About Me
Hi, my name is Martin! Throughout my life, I’ve been working in retail. I was absolutely enchanted by the feeling of community and solidarity, so I ended up starting my career here.
Deep down, I’ve always been a nerd, so after working my way up through the retail business, I ended up in a headquarter function as a consultant before (finally!) transitioning into IT.
When I managed to land a job in security, I knew I had struck gold. The everchanging threat landscape; the balancing of cost vs. benefit; the complex problems that needed to be communicated in a way so the audience understood… I was enthrawled.
So here I am. Enjoying every day doing what I am deeply passionated about.
Projects
Wrote and implemented ISO27002 policy
Building the foundation for a modern security programme
Buying security gadgets and software is not what makes you secure. Combining the different aspects of information security into a streamlined, standardized policy paved the road to further improve our security posture.
By taking a top-down approach, we methodically went through all the domains and ensured that we had a written policy on each area, and at the same time that they were complementing each other and not contradicting each other.
Although writing a policy can be tricky, the real battle is the implementation in the business. A written policy provides nothing if the organization does not live by it. In all honesty, you’re never done implementing a policy. It’s an continuous process to ensure compliance in both existing as well as new processes, products and employees.
Ambitious move to raise the security level across multiple domains
Raising security in a cost-focused enterprise can be tricky. Without any larger incidents, the benefits of further investments into security product are hard to leverage.
By building threat scenarios based on real-life scenarios happening within the previous year, we were able to build a common understanding of the risks of doing nothing. After that we could move on to discuss the alternatives. Selecting the right product was essential, and by ensuring compatability with both inhouse skillsets, daily operations, as well as the ambitions and requirements from our security policies & strategy, we went with the Microsoft E5 EMS solution.
Risk management
Security is best addressed through a risk-based approach.
Risk assessments were seen as non-value-adding bureaucracy, so I built the function from the ground. Without increasing the headcount at first, we started by defining a policy and a process, and then took an agile approach in order to identify what worked and what didn’t. In under a year, the risk management framework was done, and I was ready to scale up the efforts by hiring a dedicated employee for the risk area.
The new risk management framework proved great value in identifying weak areas and prioritizing efforts.
Redesign business continuity
Getting rid of heavy documents, and focusing on modularity instead
Experience
Managing security and compliance in a multinational retail group.
Together with my team of incredibly talented specialists, we’re working on keeping a high level of security in a fast-paced company in a constantly changing industry.
When working in a very cost-focused environment, I quickly learnt to balance cost vs. benefit. One of my first actions when starting in the position was to go through every process and every delivery in the team to ensure that only the ones adding value remained.
This ensured maximum output and a highly motivated team, since they felt their work made a change!
My areas of responsibility include:
- IT Auditing
- Security compliance (PCI DSS, EU GDPR, ISO27000)
- Security incident response
- Risk management
- Business continuity management
Salling Group
Business Relations Manager, eCommerce & Digital Development
May 2016 - November 2018
sallinggroup.com
Coordination development pipeline and priorities for eCommerce and digital products, as well as internal customer management.
As business relations manager for the eCommerce and digital development, I was the liaison between the IT department and the digital development department.
Managing and coordinating the efforts between a large (at the time) predominantly waterfall-oriented organization, and an extremely agile smaller department was no easy task in itself, but when ends met, we were able to deliver awesome solutions together!
Creating business insights through numbers crunching, reporting and business process optimization.
Originally starting out as a junior consultant, I was primarilly tasked with converting large amounts of data into consumable reports for audiences across the organization; from the CEO to the department managers out in the individual stores.
The reporting branched out into the creation of internal tools to ease the daily work of our stores by minimizing the amount of time they needed to spend in front of a screen instead of servicing our customers.
By the end of my time as a management consultant i føtex, I had created a centralized controlling setup which serviced all stores every week with key insights into their performance (operational, sales, waste, etc.).
føtex and Bilka, a part of Salling Group
Various positions in sales, operations and management
July 2006 - June 2012
bilka.dk
Building the foundation of who I am today
Working in the stores largely made me who I am today. It taught me about the versatility of people, and gave me a healthy amount of respect for my fellow colleagues and customers.
Although I do not miss working in a store today, I would have never done without it - and if I were to be given the possibility to rewind time, I would do it all again!
A Little More About Me
Even though I’m deeply passioned about my profession, there’s more to life than work. My family is without a doubt the most important element in my life - I’m definitely a family-man. Privately I live together with my wife and our little dog in our new house.
That being said, I’m also a nerd in my free time. I enjoy a good game, both board and video.
Other than that I enjoy learning new stuff and a good challenge is always welcome.
Language proficiency
Danish
Mother tongue.
English
Business proficiency in speech and writing.