Jason Christman, Vice President and Chief Product Security Officer for Johnson Controls Recognized for Making Products More Secure
BETHESDA, Md. and ATLANTA, January 17, 2023 – GrammaTech, a leading provider of application security testing products and software research services, and T.E.N., founder of the Information Security Executive® (ISE®) of the Year Awards, today announced that Jason Christman, vice president and chief product security officer for Johnson Controls was selected 2022 Product Security Executive (PSE) of the Year. This annual competition recognizes individuals whose contributions have delivered advancements in security for embedded or commercial software products.
Christman leads the Johnson Controls Global Product Security organization comprised of cybersecurity employees and security champions embedded across 12 product businesses offering hundreds of products. The team is responsible for managing cybersecurity strategy and risk governance across a diverse portfolio of smart building OT/IoT products and cloud service platforms including OpenBlue, the company’s complete suite of connected building solutions that delivers impactful sustainability, new healthy occupant experiences, and respectful safety and security.
“I am honored to be recognized as the first Product Security Executive of the Year by T.E.N. and sponsored by GrammaTech,” said Christman. “This award reflects the breakthrough accomplishments in security automation and zero trust architecture across the OpenBlue suite of digital solutions as well as the strong global partnership between product security, information security, and site reliability engineering functions. In my opinion, implementing a unified and continuous approach to security that spans development, operations and IT is the best way to outmaneuver rapidly advancing threats and meet regulatory and customer risk requirements.”
Since arriving at Johnson Controls, Christman has been instrumental in building a comprehensive product security program that resulted in the company’s global secure product development process earning ISASecure® Secure Development Lifecycle Assurance (SDLA) certification. He also built a core security team to centrally govern risk and a broad network of 170 security champions across a dozen product businesses to both decentralize and institutionalize execution of secure development lifecycle activities.
“The Product Security Executive of the Year Award is a timely addition to T.E.N.’s Information Security Executive® (ISE®) of the Year Award Program Series,” explains Marci McCarthy, CEO and President of T.E.N. “Jason’s work demonstrates the growing importance of the Chief Product Security Officer role within organizations that supply both hardware and software products.”
“Jason’s accomplishments at Johnson Controls are setting the standard for other product security executives and illustrate the need for collaboration between product and IT security teams,” said Andrew Meyer, Chief Marketing Officer for GrammaTech. “Supply chain security risks affect every part of the organization including externally delivered hardware and software, as well as commercial applications that are used internally. Product Security Executives like Jason are leading the industry forward by helping bridge the gap between these previously separate disciplines.”
The PSE of the Year Award winner was selected by:
Edna Conway, Vice President, Security & Risk Officer, Cloud Infrastructure at Microsoft, former CSO, Cisco Global Value Chain and a member of the Executive Committee of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Task Force on ICT Supply Chain Risk Management.
Malcolm Harkins, Chief Security & Trust Officer with Epiphany Systems, former Chief Security and Privacy Officer (CSPO) and the first CISO at Intel Corporation.
Troy Rydman, Senior Practice Leader – Global Strategic Accounts, Security, Risk, & Compliance for Amazon Web Services (AWS) and former cybersecurity executive with Silicon Valley Bank, with fourteen years of increasing cybersecurity leadership.
About T.E.N.
T.E.N. is an award-winning technology and security networking and marketing firm that hosts relationship-building events between top Information Security executives, industry pioneers and innovative solution providers within the cybersecurity industry. Its flagship program, the nationally acclaimed Information Security Executive® (ISE®) of the Year Program Series and Awards, is North America’s largest leadership recognition and networking program for security professionals, honoring both leading executives and deserving project teams. For more information visit https://www.ten-inc.com/about.asp.