PRO+ Premium Content/Information Security

Tom King, the chief information security officer at Experian's U.S. headquarters in Costa Mesa, Calif., has previously held the role of CISO at Barclays, Barclays Capital, Lehman Brothers and Credit Suisse First Boston. He didn't start his career in security, however. People are often surprised to learn that his undergraduate and graduate studies were in environmental sciences. What's more, King spent most of his early career as a geologist in the petroleum and groundwater industries. "My first significant use of IT was to perform simulations of large-scale groundwater withdrawals using mainframe computers," he said. Geology is a complex, multi-disciplinary field, which helped King hone his ability to look at problems holistically and systemically. "Of course, we have to understand the technology, but our role of CISO is much broader than that now," said King, who joined Experian Solutions Inc., a subsidiary of global financial information services provider Experian plc, in November 2015. King was appointed CISO one month after ...