Steven Woodhouse has been appointed as Australia field chief information security officer.

Woodhouse is a security technology futurist focused on thought leadership, executive relationships, and driving sales in the region.

He is a highly experienced, outcome-driven senior IT executive with more than 25 years of proven success and diverse experience across IT strategies, cybersecurity, IT service delivery, IT infrastructure, and governance and risk management.

Throughout his career, Woodhouse has become a trusted IT advisor to the cybersecurity community and business executives.

He has held senior roles in both the public and private sectors. Most recently, he was Queensland Education Department enterprise technology services CISO and executive director.

"Steven has the leadership and management skills coupled with the experience to propel business transformation for customers in Australia," Fortinet Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands regional director Jon McGettigan says.

"His depth of experience as a CISO working inside of organisations means that he brings a unique perspective and ability to have discussions with customers that will help them understand and address their cybersecurity pain points and how to address them.

"We welcome Steven to the team and look forward to seeing how he will drive the conversation forward," McGettigan adds.

"Fortinet offers technology that works together through its security fabric to achieve a strong security outcome for organisations," Woodhouse says.

"Additionally, Fortinet has an attractive culture and is on a massive growth trajectory, which makes it a very appealing organisation to join.

"There are significant cybersecurity challenges for organisations, from ransomware running rife to the significant movement and lack of control of the edge brought on by a hybrid working environment.

"I look forward to helping customers understand the strength of the Fortinet offering, through the lens of experience rather than theory, and how it will help them create [and] protect their environment across people, process, and technology that will lead to great customer outcomes."