Law firm Clyde & Co launches cyber risk advisory practice
Information security veteran Chris McLaughlin has joined the Sydney office of Clyde & Co, where he’ll head up the law firm’s newly launched APAC Cyber Risk Advisory practice.
In a statement announcing the launch, the international law firm said that the move is in line with rapidly increasing client demand and will further strengthen its existing cyber incident response and digital law team in Australia.
Clyde & Co has brought in former PwC director and Aon cyber lead Chris McLaughlin to oversee the practice.
Citing the ever-growing expectations on local businesses to prepare for and respond to cyber incidents, global practice co-head John Moran said, “We’re delighted to have Chris on board to lead our cyber risk advisory practice. Chris and his team will provide independent, technology/vendor neutral advice on how organisations can improve the cyber resilience of their systems, processes and people.”
McLaughlin joins Clyde & Co as a principal after two and a half years with professional services firm Aon, where he served as head of cyber solutions for Australia and APAC Cyber Advisory lead. Prior to that, he spent more than three and a half years as a director in PwC’s cyber practice based in Sydney, responsible for business development and the delivery of consulting engagements nationally.
Altogether bringing more than two decades of information security and cyber risk management experience, McLaughlin has spent further senior stints with Gartner, Ernst & Young, Hewlett Packard, IBM, and Accenture in the UK, having originally started out as a specialist operator in the signals corps of the British defence force, with deployments in various, often hostile locations worldwide.
“As the cyber risk landscape continues to evolve, it’s more important than ever for organisations to be targeted in their approach to uplifting their security,” McLaughlin said of his appointment. “I’m looking forward to working with our clients to help them prioritise security-enhancing activities that are pragmatic and help them get the most out of their security investment.”
According to Clyde & Co, McLaughlin’s appointment forms part of the firm’s ongoing expansion of its global technology and cyber risk offering to meet the rapidly increasing demand for cyber, privacy and digital advice, and follows the partnership recruitment of former Ernst & Young APAC Digital Law leader and one-time KPMG special counsel Alec Christie early last year.
Another practice partner, Reece Corbett-Wilkins, commented: “When we wrote the word ‘cyber’ on a whiteboard and said ‘let’s do it’, I didn't think for a minute that we'd be launching a cyber advisory practice with non-lawyers at the helm. Yet, here we are, filling a gap for clients to help with control remediation, pre- and post-incident, with a vendor-agnostic independent voice.”
As stated by the firm, its cyber practice provides an end-to-end cyber risk solution to clients. From transactions, innovations, pre-incident readiness and incident response through to regulatory investigations, proceedings, third party claims (including group litigation) and recoveries – supporting corporate clients, insurers, the insured and brokers across the full cyber life-cycle.
