Ria Aiken

“Ria Aiken has emerged as an extraordinary leader. She was one of my most trusted advisors. I never doubted or second-guessed her recommendations and often wished I had those ideas myself. Her clear and mission-oriented focus helped me be an even more effective leader. Ria made significant improvements in the operations of our cybersecurity team and, through her efforts, made an excellent team an exceptional team. Ria's influence on our team quickly impacted the entire organization and is still paying dividends to this day. While we no longer work together, I long for the day when we can join forces again to make another extraordinary impact.”

“As the first ever CISO for the City of Atlanta, identifying and working with members of leadership within the city was instrumental to achieving my team’s strategic goals and initiatives. Ria’s corporate experience in launching emerging business lines coupled with her technical risk management and disaster mitigation experience was a great asset to my team. Specifically, her years in operations effectiveness and disaster mitigation enabled her to quickly understand the business risks associated with cyber security. Ria broke down silos by partnering with me, leveraging her influence with executive leadership to implement my department’s information security strategy and vision., including being instrumental in the development and implementation of a fun, but effective, cyber security training program for over 8,000 employees. Ria also went above and beyond by taking the initiative to take the HISPI training, to enable her to better understand cyber security risks and how she could support achieving cyber security goals. She was a key partner in our journey towards achieving ISO 27001 Certification and CMMI Level 3 appraisal, by working collaboratively, swiftly and effectively through large matrixed organizations.”