Dawn Cappelli
Retired VP and CISO, Rockwell Automation Security
Dawn Cappelli retired from Rockwell Automation in February 2022 as Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer and continues to provide thought leadership and outreach to the cybersecurity community. At Rockwell, she was responsible for developing and executing a holistic cybersecurity strategy to ensure that Rockwell Automation and the Connected Enterprise Ecosystem – the company’s infrastructure, products, and customers – are safe, secure, and resilient. Cappelli became CISO in 2016. She came to Rockwell Automation in 2013 as Director, Insider Risk, and built the company’s Insider Risk Program to mitigate threats from individuals within the company or trusted third parties who might steal information, sabotage infrastructure or products, or violate physical security controls. The Rockwell Automation Insider Risk Program was awarded the Global Team Leadership award by the Society of Women Engineers in 2016.
Before Rockwell Automation Cappelli was Founder and Director of Carnegie Mellon’s CERT Insider Threat Center, where she was recognized as one of the world’s leaders in insider threat mitigation and has worked with government and industry leaders on national strategy issues. Before that, she developed software for nuclear power plants for Westinghouse, and for Carnegie Mellon. She co-authored the book “The CERT Guide to Insider Threats: How to Prevent, Detect, and Respond to Information Technology Crimes (Theft, Sabotage, Fraud)”, which was inducted into the Cybersecurity Canon – a list of must-read books for all cybersecurity practitioners.
Cappelli is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional, holds a BS in Computer Science and Mathematics from the University of Pittsburgh, is co-founder of the Open Source Insider Threat (OSIT) information sharing group, and is a member of the RSA Conference Advisory Board, the Cybersecurity Collaborative Executive Committee, and the CyberWire Hash Table. She was inducted into the ISSA Hall of Fame in 2021, honored as a member of the 2021 CISOs Top 100 CISOs, 2020 Global CISO 100, and was named Pittsburgh CISO of the Year in 2018.