Executive Director, Information Security

Chicago Public Schools (CPS) is a district on the rise, serving over 320,000 students in 500 schools and employing over 44,000 people, most of them teachers. CPS has set ambitious goals to ensure that every student, in every school and every neighborhood, has access to a world-class learning experience that prepares each for success in college, career, and civic life. In order to fulfill this mission, we make three commitments to our students, their families, and all Chicagoans : academic progress, financial stability, and integrity. Six core values are embedded within these commitments - student-centered, whole child, equity, academic excellence, community partnership, and continuous learning.

The Department of Information and Technology Services (ITS) works to build the capacity of schools to use information and technology, maintain network infrastructure, security standards, and support other departments to meet district goals. ITS provides innovative technology solutions that improve the quality of education for students, reduce the administrative burden on educators, facilitate parent interaction, increase community engagement, and support CPS' mission of transparency by focusing on the ease and equity of access to information.

Job Summary :

Reporting to the Chief Information Officer, the Executive Director, Information Security is responsible to establish and execute information security program directives, policy development, and policy enforcement as well as overseeing district's network security systems. The Executive Director, Information Security will develop mechanisms to best identify, evaluate, and mitigate district-wide information security risks in a manner that upholds compliance and regulatory requirements, and aligns with the risk posture of CPS. This role leads the information security and operations teams. This is a full-time exempt position that will be paid for time worked on a salary basis.

This Job will be held accountable for the following responsibilities :

• Establish and execute strategic, comprehensive enterprise information security program directives and plans, including any and all district-wide information security training efforts to ensure that the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information is owned, controlled or processed in a manner compliant with the CPS Board Policy and relevant regulatory authorities
• Develop and maintain information security policies, standards, guidelines and oversee the dissemination of security policies and practices; identify knowledge gaps to increase district awareness of relevant information security practices
• Lead and develop the information security and operations teams
• Provide leadership and guidance on information security topics, advising and collaborating on security processes, business continuity, and disaster recovery plans
• Provide oversight to the architecture and engineering of new security systems; including the evaluation of technical designs
• Ensure that system and application security design is in accordance with CPS Board Policy; consult with IT teams to ensure that security is factored into the evaluation, selection, installation, and configuration of hardware, applications and software
• Lead investigations of any actual or potential information security violations and manage escalation of security events; assist with related legal matters associated with such events as needed and make recommendations to correct or prevent future incidents
• Monitor external threat environment for emerging threats and advise relevant stakeholders on appropriate courses of action
• Provide regular reporting on current state of information security program to the CIO and other senior managers as appropriate
• Establish metrics and reporting framework to measure the efficiency, effectiveness, and maturity level of the program
• Liaise with relevant CPS business units (such as Internal Audit, Law, Finance, Safety & Security, Risk Management, HR teams), and external agencies as needed to ensure that CPS maintains a strong security posture
• Work with system administrators and application developers to audit, monitor and validate their environment's security, including conducting gap analysis and other comprehensive internal assessments of existing systems to improve the security infrastructure and mitigate risks
• Other duties as assigned

In order to be successful and achieve the above responsibilities, this position must possess the following qualifications :

Education Required :

Experience Required :

50,000 users) heterogeneous enterprise-level IT organization

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities :

Conditions of Employment

As a condition of employment with the Chicago Public Schools (CPS), employees are required to :