The Flagler Tiger Bay Club will be welcoming James F.X. Payne as guest speaker at its March luncheon meeting, the club announced this month. Payne is the Vice President of Business Development at SecureG, a device identity management firm based out of Virginia. He’ll be making the trek down from the nation’s political epicenter, Washington D.C., to speak before the nonpartisan Tiger Bay Club.
According to the Tiger Bay Club, the discussion topic of the luncheon will be “how the private and public sectors are aligning their cybersecurity strategies with the zero trust architecture mandates of the Biden Administration’s May 2021 Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity.”
The aforementioned executive order, signed by President Joe Biden on May 12th, 2021, was a response to major cybersecurity incidents such as Microsoft Exchange, the Colonial Pipeline Incident, and others. “These incidents share commonalities, including insufficient cybersecurity defenses that leave public and private sector entities more vulnerable to incidents,” the White House said at the time.
The order removed barrier that kept private companies from sharing breach information with the federal government, attempted to strengthen cyber security in the federal government, and created a Cybersecurity Safety Review Board among other measures. The term ‘zero trust architecture’, as referenced in the Tiger Bay Club’s topic statement, refers to a philosophy of cybersecurity which implements airtight protective measures at every access point.
The luncheon will be held at the Hammock Dunes Club in Palm Coast on Wednesday, March 2oth. The event starts at 11:30 am and runs until 1:00 pm. Tiger Bay Club members will be charged $35 admission, while non-members pay $40. Meal choices include balsamic marinated chicken breast, haddock fillet with crumb gratin, and chef’s choice vegetarian.
Prior to his stint at SecureG, Payne was Vice President of Special Projects at pExchange LLC and an Alliance Partner at McCreight Partners. Further experience includes positions at Z&A InfoTek Inc, Telcordia Technologies, and Bechtel. He graduated from Georgetown University McDonough’s School of Business in 1973 with a BBA in Marketing and from The George Washington University’s School of Business in 1980 with an MBA in Marketing.
He made the news in October 2020 when he resigned from a position on the Board of Trustees of Gallaudet University, a federally-funded school for the deaf and hard of hearing. He resigned in protest amid allegations that the university was accused of discrimination against its Black faculty. “Our board has a bias against action,” Payne said in remarks published by The Washington Post. “We regularly self-congratulate ourselves, yet I have seen the same patterns over and over.”
Tickets for the event are now sold out, and so those wishing to attend would need to have already purchased their ticket in advance.
The details of the luncheon are as follows:
Location: Hammock Dunes Club (30 Ave Royale, Palm Coast, FL 32137)
Time: 11:30 am – 1:00 pm
Chris Gollon is a Flagler County resident since 2004, as well as a staple of the local independent music scene and avid observer of Central Florida politics, arts, and recreation.