The Gately Report: New Mitel CISO to Tackle Cyber Challenges Related to Unify Acquisition

New Mitel CISO Bill Dunnion will address cybersecurity challenges created by his company acquiring Unify, formerly the UCC services businesses of the Atos group.

Before joining Mitel, Dunnion held IT and cybersecurity leadership positions at Calian, 2Keys Security Solutions and Bell Canada. In his most recent role as Calian’s senior director of corporate cybersecurity, he oversaw the development, implementation and operation of its corporate cybersecurity program.

Mitel completed its Unify acquisition last October, a move that Mitel says creates a “global powerhouse in unified communications (UC).” The transaction cements the combined company with a No. 2 position in global market share for enterprise UC, and increased regional leadership with a No. 1 position in EMEA and more than 10 individual countries. 

Mitel also extends its position as the “global market leader” in multi-cell digital enhanced cordless telecommunications (DECT), in addition to securing the “market-leading position” for DECT in EMEA, Latin America and 19 countries, it said.

New Mitel CISO Has Previous M&A Experience

Combining the two companies “absolutely” creates cybersecurity challenges, Dunnion said.

“I've been fortunate enough in my career to be involved with a number of mergers and acquisitions, and whenever you're bringing two established organizations together, there are definitely challenges and opportunities when you go to integration,” he said. “So you're dealing with different cultures. You're dealing with different approaches, backgrounds and processes, and you need to work to create a single strong team again, and security is no different. The Unify program, they do a lot of direct selling. They've got a very established security program, which is excellent. They're ISO 27001-certified and have been for a number of years. The heritage Mitel environment has its own tech stack, and its own policies and procedures. So one of my top priorities is bringing these two cultures and environments together into a single program.”

Mitel's Bill Dunnion

Dunnion’s role involves all aspects of information security for the combined Mitel and Unify corporate position.

“So included in that would be things like compliance to security standards, network security, incident response and cyber awareness training, weaving all of those into a comprehensive and complete program for the new, combined Mitel corporate entity,” he said. “So by extension, because our partners connect to Mitel's online systems, keeping our core network and our core systems safe in a way also keeps our customers and our channel partners safe.”

Scroll through our slideshow above for more from Mitel’s new CISO and more cybersecurity news.