Nikolce Jolakoski
Crown Point,IN
Summary
Seasoned Information Security leader with 10 years of experience in cyber defense, security engineering, and enterprise infrastructure in financial services. Led Cyber Defense operations, incident response, and vulnerability management while safeguarding critical systems and sensitive data. Collaborated with cross-functional teams to implement effective security solutions, enhance organizational resilience, and mitigate enterprise risk.
Overview
11
11
years of professional experience
Work History
Cyber Defense Team Lead
Centier Bank
Merrillville, IN
01.2026 - Current
- Lead and mentor Cyber Defense analysts while remaining actively engaged as the team's senior security engineer, providing technical leadership across incident response, security engineering, complex investigations, and enterprise security initiatives.
- Coordinate cybersecurity incident response activities including triage, containment, eradication, recovery, root cause analysis, and post-incident improvements.
- Directed enterprise threat detection and security monitoring efforts, identifying, investigating, and responding to suspicious activity.
- Develop Cyber Defense operational procedures, incident response playbooks, security documentation, and performance metrics that improve program maturity and response effectiveness.
- Lead security engineering initiatives including network segmentation, secure remote access, SSL inspection, threat intelligence integration, and cybersecurity modernization projects.
- Provided technical leadership for the organization's initial Azure security deployment, engineering secure networking, Azure Firewall, FortiGate virtual firewalls, VPN connectivity, RBAC, and cloud security controls that established the foundation for enterprise cloud adoption.
- Drove vulnerability management initiatives in collaboration with infrastructure, network, application development, and business stakeholders to prioritize and remediate security risks.
- Oversee implementation, administration, tuning, and lifecycle management of enterprise security technologies including firewalls, endpoint protection, identity security, email security, vulnerability management, and security monitoring platforms.
- Partner with Identity & Access Management leadership to build and mature the organization's IAM program, providing security engineering expertise in the design, implementation, and continuous improvement of identity governance, authentication, authorization, privileged access management, and operational standards.
- Collaborated on the development and implementation of the organization's AI security strategy, leveraging Microsoft Purview, Proofpoint, and Fortinet technologies to establish governance guardrails, protect sensitive information, monitor AI adoption, and provide visibility into organizational AI usage and associated security risks.
- Partner with Infrastructure, Development, Compliance, Audit, Risk Management, and business leaders to evaluate security risks and implement effective security controls.
- Support internal and external audits, security assessments, regulatory examinations, vendor security reviews, and cybersecurity roadmap development.
- Established security dashboards and executive reporting to enhance communication of operational performance, organizational risk, and program effectiveness.
Security Engineer
Centier Bank
Merrillville, IN
01.2024 - Current
- Manage endpoint protection solutions to provide comprehensive malware prevention, threat detection, and response across the organization.
- Configure, administer, and maintain enterprise security infrastructure to ensure strong network protection and alignment with organizational security policies and regulatory requirements.
- Monitor and update security platforms, configure access controls, establish secure remote connectivity, and implement changes to meet evolving business and threat landscapes.
- Administer and secure multi-factor authentication and remote access systems to ensure reliable and secure user connectivity.
- Manage data encryption solutions to ensure secure handling and transmission of sensitive information.
- Enhanced security of corporate wireless networks by implementing best practices and monitoring for vulnerabilities.
- Oversaw secure integration of on-premises data center environments with cloud platforms, implementing controls for secure connectivity and compliance with cloud security best practices.
- Manage and secure virtual desktop environments, including user access administration, activity monitoring, and compliance enforcement.
- Administer email security controls to protect against phishing and other email-borne threats while maintaining reliable business communications.
- Monitored and maintained data backup and recovery processes, ensuring data integrity and availability for business continuity.
- Monitor, investigate, and respond to security incidents using centralized monitoring and analytics to reduce risk and maintain a secure operating environment.
- Collaborate with cross-functional teams to continuously enhance security architecture, controls, and policies.
- Supported internal and external audits by providing documentation and addressing findings.
- Developed secure file automation workflows to streamline cross-departmental operations.
Infrastructure Engineer
Centier Bank
Merrillville, IN
09.2016 - 01.2024
- Configure and administer enterprise security infrastructure, including network security controls, authentication systems, email security, and threat detection platforms.
- Managed endpoint protection and threat prevention solutions, enhancing organizational security posture.
- Maintain system updates, configure security policies, establish secure remote connectivity, and continuously monitor environments to adapt to infrastructure and security changes.
- Support and administer secure remote access and corporate wireless networking environments to ensure reliable and compliant connectivity.
- Configure, monitor, and maintain centralized security logging and monitoring systems to support threat detection and incident response.
- Manage and verify the integrity and availability of backup and recovery systems to support business continuity and disaster recovery objectives.
- Assist with administration of mobile device management and enterprise collaboration platforms, ensuring secure configuration and operational continuity.
- Troubleshoot and resolve complex infrastructure issues across networking, storage, virtualization, servers, applications, and databases.
- Assessed infrastructure for single points of failure and unnecessary redundancy, recommending and implementing design improvements.
- Partner with internal teams and external providers to ensure systems are effectively integrated, configured, and supported in both pre-production and production environments.
- Deploy new hardware and software, serving as a primary resource for server provisioning.
- Facilitated setup and support of new branch and remote locations, enhancing connectivity and service continuity.
- Performed systems analysis with stakeholders to define functional requirements for hardware, software, and system solutions.
- Provided after-hours technical support during planned maintenance and responded to on-call requests to minimize downtime.
- Assist with advanced support requests and serve as an escalation point for complex technical issues.
System Administrator/Lead IT Technician
Arc of Northwest Indiana
Gary, IN
07.2015 - 09.2016
- Redesigned network which saved the Arc of Northwest Indiana $25K per year, and increased network performance.
- Server Administration of Windows 2003, Windows 2008 and Windows 2012 Servers.
- Maintained and supported Active Directory to ensure user access and security.
- Maintain and support networks of WAN consisting of, 4 centers across Lake County, IN.
- Provided end user support to over 200 users and trained employees on new software and hardware updates.
- Maintain, support, and repair company computers, laptops, and devices.
- Deploying new desktops for new users.
- Handled user requests for email account creation and deletion.
- Managing integrity of phone system, and adding new employees to phone system.
- Coordinated communication with technology vendors to optimize service delivery.
- Managed comprehensive inventory of IT equipment for accurate tracking and resource allocation.
- Oversaw procurement processes for all IT equipment to meet organizational needs.
- Company network consists of LANs, WAN, and wireless access points.
Education
Bachelor of Science - Computer Information Systems
Indiana University Northwest
Gary, IN12-2014
Skills
- Incident response
- Threat detection
- Vulnerability management
- Vulnerability assessment
- Security monitoring
- Email Security
- Intrusion detection
- Network security
- Firewall management
- Identity and Access management
- Two-factor authentication
- Endpoint protection
- Security architecture
- Security design
- Business continuity
- Cross-functional collaboration
- Endpoint protection
Timeline
Cyber Defense Team Lead
Centier Bank
01.2026 - Current
Security Engineer
Centier Bank
01.2024 - Current
Infrastructure Engineer
Centier Bank
09.2016 - 01.2024
System Administrator/Lead IT Technician
Arc of Northwest Indiana
07.2015 - 09.2016
Bachelor of Science - Computer Information Systems
Indiana University Northwest