Drew Blandford-Williams is a U.S. Navy veteran, cybersecurity executive, author, educator, and longtime contributor to the information security profession, with more than four decades of experience spanning national security, cybersecurity, governance, risk and compliance (GRC), privacy, incident response, threat intelligence, and information assurance. His early career in the Navy's defense information community during the Carter and Reagan administrations introduced him to information warfare, communications security, and the strategic importance of protecting information and mission-critical systems. As the commercial cybersecurity industry emerged, Blandford-Williams participated in several formative initiatives, including early hacker and vulnerability research, the development and product management of pioneering intrusion detection and Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) technologies, industry efforts surrounding HIPAA security safeguards, and the founding Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) initiative that helped establish CVE as the standard for identifying and cataloging cybersecurity vulnerabilities.

Throughout his career, Blandford-Williams has built, scaled, and led cybersecurity, application security, risk, privacy, and compliance programs for government and globally distributed commercial organizations. His experience includes leadership of Capgemini's North American GRC consulting practice, global application security and compliance responsibilities supporting McDonald's, implementation of security and compliance programs supporting approximately $2 billion in client revenue, and leadership and advisory roles involving major ransomware response and recovery efforts. Across these assignments, his work has consistently focused on translating technical cybersecurity challenges into questions of organizational risk, resilience, governance, and executive decision-making—connecting technology with the larger business, national-security, and human consequences of cyber risk.

Today, Blandford-Williams brings that practitioner experience—and a lifelong passion for teaching and mentoring others—into higher education as a senior faculty lecturer and course developer in Cybersecurity at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). He is deeply committed to helping students and emerging professionals discover their capabilities, develop confidence in their own judgment, and pursue opportunities that allow them to achieve their highest potential throughout their careers and lives. His philosophy of education extends beyond preparing students for their first cybersecurity position; he believes that great teaching should encourage curiosity, integrity, resilience, critical thinking, and a lifelong desire to grow. Blandford-Williams earned a master's degree in homeland security and safety leadership from The George Washington University, with undergraduate studies at Utah Valley University, the University of California, Berkeley, and Brigham Young University. As an educator, writer, lecturer, mentor, and lifelong student of technology and human behavior, he believes experience carries with it an obligation to pass something useful forward—and that cybersecurity ultimately extends beyond protecting systems and information to protecting commerce, national security, critical infrastructure, and the human condition.