Alain Espinosa

Alain Espinosa thrives in the business-technology continuum, viewing business and technology as interwoven concepts. He excels at strategizing, planning, and coaching people, as he moves easily between the big picture and the details. His unique gift of envisioning things that have not yet happened enables him to extract solutions to issues and challenges. Alain is a relationship builder, skilled communicator, and facilitator who engages both technical and business stakeholders in reaching a common goal.

Currently, Alain is the Global Director of Information Security Operations for Upbound Group (formerly known as Rent-A-Center) a $4 billion public retail and financing company. Among his accomplishments are 1) driving development of the company’s first third-party vendor risk management and data governance programs, thereby decreasing the risk of regulatory fines, 2) reducing the security operations management workload by 30%, and 3) establishing a robust cybersecurity awareness program.

Previously, Alain rose through a number of technical positions, which provided the foundation for his leadership roles in Information Security. These experiences were enhanced during his tenure at Cyber Defense Labs, an information security consultancy and managed security service provider, where he worked directly with clients on developing risk management strategies and providing program management expertise. Subsequently, he was the Director of Security Operations/Cybersecurity Consultant (vCISO) at Online Business Systems, an international digital transformation and cybersecurity consultancy, where he oversaw the Security Operations Center. He also served as Interim CISO for several clients, designing security controls and implementing governance processes.

Alain is an Advisory Board Member of Blackswan Cybersecurity (Consultancy), an Advisory Board Member of the Security Advisor Alliance, and Founding Advisory Board Member of DallasCISO.