Sherry
Ryan

Sherry Ryan is a Partner in Fortium Partners’ West region, where she primarily serves technology, health care, and consumer products companies.  Her leadership experience includes establishing of security governance models, guiding global IT security transformation projects, and securing data and applications in public, private and hybrid clouds.  She has built and managed world-class information security programs and technology teams for industry leading companies.  Leveraging strong internal and external relationships, Sherry drives active management of policies, awareness communications, incident response, and security technology solutions.  Her leadership style reflects a mix of technical knowledge, people skills and innovative thinking.

As a CISO, Sherry defined security plans and controls to support deployment of a core systems refresh.  She regularly partnered with IT, privacy, compliance and internal audit colleagues to improve the security posture of publicly held companies and prominent private enterprises.  Sherry participated in M&A due diligence by providing a security risk assessment that set the stage for rapid integration of the acquired unit.  She emphasized metrics and reporting as a means to build a corporate culture while focusing on employee awareness and responsibility to detect and defend against cyber threats.  Her responsibilities included mitigating security risks by conducting analyses, penetration tests, and vulnerability screenings, leading investigations of security breaches, and launching comprehensive security monitoring programs.  Sherry successfully led her teams to drive process improvements amidst conditions of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity and constant change.

As a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and Certified Information Security Manager (CISM), Sherry is active in industry networks and associations including the San Francisco Electronic Crime Task Force and ISACA.  Her leadership in the field has been marked by notable awards including Silicon Valley Women of Influence, National Diversity Council’s Top 50 Most Powerful Women in Tech, and Top 50 Women in Internet Security.  

Sherry graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of the Redlands, and earned a Master of Business Administration from Notre Dame DeNamur University.  She serves on the advisory boards of Zero Networks, Safebreach, and YL Ventures.  She has completed training sponsored by the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD).