Niel Harper – Technology Award 2023
Business Information Systems, 1995
The child of a career public servant and diplomat, Niel Harper has spent much of his life moving from place to place. Originally from Barbados, he came to Ottawa in 1992 to enroll in Algonquin College’s Business Information Systems program.
The hands-on learning environment of Algonquin College is what set Harper up for success in his early career. Lab work combined with theory ensured he was equipped with the necessary knowledge to excel in the telecommunications field. He credits his workforce readiness to his time spent working on hardware in the College’s labs, noting how the technical and practical skills acquired contributed to his early success.
He also remarked on how the professional connections made throughout the program ensured an easy transition into the work environment post-grad. College was the launch pad for Harper to explore his passions and determine his future pursuits. His time at Algonquin College helped him hone in on his passion for telecommunications and sparked a lifelong career of improving people’s lives through secure, open and accessible Internet and ICT services.
Following graduation, Harper returned to Barbados where he was part of a team at the forefront of introducing the Internet to the country. After a few years of working in information systems across the telecoms and energy industries, Harper took on a new role at AT&T Wireless as the Technical Operations Manager, leading the engineering team in building out the first 2nd generation cellular networks in Barbados.
After a short stint as an Internal and ICT Audit Manager at Telem Group in the Netherlands Antilles, Niel again returned to Barbados to work for CIBC, eventually landing himself in the role of Head of Networking and Security Engineering. At CIBC, Harper was responsible for upgrading the bank’s network and security platforms across 18 countries. These changes included leading the team that reverse engineered existing technologies to process credit card transactions, saving CIBC roughly $3 million a year.
In 2012, Harper left the banking world to pursue his true passion: digital rights advocacy. He became the Director of Cyber-Policy Capacity Building at the Internet Society, a non-profit founded by early Internet pioneers such as Vint Cerf, Bob Kahn, and John Postel. The goal of the organization is the development of open, globally-connected, secure and trustworthy internet for everyone, and Niel’s role was to identify and train the next generation of Internet leaders. He was responsible for the development and execution of award-winning training programs which had a reach of approximately 75,000 people in more than 100 countries.
In 2019, Niel joined the United Nations Office for Private Services (UNOPS) as their first Chief Information Security Officer and was responsible for building out their cyber security, technology risk management, and privacy programs in support of more than 1,500 ongoing infrastructure, project management and procurement projects in roughly 120 developing countries. He also served on the United Nations Information Security Special Interest Group during his tenure at UNOPS, supporting the development of information security best practices across more than 32 agencies in the UN system.
Harper is currently a Chief Information Security Officer; Expert in Cybersecurity, Data Policy, and Risk & Resilience at the World Economic Forum; and a Board Director & Vice-Chair, Audit Committee at the Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA). He also serves on the Cyber Risk and Corporate Governance Working Group at the World Economic Forum and on the Professional Standards Working Group of the UK Cyber Security Council.
Throughout the length of his career, Harper has worked to create open, accessible, trusted, and secure online platforms that enable or empower people to improve their lives. He is deeply committed to digital trust and to ensuring that individuals and organizations consistently benefit from safety, privacy, security, reliability, and data ethics when using online platforms. He has spent the last 20 years advising global organizations in the areas of corporate governance, cybersecurity management, privacy program management, digital transformation, enterprise risk management and digital policy.
Today, Harper is focused on transitioning his career toward more advisory and corporate governance roles and focusing on helping businesses and governments understand cyber risk management. He is focused on working with non-profits and corporations to implement strong governance and oversight mechanisms for key cyber risk areas. He is involved in assisting nation states in reducing the impacts of cyber risks especially across critical infrastructure providers like in key industries such as energy, healthcare, transportation, telecoms, and financial services. Harper believes that a key element of the overall health and wellness of a country is securing its critical infrastructure against bad actors.