Summary
Overview
Work History
Education
Skills
Accomplishments
Certification
Interests
Timeline
Generic

Zack Shahan

Tuscola,TX

Summary

Results-driven Vice President of Security Operations with forward-thinking approach centered on company success and competitive growth. Demonstrated record of success in building successful teams and managing profitable operations.

Overview

20
20
years of professional experience
1
1
Certification

Work History

Vice President of Security Operations

Funeral Directors Life
12.2018 - Current
  • Implemented security programs following over 600 SCF framework controls, reducing overall cyber risk using Managed SOC, IPS systems, WAF for both on-prem and cloud, NAC to better secure on-prem networks, MDM systems to ensure secure baselines for both laptops, mobile devices and remote servers, achieving 4/5 on our annual cyber risk assessment
  • Demonstrated proficient leadership skills to motivate teams to secure on-premise and cloud infrastructure baseline requirements, while maintaining 99.99% uptime overall
  • Managed SaaS B2B solution for the funeral industry and optimized AWS costs with a 26% initial reduction, to achieve goal of less than 5% spend increase year over year
  • Led teams to manage 600+ server and endpoint assets, with 10% growth year over year while reducing need for additional staff
  • Developed Security Awareness program via KnowBe4 and achieved a less than 2% click rate across 550 users, lower than industry standard
  • Provided security guidance to marketing and development teams to ensuring compliance with state regulations.
  • Established performance goals and methods for achieving milestones via OKRs with a 85% success rate each quarter, year over year
  • Conducted threat assessments identifying security vulnerabilities monthly, over industry standard annually, to reduce time to resolve vulnerabilities being actively exploited
  • Implemented custom GPTs via ChatGPT Enterprise to vastly improve onboarding and training of IT staff
  • Developed automations, some with AI, to reduce manual processes and improve efficiencies in IT and Information Security systems, reducing time to respond to incidents from 90 minutes to 3 minutes

Director of Technology Infrastructure

Funeral Directors Life
01.2012 - 11.2018
  • Served as primary decision-maker for internal technology spending.
  • Implemented ticketing system for IT and Development, code versioning with SVN and later migrating to GIT, and then implemented CI/CD via GitLab to accelerate development workflows
  • Manage a global SaaS B2B solution in AWS to serve the funeral industry.
  • Implemented configuration management systems via Puppet for all server and endpoint systems to ensure secure baseline and reduce configuration drift for remote machines
  • Responsible for the overall planning, implementation, and maintenance of the company’s IT infrastructure.
  • Ensured the security, stability, and scalability of the network and systems.
  • Migrated organization from IBM Domino to Office 365 with zero downtime and zero data loss, also training staff on new platform.
  • Moved 4TB of on-prem file storage to SharePoint Online to improve remote work capabilities and achieve higher DR resilience
  • Managed, trained, and mentored department staff on IT best practices.

Infrastructure Analyst

Funeral Directors Life
03.2006 - 12.2011
  • Troubleshot incidents reported by end-users to schedule system changes.
  • Analyzed existing systems and databases and recommended enhancements.
  • Communicated and trained business/technology requirements to team members.
  • Migrated all of company physical servers to virtual machines to achieve over 500% server density.
  • Provisioned technology assets for replacement and new hires.
  • Managed organization’s firewall, network and server infrastructure.
  • Managed on-premise VOIP system for organization.
  • Managed Active Directory and IBM Domino email system.
  • Developed and implemented strategic plans to improve IT infrastructure to reduce manual processes.

Education

Associate of Applied Science (AAS) - Computer Networking and Systems Administration

Texas State Technical College
Abilene, TX
04-2006

Skills

  • Risk Management
  • Cross-functional collaboration
  • Budget administration
  • Entra ID/Active Directory/Microsoft 365
  • DHCP/DNS/IIS
  • Python/Bash/Powershell
  • Git/Bitbucket/Gitlab
  • Docker/Podman/Kubernetes
  • ExtremeOS/Aruba
  • Sophos/Watchguard
  • Penetration testing
  • Vulnerability scanning
  • Ubuntu

Accomplishments

  • Reduced overall cyber risk at company by 75%, improving our cyber insurance premiums with a reduction of $100k, allowing company to purchase additional coverage at no added cost
  • Implemented security controls to successfully obtain SOC 2 certification for company SaaS B2B solution
  • Improved security awareness to less than 2% click rate for over 550 employees

Certification

CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional), ISC2, 2023-11-01

Interests

  • Hiking and camping
  • Tech enthusiast with homelab to try new technologies
  • Supporting STEM education initiatives and mentorship programs with local high school
  • Volunteering at food-related charities

Timeline

Vice President of Security Operations

Funeral Directors Life
12.2018 - Current

Director of Technology Infrastructure

Funeral Directors Life
01.2012 - 11.2018

Infrastructure Analyst

Funeral Directors Life
03.2006 - 12.2011

Associate of Applied Science (AAS) - Computer Networking and Systems Administration

Texas State Technical College
Zack Shahan