iSchool Alumnus Part of Award-Winning Team Honored with Foundry CSO Award

Posted by Isabelle Krukoski on

FSU Information Technology’s (IT) Third-Party Risk Management Program was named a 2025 Foundry Chief Security Officer (CSO) Conference award winner, recognizing their program as a leader in the cybersecurity field. The CSO Awards acclaim security programs that have left a tremendous impact on both their respective organizations and the security industry at large, highlighting the innovations, initiatives, and influences of their programs.

Among the program staff is IT Security and Privacy Risk Manager and double CCI alumnus, Keith Bennett, who works alongside the Chief of Information Security Officer and CCI instructor, Bill Hunkapiller, and fellow IT Security and Privacy Risk Manager and FSU alumnus, Jeremy Anderson.

“It’s incredibly gratifying to see FSU recognized alongside Fortune 100 and 500 companies. I am honored by this national attention, which reaffirms that our efforts are impactful and purposeful,” Bennett said.

Bennett and Anderson collaborated extensively to create this program by assessing digital systems and tools containing high-risk data from FSU’s university partners and producing numerous spreadsheets to establish their own security methodology.

“My involvement in creating our third-party risk management process has been incredibly rewarding. We built this process from the ground up,” Bennett said.

Bennett shared that FSU IT’s Risk Management Program team also included Melonie White, a fellow FSU alum, who translated the team’s research findings to create FSU cybersecurity policies, ensuring the ethical standards of the program. Bennett also emphasized the team’s proactive mindset, allowing them to identify, evaluate, and neutralize threats before they occur.

“Our CISO, Dr. Bill Hunkapiller, provided the vision and gave us the flexibility to innovate and implement our ideas, and alongside my teammate, Jeremy Anderson, we built this process from the ground up,” Bennett said.

Looking forward, Bennett hopes to automate some of FSU’s manual security processes to increase operational efficiency and expand their focus beyond high-risk data to moderate- and low-risk data elements, generating a comprehensive security program.