Heather Hinton joins RingCentral as CISO
RingCentral announced that industry security veteran, Heather Hinton has joined RingCentral as the company’s Chief Information Security Officer (CISO).
Hinton joins RingCentral from IBM, where she spent 13 years in various leadership positions, most recently as vice president and IBM distinguished engineer, and CISO for the company’s Cloud and Cognitive Software business unit.
Hinton brings more than 30 years of experience in Information Technology (IT) and cyber security expertise to RingCentral. Over the years, she has led product design and architecture, development, and sales and support for several organizations and was instrumental in bringing Privacy by Design thinking into IBM’s Security and Privacy by Design discipline in response to emerging privacy requirements.
She has also overseen security operations and data center security, risk management, and incident response activities for large Fortune 500 customers.
“As everyone evolves to work from anywhere, it is absolutely crucial that we continue to provide our customers with a trusted cloud communications platform,” said Nat Natarajan, executive vice president of products and engineering, at RingCentral.
“Heather brings incredible experience and insights on security and privacy that perfectly aligns with our vision. We are delighted to welcome her to the RingCentral family and look forward to continuing to build trust with our customers through delivering a best-in-class secure, reliable, and compliant cloud communications platform.”
While at IBM, Heather held a variety of key positions including IBM Distinguished Engineer and chief technology officer (CTO) for the company’s Security and Compliance Specialty Service Area (SSA), where she addressed security and compliance concerns for internal adopters and external clients.
She was also chief architect for the Worldwide Technical Sales and Solutions group where she was responsible for driving the adoption of IBM Cloud solutions (also known as IBM Bluemix IaaS, IBM SoftLayer, and IBM Smart Cloud) with key strategic clients.
As an IBM Master Inventor, Hinton holds over 100 patents covering federated identity management, cloud security, and policy management. She was inducted into the Women in Technology Hall of Fame in 2019.
“I am excited for the opportunity to provide RingCentral customers with a trusted, reliable, and secure platform that supports customers’ digital transformation and enables their people to work from anywhere,” said Hinton.
“As the concept of the workplace continues to evolve at a rapid pace, security and privacy have taken center stage. RingCentral’s commitment to security and privacy and desire to continuously delight and empower customers with broader security innovation was a big draw for me.
“Together with the team, I will help maintain and improve RingCentral’s current security posture and processes as we continue to drive innovation and collaboration.”