Canopius builds new global cyber team with Facebook’s Meta & McDonald’s hires

With an aim to tackle the increasing challenges posed by cyber-attacks, global specialty re/insurer  Canopius Group has established a cyber incident management team (CIMT) filled with significant new hires, including from Facebook’s parent Meta and global fast food chain McDonald’s.

The CIMT will provide comprehensive support to insureds and brokers in managing the disruptions caused by cyber-attacks. It is designed to provide “significant improvements” in the insureds first response to a cyber-attack in terms of both time to recover and quality of service.

The service is led by cyber incident response team leaders across all three of Canopius’ international business units – Brendan Helleman in London, UK; Ellen Brookes in Sydney, Australia; and Steven Wesolek in Chicago, US. The insurer has made nine new hires for the CIMT.

Helleman joined Canopius from Meta, the parent company of Facebook, where he was a case manager on the privacy and data policy team, after two decades in the British Army and UK Ministry of Defence.

Brookes was most recently a technical support specialist at global law firm K&L Gates. In the six years prior to that, she held senior customer service roles across a number of organisations throughout Western Australia.

Wesolek brings nearly a decade’s information security and incident response experience to his new role. He joined Canopius from global fast food chain McDonald’s, where he was a security incident response supervisor.

The trio of regional team leaders are joined by six additional team members, spread across London, Sydney and Chicago. Collectively, the global team provides a 24/7 incident response service to policyholders, bringing a wealth of experience from diverse backgrounds including cybersecurity, corporate relationship development, and the military.

Canopius’ CIMT will also provide a fresh addition to pre-event risk mitigation services, including tabletop hacking simulations that will expose vulnerabilities in an insured’s computer system.

Matt Northedge, global head of cyber & technology, said: “The launch of Canopius’s global cyber incident response marks a significant investment in our capabilities and further specialisation of our dedicated cyber claims team. It represents another milestone in the growth of our global Cyber portfolio, wherein the focus is always to provide first class services.

“As the impact of cyber-attacks continues to grow in complexity, insureds and brokers require even closer collaboration when managing the consequences of such attacks. I am delighted to welcome our new team, who are already adding significant value and relief to our growing number of policyholders.”

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