Jen Vasquez
VP & CISO
Evernorth
Jen Vasquez is the Chief Information Security Officer for Evernorth Health Services, the largest segment of The Cigna Group business, a $120B billion global organization.
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Give us a brief overview of the path that led to your current role.
I started in IT right out of college in 1998 with a role as a network sales engineer for 5 years. I then moved into an IT admin and ERP support role with Klockner Pentaplast in 2003. During my time, I took on many different support functions in IT, managed the global WAN, network, global projects, audits and security landscape before being promoted to CISO.
What is one of your guiding leadership principles?
To authentically connect with my leaders and teams, to bring them into our evolving culture, and to make sure I have a strong relationship with each of them. This enables my leadership team to set high expectations, but create a safe place to innovate and grow their skill sets and enable their career growth.
With disruption being a key theme of recent years, where do you see the CISO role going in the next 1-2 years?
We will continue to be critical educators and subject matter experts which I believe will heighten as the threat landscape continues to trend with technology evolving. This SME expertise will be needed to ensure accurate response and communications to senior level executives including the Board of Directors and shareholders as well as customers in times of breach response.
I also believe the idea of risk assessment and quantification will be sharpened with more integrated views on threat exposure management with business impact analysis. This additional view drives to the heart of what most response scenarios encompass and much of the Board of Directors are having to learn and guide.
What advice would you give to someone just starting out as a CISO?
Focus on finding a career path that aligns with what you love to do. Finding that love will propel you to your best self and empower those around you.
Tell us a few fun facts about yourself.
- A big part of my world is outside of work. I live on a 35-acre ranch in the mountains and spend most of my time outside of work outdoors in all seasons. It is what enables me to balance the always-on nature of what I do. I'm immersed in nature with my family (including all my animals) every chance I get and it has become my place of peace and restoration.
- I absolutely love what I do and it fuels my passion for helping others find what they love to do. It spreads to the rest of your life and those around you which is infectious for the positive.
- I'm a health enthusiast and work to eat right, exercise, and love to sleep. My family is big into sports and outside activities. (E.g. hiking, golf, horse-back riding, pickleball, fishing, etc.)
What is the value of joining an Evanta community?
I love Colorado and am always looking for ways to network and give back to the community.
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