CREST announces new interim President, LRQA Nettitude Founder, Rowland Johnson

We are delighted by CREST’s announcement that LRQA Nettitude’s founder and former CEO Rowland Johnson has been named as the new acting President of CREST.

CREST, the Council of Registered Ethical Security Testers, is the international not-for-profit accreditation and certification body representing and supporting the technical cybersecurity market by regulating the industry.

Rowland succeeds Ian Glover who has drawn his CREST Presidency to a close after 13 years. Rowland who founded LRQA Nettitude, the cybersecurity and risk management consultancy, in 2003 took a step back from the organisation in July 2020. He has been an active member of CREST since 2010 and is the organisation’s former Internationalisation Director.

Rowland commented “It will be a great privilege to act as CREST’s President for the next 12 months. CREST has become synonymous with high levels of expertise within the cybersecurity and incident response industry. Ian has achieved so much in his time as President and I’m delighted to have an opportunity to continue in his footsteps”

He continued “With cybersecurity being recognised as a vital part of business and society the CREST brand provides business leaders and the public with confidence that they are working with a cybersecurity company and practitioners that are at the top of the game.”

Karen Bolton, CEO of LRQA Nettitude said “I cannot think of a better person than Rowland to assume the leadership of CREST. Throughout his career, he has worked tirelessly to advance cybersecurity whether it was for LRQA Nettitude or CREST. I wish him all the best in his new role as President of CREST and have no doubt he will continue to set the standards for cybersecurity and keep pushing the industry forwards.”

CREST provides accreditations for organisations and professional level certifications for individuals providing vulnerability assessment, penetration testing, cyber incident response, threat intelligence and Security Operations Centre (SOC) services. It provides organisations wishing to buy penetration testing services with confidence that the work will be carried out by qualified individuals with up to date knowledge, skill and competence of the latest vulnerabilities and techniques used by real attackers.

Find out more about CREST here