Cyber and Fraud Centre – Scotland enhances expertise with four new trustees

08.05.24

Blog, General

Scotland’s leading support organisation for cyber and fraud crime, the Cyber and Fraud Centre – Scotland, has announced the appointments of four new trustees, each bringing key areas of expertise to the board and supporting Scotland’s businesses to be resilient against the growing threat of cyber and fraud crime.

DCC Bex Smith holds over twenty years of policing experience drawn from a range of nationally significant command functions including spending 18 of her 21 years in policing in public protection, major crime, local crime and serious and organised crime (SOC). Her current portfolio sees her with responsibility for major crime, public protection, local crime, organised crime, counter terrorism, intelligence and operational support.

Bruce Harrison recently retired from his role as managing director at BlackRock, one of the world’s largest investment managers. During his tenure at BlackRock, Bruce was responsible for overseeing a comprehensive suite of portfolio risk management tools. He brings with him a worldview of managing technology risks.

Further strengthening the expertise of the Cyber and Fraud Centre – Scotland’s board is Gerry Magee. Gerry has over 25 years’ experience in brand and marketing leadership positions across a wide range of sectors and is currently UK brand and marketing director for Betfred – one of the world’s largest independent bookmakers. Working with well-known UK brands including Scottish Power, Sainsbury’s, Clydesdale Bank, Virgin Money and now Betfred, Gerry brings a wealth of expertise in brand-building, strategic marketing planning and campaign execution.

Sophie Hodgson is currently director, corporate communications at Secureworks and brings with her global experience in corporate communications and PR. Having worked with technology giants such as Adobe, HP, Informatica, Symantec and Virgin Media Business, Sophie’s career spans over two decades in strategic communications in a technology setting.

Cyber and Fraud Centre – Scotland offers a range of services to support businesses to be resilient in the face of the growing threat of cyber and fraud crime, as well as offering an incident response helpline for businesses who have been a victim of cyber crime.

Jude McCorry, CEO of the Cyber and Fraud Centre- Scotland, said: “We are thrilled to welcome our four new trustees to our board. Everyone at the Cyber and Fraud Centre is looking forward to working with them and our existing board members to support our business community in the fight against cyber and fraud crime. 

“The threat of cyber and fraud crime is increasing with calls to our Incident Response Helpline more than doubling in a year. Our new trustees bring significant connections and contacts as well as expertise of working across policing and technology and commercial sectors, which will help us to address this by bringing fresh thinking to our organisation and creating opportunities to realise our vision where Scottish organisations are as resilient as they can be against cyber and fraud crime.”