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IT security is a wide-open career, especially for African Americans and other minorities, says Kwame Fields, a risk management and security professional. Fields manages the certification and accreditation group in the risk management and compliance department at Cardinal Health (Dublin, OH).
“I’ve had open positions ever since I’ve been a manager, and I try to recruit talented African Americans and other minorities to join my team,” he explains.
Cardinal Health develops products and services that improve the safety and productivity of healthcare. Its solutions are used worldwide by hospitals, surgery centers, clinical labs, physicians’ offices and home health organizations.
Touching lives
Fields started with Cardinal in 2005, just about the time his first son was born. He soon discovered how much his new company touched people’s lives. “You take the baby to the doctor for a checkup and you start seeing little Cardinal Health symbols on all the products in the doctor’s office that you didn’t notice before,” he says. “It’s cool to notice those types of things in everyday life.”
His team of five interacts with the entire Cardinal Health business operation. Its job is to ensure that new applications include IT security controls as well as recovery, logging and monitoring tools. The apps also have to comply with government regulations. “We’re on the collaborative side,” Fields says. “We want to be part of each new project to make sure it’s done right the first time around.”
SAP security
The hottest current project is the installation of SAP, a huge enterprise software package that will change the entire organization from top to bottom, Fields says. “It’s not a traditional software package. It’s a different way of thinking about security, and it’s exciting.”
The finance part of the project should be complete this summer, he says. Three members of his team are working on it full time, and the other two have sizable projects of their own.
Consulting ops
Fields is the only one in his family who pursued a technical career. Growing up in Columbus, OH, he joined the Inroads program for talented minority youth. His sponsor was Accenture, the Chicago-based technology consulting firm, which provided him with college internships at its clients’ facilities.
He received his BSCE from the University of Michigan in 1998 and continued with Accenture as a consultant, working for Exxon Chemical Co (Houston, TX), DuPont Chemical Co (Wilmington, DE), Dow Chemical Co (Southfield, MI) and LTV Steel (Cleveland, OH). During the Exxon stint he met up with IT security, his “first exposure to the non-technical side of IT.”
At DuPont he got into design work. He focused on security at Dow, and got most of his process design experience at LTV. “My job there was to build a certification function,” he explains.
Still working for Accenture, he was sent back to Dow, this time in Midland, MI, in 2001. He led the company’s security design projects, incorporating application security into new and existing technologies. “It was pure, hardcore security.”
Security with AEP
Fields was moving around a lot and “It started to get to me,” he says. So he returned to his hometown to work for American Electric Power (AEP, Columbus, OH) as an architect in the security maintenance and support group. After 9/11 the group’s responsibilities were greatly enlarged, and it became the risk management enterprise security team.
One critical job took place at AEP’s Donald C. Cook Nuclear Power Plant. “They were in a bind to become compliant with the new regulations for nuclear security. We turned that around quickly and got an award from AEP,” Fields says.
In 2003 he became manager of AEP’s enterprise security program management office, working with a $15 million budget. “It was a dramatic switch,” he notes. “I went from technical work to the other end of the spectrum, managing finances, projects and resources. I didn’t do much actual security work as a project manager.”
In at the ground level with Cardinal Health
He moved into his current job in 2005. He took the job because Cardinal Health was setting up a brand-new risk management approach. “I was able to get in it from the ground up,” he says. “By coming in early I was able to build the organization I wanted and determine how my team would interact with the rest of the IT group.”
The biggest challenge as he sees it is that the overall IT organization has been in place a long time, while his risk management group is so new. “It’s hard to walk into the next cubicle and say, ‘You’re doing it wrong,’” Fields says. “You have to change the culture, and share new ways of doing things, without making folks lose face.”
After hours
Fields has been working on an MBA in technology management from the online University of Phoenix, and hopes to complete it next year. He’s a member of the Columbus chapter of the Information Systems Security Association (www.issa.org), which offers networking and positive career support.
He’s also part of the Miracles eMentor program, working with fifth- and sixth-graders from single-parent families. “We’re trying to get the kids involved in technology any way we can,” he explains.
“It’s good for everyone to be involved in the community.” After all, he notes, “A well-rounded person is more marketable.”
At home, Fields enjoys spending time with his wife Mekia, their thirteen-year-old daughter Ebony, eighteen-month-old son Kwame, Jr. and baby Eric. He knows the importance of balancing the job with his personal life.
“I’m very laid-back with my team. Although I certainly expect top-notch results and deliverables, I understand if they sometimes need to walk away from work for a little while,” he says.
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