Joel Rakow, Partner

Joel Rakow, Partner

Joel helps system integrators and their customers secure, buy, sell and implement solutions, making the IT supply chain stronger and able to conduct business more easily. It all starts with each party embracing its own cybersecurity hygiene.

 Joel Rakow is a Partner with Fortium Partners, LP, a firm comprised of over 80 of the world’s foremost CIOs and CISOs. Dr. Rakow’s current thought leadership in cybersecurity, data protection, data privacy addresses IT vendors and their customers, frequently as part of Ingram Micro’s Professional Services Group, was recently awarded a contract for building control contractors serving 120 universities, colleges and school districts in New Jersey, and other Fortium clients. Dr. Rakow frequently serves as a part-time CISO for system integrators assisting them turn the cybersecurity challenge into one of their biggest assets. Rakow’s client experience he garnered with more than sixty Fortune 1000 and emerging, start-up companies.

Rakow is a former adviser to the Secret Service, the LA Electronic Crimes Task Force, a member of the FBI InfraGard, Adobe Software’s Advisory Council, and the Receivers Team for the Courts of CA. He has provided executive and technical leadership for more than 100 enterprise deployments of security systems and platforms. Included in this is work with SSP Litronics, a firm that secure communication between the White House and the DoD, and ICANN, arguably the most secure site in Southern California. He developed more than 40 commercially successful software programs and won numerous industry awards including Microsoft Partner of the Year, PC World Best Product of the Year (three consecutive years) and Microsoft’s Implementation of the Year. He is a Harvard University Postdoctoral Fellow, National Science Foundation Fellow, Phi Beta Kappa award winner.

Rakow has extensive experience with security across health care systems, software development, identity management and smart card design, manufacturing, office systems, with deployments ranging from GDPR, NIST, CIS, HIPAA, FERPA, SOX, and others. He is the originator of the NeverCry Cyber Defense for the IT supply chain.