Jannie Noer Mortensen nominated ‘CISO of the Year 2023’

Jannie Noer Mortensen, CISO (chief information security officer) in BEC, is one of the three final nominees for ‘CISO of the Year 2023’ awarded by Computerworld Denmark, the Danish Chamber of Commerce (Dansk Erhverv) and the Council for Digital Security (Rådet for Digital Sikkerhed).

Jannie Noer Mortensen joined BEC in June 2022. She had barely set foot in BEC before she was charged with heading BEC’s largest strategic program in 2023, which is to strengthen BEC’s security and risk processes. The program involves all 1,700 employees, who have all been given security and risk management as their first priority in 2023.

Calm center of the storm

“We charged her with driving enormous changes; having to define the objectives along the way; with almost no time to prepare; together with a very competent, but also very new Risk & Security team. This was extremely ambitious, but also absolutely crucial to protect our customers’ trust in BEC and to keep up with to the authorities’ steeply rising expectations to us. Jannie Noer Mortensen has never wavered in that task. On the contrary, she has been the calm center of the storm,” says Christian Pedersen-Bjergaard, CFO and division head of Finance & Risk.

Jannie Noer Mortensen holds a MSc in organizational sociology and a series of security and management certifications.

Impressed with the colleagues in BEC

As CISO in BEC, she is area director heading three teams, totaling 30 employees, and is also responsible for BEC’s information security and risk management across the entire organization.

“Our risk and security program in 2023 is a colossal task, which has forced us to start engaging the entire organization while still drafting the plan and draw heavily on many colleagues’ patience in a very speedy process. This is only possible by relying heavily on the knowledge, professionalism, and helpfulness to get the job done that I meet everywhere in BEC,” Jannie Noer Mortensen says.

BEC is a full-service IT supplier to Danish banks, which together serve approximately one in four bank customers in Denmark. The banks and BEC work under strict regulation and close supervision from the Danish Financial Supervisory Authority within IT security and risk management.

“We can at any point in time be met by new, higher risk and security requirements – or even FSA orders. And that’s not even unreasonable in the dire threat landscape we see around us. Therefore, we can never rest in improving our risk and security. On the contrary, we must set our organization up to improve even further, continuously and quite aggressively, to ensure safe banking for the Danish society,” Jannie Noer Mortensen says.

The winner of ’CISO of the Year 2023’ will be announced at an awards ceremony on October 11.