Award honors volunteers for their valuable contributions towards fulfilling CSA’s mission of promoting best practices to help ensure a secure cloud computing environment

SEATTLE – Nov. 20, 2024 – The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA), the world’s leading organization dedicated to defining and raising awareness of best practices to help ensure a secure cloud computing environment, is pleased to announce the winners of the 2024 Juanita Koilpillai Award. The award, first established in 2012 as the Ron Knode Service Award and re-established in 2022 as the Juanita Koilpillai Award, is given to CSA members whose contributions reflect Juanita's passion for volunteerism.

“Each year, CSA honors a select group of members who embody what it means to be a volunteer — their dedication to advancing and transforming the field of cloud security benefits us all. Through their leadership and hard work, they are creating a more secure cloud ecosystem for us today, as well as for future generations,” said Jim Reavis, CEO and co-founder, Cloud Security Alliance.

This year’s winners are:

Ken Huang. Ken Huang is the Chief Artificial Intelligence (AI) Officer at DistributedApps.ai and an acclaimed author of eight books on AI and Web3. He is the co-chair of the AI Organizational Responsibilities and AI Controls Working Groups at the Cloud Security Alliance. In addition, he is a core contributor to OWASP's Top 10 Risks for LLM Applications and heavily involved in the NIST Generative AI Public Working Group. He also provides feedback on publications like NIST SP 800-226. His book, "Generative AI Security: Theories and Practices," takes a systematic, principle-based approach to securing generative AI systems, while his blog post Mitigating Security Risks in Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) LLM Applications stands as one of the most popular on the Cloud Security Alliance website. Huang also serves as chief editor of the book "Beyond AI: ChatGPT, Web3, and the Business Landscape of Tomorrow." A sought-after speaker, Ken has shared his insights at renowned global conferences, including those hosted by Davos WEF, ACM, IEEE, and CSA AI Summit, CSA AI Think Tank Day, and World Bank. His recent co-authorship of "Blockchain and Web3: Building the Cryptocurrency, Privacy, and Security Foundations of the Metaverse" was recognized as one of the must-reads in both 2023 and 2024 by TechTarget.

Shruti Kulkarni. Shruti Kulkarni, Information Security Architect with Elexon, is a security professional with experience across various domains of security. Previously, she served as Cyber Security Architect for 6point6. She specializes in defining an organization's security strategy, architecture, and practices, translating business objectives and risk management strategies into specific security processes enabled by security technologies and services. Additionally, she works on gap analysis, design, implementation, and maintenance of ISO27001, PCI-DSS, and GDPR, including Greenfield implementations. Shruti is a frequent presenter and collaborates with cross-functional groups to implement information security controls in software development life-cycle, service operations, service delivery, sales function, human resources, and other functions as applicable. Her working roles include security analyst, ISMS auditor, consultant, information security manager, enterprise security architect, volunteer, and guest speaker. She was among the inaugural class of CSA's Certificate of Competence in Zero Trust recipients.

Sam Pfanstiel, Ph.D. As Principal Analyst at Toast, Sam is responsible for heading the Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance programs for this cloud-based fintech company. Over the past 27 years, Sam has held key roles in security, technology, and management, and developed expertise in multiple disciplines, including payments, PCI compliance, fraud, cloud service delivery, application development, mobile technology, infrastructure, and cryptography. This diverse knowledge enables him to support the secure implementation of Toast's cloud-based restaurant payment systems, while helping drive efficiency and innovation across their portfolio of hospitality products. Sam holds multiple certifications, including CISSP, CISM, CEH, PCIP, and ISA. He is co-chair of the CSA Cloud Key Management Working Group, former chair of the ETA Risk, Fraud, and Security Committee, and remains an active contributor on the PCI Security Standards Council Board of Advisors, Technology Guidance Group, special interest groups, and task forces. Sam has had the privilege of speaking at numerous conferences held by PCI SSC, ETA, ICMC, Verifone, ACI, Mastercard, Treasury Institute, MAC, Conexxus, and NACS. In 2022 he received his Ph.D. in management, having published his dissertation on the impacts of retail management perceptions on cybersecurity investment.

Maria “MJ” Schwenger. Maria (MJ) Schwenger is a seasoned information security executive and vCIO/CISO at RCP. She leverages her deep expertise across cybersecurity, privacy and compliance, AI/Generative AI, cloud modernization, and software development to spearhead transformative digital journeys. Renowned for her leadership in integrating emerging technologies like AI/GenAI, DevSecOps/SRE, Blockchain, IoT/Edge, and cloud-native optimization, she seamlessly unlocks innovative business capabilities. The transformative results of her work demonstrate a substantial increase in ROI, productivity gains, and enhanced business agility. She is a co-chair of the CSA AI Governance and Compliance Working Group, and a member of CSA's AI Organizational Responsibilities and Data Privacy Engineering Working Groups.

About Cloud Security Alliance
The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) is the world’s leading organization dedicated to defining and raising awareness of best practices to help ensure a secure cloud computing environment. CSA harnesses the subject matter expertise of industry practitioners, associations, governments, and its corporate and individual members to offer cloud security-specific research, education, training, certification, events, and products. CSA's activities, knowledge, and extensive network benefit the entire community impacted by cloud — from providers and customers to governments, entrepreneurs, and the assurance industry — and provide a forum through which different parties can work together to create and maintain a trusted cloud ecosystem. For further information, visit us at www.cloudsecurityalliance.org, and follow us on Twitter @cloudsa.

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