Brian Dilley has been appointed Chair of the North East Business Resilience Centre, which helps businesses manage and respond to cybercrime.
Brian brings over 20 years’ experience in fraud and financial crime to the role, which will see him leading the esteemed Board in guiding the work and support the Centre will provide to businesses across the region.
Brian is the current Group Director of Fraud & Financial Crime Prevention for Lloyds Banking Group, where he is responsible for fraud prevention, anti-money laundering, sanctions compliance, anti-bribery and countering terrorist financing across the Group’s brands.
A unique partnership between the police, private sector and academia, the NEBRC – led by Supt. Rebecca Chapman – is a non-profit organisation funded by a range of private and public partners, including the police, and a wide range of business investors and members across the North of England.
Commenting on the recent appointment, Supt. Chapman said: “We are delighted to announce Brian as Chair of the NEBRC, bringing with him a wealth of understanding, expertise and leadership that is second to none within the sector.
“Highly organised online crime costs UK businesses a staggering £27bn a year. The NEBRC has been established to provide a pro-active, preventive approach to help tackle this issue, guided by experts from across cyber security, academic research and leading businesses, along with some of the region’s seven police forces. The Board, led by Brian, will provide the understanding, support and solutions that businesses require.”
Brian also holds a number of external positions within the industry, among them Chair of the Economic Crime Product & Service Board at UK Finance as well as sitting on the Public-Private Steering Group for the Government’s Economic Crime Reform Programme. Brian also represented the banking industry on the Steering Committee that created the Authorised Push Payment Scam Code in early 2019.
Commenting on his appointment, Brian said: “Cybercrime is a growing concern for businesses across the world which threatens to compromise the stability and security of information systems.
“The aim of the NEBRC is to provide advice and support on future-proofing and security standards to businesses, helping to deepen their understanding and resilience.
“Our unique connection to local universities and the seven regional police forces gives us exclusive access to the latest information on legislation, criminal trends, threats and new technology – allowing us to provide the very best advice to help safeguard staff, customers and businesses, delivered by an expert team and innovative ‘ethical hacker’ students.
“The network model of centres across the UK enables us to support each other by sharing information, and my colleague Maggie Titmuss – Director of Intelligence and Incident Response at Lloyds Banking Group – has been instrumental in shaping the future direction of the Scottish Business Resilience Centre with fellow Board members. I’m looking forward to seeing what we can achieve as a team across the centres in the fight against cybercrime.”
The Business Resilience International Management company (BRIM), established and headed up by former Scottish Business Resilience Centre (SBRC) CEO Mandy Haeburn-Little was engaged by UK law enforcement to advise on establishing cyber resilience centres across the UK, to ensure consistent strategic objectives to ‘protect communities, promote economic growth and overall safely’ in each locality.
Commenting on Brian’s appointment to the NEBRC, Mandy said: “The NEBRC is one of the first flagship Centres for the UK and has attracted the most astonishing calibre of senior private sector leaders to the board. We are genuinely thrilled to have someone with the fraud prevention, cyber and wider financial experience which Brian brings, not least given the current challenges that we are all facing globally.
“The Centres will play an increasing important role in partnering policing as their network extends across the UK, and we are delighted with how quickly this Board has settled and become established. It is a great privilege to work with Brian.”