult to control where data ends up and who has access to it – in short, to safeguard information assets,” VES says in a whitepaper on the subject.
Also, VES is focused on the fact that security risks are rising with the growing volumes of unstructured data – the data that commonly appears in web pages, presentations, white papers, marketing materials, emails and so on. In fact, it says, roughly 95% of all digital data is unstructured.