Ciaran Martin founded the UK’s world leading National Cyber Security
Centre and headed it for the first four years of its existence. Currently,
after stepping down from his role with NCSC at the end of August 2020,
Martin holds the position of Professor of Practice in the Management of
Public Organisations at Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of
Government and advises NATO and a number of private sector
organisations on cyber security strategies.

The NCSC, part of GCHQ, where Martin served as an executive board
member for six and a half years, is regarded as the world leader among
public authorities for cyber security. The International
Telecommunications Union now ranks the UK as the #1 country for
cyber security as a result of the NCSC’s work.

Under Martin’s leadership, the NCSC took the lead in managing more
than 2,000 nationally significant cyber-attacks against the UK, including
the so-called Wannacry attack against the NHS in 2017. He led the
detection work that prompted the Government to call out, for the first
time, cyber aggression from Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. He
helped the NCSC transform the Government’s relationship with
business on cyber security. In 2018, in a keynote at the CBI’s cyber
security conference, he launched a board toolkit with five essential
questions corporate leaders needed to understand. As a global cyber
security leader, he travelled to more than 30 countries in five continents
building partnerships with Government, national security and corporate
leaders. At the NCSC he was a much sought after guest of the UK’s
major corporate boards.

Martin believes the essence of good cyber security is demystifying a
complex subject and finding a way and a language for the specialists to
engage with the leadership. That becomes more and more important as
new technologies and technology platforms – 5G, the Internet of Things,
quantum – become the new realities.

Martin is also a 23 year veteran of the UK Government, working directly
with five Prime Ministers and a variety of senior Ministers from three
political parties. He held senior positions at HM Treasury and the
Cabinet Office as well as GCHQ. He was head of the Cabinet
Secretary’s Office and led the official negotiations that led to the agreed
terms and rules for the Scottish independence referendum.

In 2020 Ciaran Martin was appointed CB by Her Majesty The Queen
and has received a range of awards domestically and internationally in
recognition of his cyber security work.