IT/OT Cybersecurity Lead

Freese and Nichols seeks an IT/OT Cybersecurity Lead to lead strategic cybersecurity consulting for enterprise IT networks and OT environments across critical infrastructure.

Responsibilities

• Build and maintain relationships with key water, wastewater, and critical infrastructure clients, serving as a trusted advisor at executive, IT, and operations levels.
• Own cybersecurity services growth strategy, including target clients, service offerings, pricing approach, and annual growth goals in coordination with firm leadership.
• Lead pursuits from opportunity identification through award, including capture planning, win strategy, scopes, fees, proposals, and interviews.
• Partner with client service leaders and project managers across offices to bring cybersecurity into larger pursuits such as SCADA master plans, treatment plant designs, and AWIA assessments.
• Monitor regulatory and funding drivers and convert them into new cybersecurity offerings for clients.
• Increase firm visibility through conference presentations, technical papers, webinars, and committee leadership in AWWA, WEF, ISA, and similar organizations.
• Develop the cybersecurity team by defining staffing needs, participating in hiring, and shaping a skills mix to support growth.
• Mentor staff and grow them into project leads and client-facing advisors through stretch assignments, technical review, and certification planning.
• Delegate project delivery to developing staff while maintaining quality oversight and focus on client outcomes.
• Establish career paths and succession plans for cybersecurity roles.
• Raise cybersecurity capability across I&C, SCADA, and electrical teams by embedding security into internal training and design work rather than retrofitting later.
• Set technical direction, methodologies, and quality standards for cybersecurity services across the firm.
• Serve as technical lead on complex, high-visibility engagements and provide senior review on other work.
• Develop repeatable assessment methods, templates, and tools to improve consistency and enable scaling.
• Provide senior direction on secure IT/OT architecture and technology selection, accounting for OT availability, safety, and legacy constraints.
• Advise firm leadership on contractual, liability, and risk considerations tied to cybersecurity work, including input to contract language and service terms.
• Ensure security requirements reach drawings, specifications, testing, and commissioning on design and construction projects.
• Communicate cyber risk in terms that resonate with utility leadership, operations staff, and technical teams to build support for decisions and funding.
• Build and lead a high-performing cybersecurity team by shaping staffing needs, hiring well, and creating an environment where people want to grow and stay.
• Turn assessment findings into policies, plans, and roadmaps aligned to client staffing, budget, and uptime constraints.
• Be recognized by clients as a credible technical authority, capable of executive briefings and detailed design discussions.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in cybersecurity, information technology, computer science, computer engineering, electrical engineering, information systems, or closely related discipline.
• 20+ years of cybersecurity experience, including significant experience across both IT and OT or industrial control system environments.
• Current CISSP, CISM, or CISA credential.
• Proven track record of winning and growing work with utility or critical infrastructure clients, including serving as primary client contact and leading scopes, fees, proposals, and interviews.
• Experience leading complex, high-visibility cybersecurity engagements from pursuit through delivery.
• Experience building or growing a cybersecurity service offering, including defining services, staffing, and market positioning.
• Experience building and leading teams, including hiring staff and developing them into project and technical leads.
• Experience applying cybersecurity frameworks and regulatory requirements to assessments, policies, plans, and roadmaps.
• Experience serving water, wastewater, or other critical infrastructure utilities, including AWIA risk and resilience assessments and water-sector cybersecurity guidance.
• Ability to travel to client sites including treatment facilities, pump stations, control rooms, and industrial environments as assignments require.

Technologies

• SCADA, PLC, RTU, HMI, historian
• Identity and access management
• Endpoint protection, vulnerability management, logging and monitoring
• Security operations
• NIST
• ISA/IEC 62443, CIS Controls
• AWIA
• Cloud-connected SCADA, IoT, AI

Benefits

• Comprehensive benefits package
• Paid overtime for salaried employees
• Annual bonus
• Access to company cabins in Red River, New Mexico and Banner Elk, North Carolina
• Flexible work environment with a hybrid schedule and up to 40% remote work

Preferred

• Master’s degree in cybersecurity, information systems, engineering, or related field.
• Consulting experience leading client-facing assessments, gap analyses, roadmaps, and advisory engagements.
• Existing relationships with water and wastewater utilities or other critical infrastructure clients in Freese and Nichols markets.
• Working knowledge of industrial protocols such as Modbus, DNP3, OPC UA, and EtherNet/IP, including ability to explain security limits to clients.
• Experience selecting and specifying OT security technologies, including OT monitoring and asset discovery, segmentation, secure remote access, firewalls, and SIEM platforms.
• Experience securing cloud and hybrid environments, including cloud-connected SCADA, edge computing, and IoT data pipelines.
• Experience leading incident response planning, tabletop exercises, post-incident reviews, and recovery planning for operational environments.
• Experience using approved AI tools responsibly to improve quality and efficiency of deliverables.
• Leadership roles in professional organizations such as AWWA, WEF, ISA, ISACA, (ISC)2, InfraGard, or WaterISAC, including committee work, presentations, or publications.

Location and Work Arrangement

• Orlando, FL (onsite)
• Hybrid schedule includes up to 40% remote work