Ken Ducatel

Ken Ducatel was Director of IT Security at the European Commission from the establishment of the Directorate in January 2016 until his retirement in February 2022. During that time, he oversaw a fivefold increase in both staffing and budget and the coming of age of cybersecurity as a strategic priority of the organisation, with representation at board level. He served through his tenure as director on the management board of ENISA, the EU Cybersecurity Agency. In parallel, he also led the CERT-EU (the Computer Emergency Response Team for the EU Institutions and Agencies) from mid-2017 until the end of 2018 and was acting Director for Digital Business Solutions, the service responsible for providing information systems for the Commission, from November 2016 until May 2017.

Ken has been an active member of the Belgian Cyber Security Coalition since 2016 and a member of the Belgian chapters of ISACA and CIONET since 2015. Although British by birth, he was proud to become Belgian at end of 2020.

Ken holds a PhD in economic geography from Bristol University (1987), an MSc in transport policy from Cranfield University (1985) and a BA (Hons) from Lancaster University (1982).

Ken has worked on information society policy nearly for nearly forty years. He was a member of the Faculty of University of Manchester for 14 years until from 1990 to 2004. From 1997 to 2003, he worked at the Joint Research Centre’s Institute for Prospective Technological Studies in Seville, where he led the Institute’s flagship prospective “Futures Project”. From 2004 to 2008 he was a member of Commissioner Reding’s Cabinet where he was responsible for Policies for the Information Society. In January 2009 he appointed Head of Unit in the European Commission, first for “Digital Agenda: Policy Coordination” in DG Information Society and from July 2012 “Software and Service, Cloud Computing” in the newly formed DG CONNECT. In September 2014, he became the Chief Information Security Officer in DG DIGIT with the task to develop operational IT Security in the Commission, which led to the formation of establishment of the IT Security Directorate in 2016.

Cybersecurity is today a strategic priority for all. Technical cyber-capability is essential but we cannot be safe without situational awareness and full engagement from the bottom to the top of every organisation.