Cyber Magazine May 2023 | Page 161

BOOHOO GROUP PLC
“ WE ' RE ALL AWARE OF THE ECONOMIC DOWNTURN AT THE
MOMENT , THE CLIMATE THAT ALL INDUSTRIES ARE LIVING
IN AND THAT BRINGS ITS OWN CHALLENGES AT BOOHOO ”
DORIAN SKEETE HEAD OF INFORMATION SECURITY , BOOHOO GROUP PLC
“ One of the ways we do that ,” Skeete adds , “ is by making sure that our staff are as trained on the tools and the platforms as possible and that we ' re wasting as little time and effort as possible .”
When it came to creating Boohoo Group ’ s security strategy , keeping the security team aligned with the business as a whole was key .
“ I made sure that the strategy is directly aligned to business objectives ,” Skeete explains . “ We need to be enabling the business to achieve what it wants to achieve . I know that security has quite a bad rap sometimes of being the department or the capability that always says no , and I want to change that viewpoint , certainly in Boohoo . “ It ' s not about saying no , but

5.7K + Number of employees in 2022 including 2.63K male and 3.09K female employees . about asking how we can work safely . It ' s all about teaching that mantra to the staff , who are our key stakeholders around the business , and bringing them on the journey . We have two very good governance structures that we ' ve set up that have representation from the likes of HR and legal to the wider technology group to make sure that we ' re bringing them on the journey with us .

“ It ' s not about us dictating to them what we think is the best thing to do , but we want it to have a more collaborative approach that we can help guide and transform the business alongside us .”
As Skeete describes , when it comes to the continued delivery of Boohoo ’ s security programmes , it is crucial to keep the group ’ s core values in mind .
“ A lot of our focus has to be on business as usual , keeping the lights on , making sure revenue ' s coming in and making sure security is underpinning those core business objectives in terms of making as much money as possible ,” Skeete comments . “ But also alongside that is the project work , some of the work streams in the strategy that needs to run in parallel to make sure that we ' re meeting the goals of continuous improvement as well .
“ Doing all of this at scale is certainly not easy ,” he explains . “ I ' ve got a diverse , amazing team , multi-skilled in different pillars of information security , but despite that , we do lean on some of the great relationships we have with vendors and suppliers .”
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