By Paul Marck Canwest News service, Edmonton

A new kind of executive has appeared on the horizon. Gene McLean is one of a very few of this kind, on the leading edge of the corporate makeover forced by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks five years ago.

“Its a new trend since 9/11 and its taken on a whole new perspective,” says the soft-spoken chief security officer for Telus.

The 25-year former Mountie joined the company just months before the world changed when terrorists flew airliners into the World Trade Center, killing more than 2,800 people and changing the way companies handle their security affairs.

Gone are the old notions of what corporate security looks like.

“People’s perceptions were pf guns. Guards and dogs,” says McLean, who looks every part the executive as a Telus Vice-president.

Today, McLean and his staff of 100 analysts, investigators, computer specialists and technical experts do risk assessment and mitigation at every level of the company, including customer relations, product development, intellectual property and communications as well as physical security of company assets and personnel.

“We’ve got a role to plat hat is integrated throughout the company,” says McLean, who has the full support of Telus, from CEO Darren Entwistle on down to frontline employees.

Companies often divide physical security and information technology security into separate responsibilities. McLean reviewed, streamlined and combined some of those functions at Telus.

He says he believes it is the only way to operate in an effort to keep everyone aware and responsible for security across the company.

Since 9/11, the focus on corporate security at Telus has trned into a full business model to ensure uninterrupted operations and full protection for clients, who deal in records and information ranging from individual personal information to bank transactions.

His job, McLean says, comes down to risk management. “There is risk in everything. It’s our job to balance and mitigate that risk,” says McLean.

McLean’s unit is responsible for audits, implementation, enforcement and customer liaison, a relatively new role for security. It was McLean’s idea to put a high-ranking security expert in charge of dealing with corporate clients directly, both to explain procedures and technology and to provide assurance that Telus has security as its foremost concern.

Companies trust Telus to move huge volumes of sensitive corporate data over secure networks and it is crucial that the transmission is seamless, uninterrupted and at minimal risk of being hacked or intercepted, says McLean.

Having a front-line body dealing directly with customers provides that extra degree of comfort, he adds.

While there is a much more open attitude about the need to conduct effective security to ward off cyber crime and identity theft, McLean admits there are a few secrets Telus will not divulge.

He turns down a request for a tour of the Telus security nerve centre. Nor will he reveal the results of constant electronic sweeps of the corporate boardroom before directors’ meetings, to ward off industrial espionage.

Do those sweeps ever turn up anything? McLean is asked. “I wouldn’t tell you if they did.” he replies.

McLean also will not discuss audit and compliance reviews Telus conducts, or wiretap orders from the courts used in criminal investigations.

Nor does he say much about his storied past in the RCMP. He has provided security at Buckingham Palace has been toasted by Prince Charles and was part of international investigations into the Airbus affair and charges that brought down former hockey agent and NHL players’ head Alan Eagleson.

McLean points out the new era of awareness and training that is a vital part of modern corporate culture—like the “clean desk” policy that all Telus employees adhere to. That means that at the end of the day no records or documents of any kind, physical or electronic, can be left on their desks or virtual desktops.

He also developed an e-security course every employee, including executives, must take part in, his emphasis being that security is a responsibility of everybody in the company.

His recent efforts for Telus won him the Canadian Security Director of the Year Award from Canadian Security Magazine.

Source: Calgary Herald, November 2, 2006