Medha R. Bhalodkar

Medha is the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) and Associate Vice President of Enterprise Risk Management & Identity Access Management. She has served as the University's first CISO since 2006.

With growing responsibilities in functions and complexities over the last decade, Medha now leads multiple teams of information security professionals to manage Columbia's IT Policies, IT Enterprise Risk Management, Application Security, Identity Access Management and Network Security across its 17 schools (except for the Columbia Medical Center), and also provides security and guidance to Columbia University Global Centers. Medha has been appointed as an Advisory Board Member of Columbia University’s Masters of Science in Enterprise Risk Management (MSERM) Program, which was created to prepare risk management professionals across a variety of industries in rapidly evolving global and regulatory environments.

Medha has over 25 years of experience in various aspects of Information Technology, Security, Auditing and Risk Management, spending over 15 years in the Financial Industry and over 10 years in the Education and Healthcare industry. Before working at Columbia, Medha held various positions in IT,  IT Auditing, and Risk Management at the Depositary Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), the Banco Do Brasil, the Bank of India and the Reserve Bank of India.

Medha is a recognized Risk Management and Information Security professional and serves on a number of governing bodies, steering committees of professional organizations and is a frequent panel speaker at major NY conferences.  Medha has a number of security certifications (e.g., CISA, CGEIT, CRISC, CICA, ITIL, and Cloud Security Certifications) and a B.S. from Bombay University.  Medha was awarded the 2015 and 2016 North America Information Security Executive of the Year and her team was recognized with the 2015 and 2016 North America Project of the Year for their IT Risk Management and Privacy Program, by ISE Tech Exec Networks in the Academic and Public Sector categories. In September 2016, Medha was awarded the Global CISO of the Year by EC-Council Foundation InfoSec Tech & Exec Awards.

Executive Assistant: Kristen Schneider ([email protected])