The SHIRPA Author

Denny Dean

Founder, Cyber Trust Labs | Creator of the SHIRPA Framework

Denny Dean is a seasoned cybersecurity, risk governance, and transformation leader with more than 25 years of experience helping er with more than 25 years of experience helping organizations align enterprise commitments with real-world operational outcomes. He is the founder of Cyber Trust Labs (CTL) and the creator of SHIRPA (Security, Hygiene, Information, Risk Posture Alignment) — an enterprise cyber risk governance meta-framework designed to bring provable alignment between leadership intent, operational capability, and measurable outcomes.

Denny’s career spans financial services, healthcare, the defense industrial base (DIB), telecommunications, higher education, and state and local government. He has served in senior leadership roles including Global CISO, Director of Defense Data Security, and many Fractional Executive / Virtual CISO positions, and has led large-scale cybersecurity and compliance transformations across complex, multi-entity organizations. His work routinely bridges executive leadership, legal and compliance teams, IT and security operations, and front-line practitioners.

SHIRPA reflects Denny’s core belief that security is not just a technical state — it is a human condition rooted in trust, clarity, and confidence. The framework unifies governance, control objectives, operational capabilities, confirmation mechanisms, and continuous transformation into a single, coherent lattice that scales from small organizations to global enterprises. SHIRPA serves as the foundation for enterprise cyber risk governance (ECRG), enabling leaders to move beyond fragmented GRC practices toward outcome-driven, trust-based operating models. Denny is also the architect behind several supporting SHIRPA ecosystem components, including the Catalyst-5 Protocol, the Assured Capability System (ACS), the Performance Assurance Tool (PAT), the TEAMS knowledge-transfer model, and the Program Asset Development Lifecycle (PADL).

Together, these tools translate executive commitments into operational reality while providing defensible evidence, decision-grade insights, and continuous improvement pathways. He is a CISSP, CISM, and CISA, a frequent speaker and advisor to executive leadership teams and boards, and an active contributor to the evolution of modern enterprise cyber risk governance practices.

Through SHIRPA.org, Denny focuses on building a global community of practitioners dedicated to elevating trust, resilience, and alignment in the relationship between people and cyberspace.