Vice President, Chief Security & Resiliency Officer, Azure, Microsoft

Edna Conway

Edna Conway is globally recognized as an innovative and empowering executive who forecasts the future of business and creates clear strategies to get ahead of burgeoning trends. Her expertise and insight span the expanding arena of third-party risk, changing global government cybersecurity demands and consumer privacy expectations.

At Microsoft, as Vice President, Chief Security & Resiliency Officer, Azure, she is responsible for the security, resiliency and governance of the cloud infrastructure and supply chain upon which Microsoft’s Intelligent Cloud business operates. In this role, she has built a team and a comprehensive architecture to ensure Azure’s infrastructure is secure and resilient.

Examples of her impact include: building and launching one comprehensive and customized global architecture for security and resilience across the entire Azure lifecycle; establishing empirical data measures to support conformity to world class global human rights, health and safety, sustainability and quality standards; establishing an Assessment Findings Remediation Scale and aligning with Microsoft’s Enterprise Risk Management group; and developing and deploying COVID-19 impact reporting across the Azure Hardware Systems Infrastructure organization.

Conway developed and delivered the first comprehensive integrated security architecture for Cisco’s Global Information & Communications Technology (ICT) supply chain as the company’s first Chief Security Officer, Global Value Chain. This risk-based architectural model, built over a decade ago, has been used as a baseline across the ICT industry and governments worldwide.

She says, “I am particularly proud of the development and delivery of the first comprehensive, integrated security architecture for a global information & communications technology (ICT) supply chain. As Cisco’s first Chief Security Officer for its global value chain, I had the privilege of conceptualizing and bringing to fruition an architecture that holistically embraced all aspects of security and enabled deployment across the broad spectrum of services and products provided by over 100,000 ecosystem members. While this remains a fundamental part of Cisco’s operations and serves as a baseline for NATO countries, I continue to evolve my approach to comprehensive security. In 2020, I built a new model for assuring the security, resilience and integrity of Microsoft’s Azure cloud infrastructure.”

Conway is a proponent of building security in and across all operational processes. She has advocated for a comprehensive approach to cybersecurity in testimony before the U.S. Presidential Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity, The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Defense Science Board, and was appointed to the Executive Committee of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Task Force on ICT Supply Chain Risk Management.

In addition to her global recognition, Conway has been appointed to the National Infrastructure Protection Plan rewrite committee; elected by industry peers as Vice-Chair of International Security Standard: ISO 20243; and was elected to the U.S. DHS Critical Manufacturing Sector Coordinating Council Executive Committee. She also collaborates (and has collaborated) globally with governments, academic institutions and think tanks.