Kimberly Van Nostern is currently the President of Watson Spire LLC, an independent consulting firm for Information Security business needs. 

Kim has 17+ years of experience as an Information Technology Executive.  She most recently held the position of Chief Information Security Officer with Caesars Entertainment in Las Vegas.  She initiated major security and compliance projects in the areas of PCI compliance, vulnerability management, Data Loss Prevention and vendor risk management.  Kim also led and implemented tokenization of credit card data and developed a mentoring program for high-potential IT managers.

Prior to Caesars Entertainment, Kim was an Information Security Consultant for Charlotte Russe Inc. and served as the interim CISO for American Red Cross.  While providing consulting services for Charlotte Russe, she identified and drove the implementation of Triple DES encryption on 1400 pin pads in over 400 retail stores, provided security consulting on several major projects and developed and conducted the first Incident Response Team table top with executives.

Kim’s career began in 1997 with Allstate Corporation and by 2002 she became Assistant Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer.  During her tenure she developed and implemented global security and privacy policies, standards, guidelines and procedures.  In keeping with her desire to have an employee focused organization, Kim designed a robust education and communications program focusing on security and privacy.

Throughout her entire career Kim has achieved impressive results leading large scale, complex operations and enterprise risk initiatives with a focus on integration of people, process and technology.  She has helped build customer driven and employee focused organizations that protect the privacy and security of the enterprise.  As a result of her success she earned the ISE® Midwest Executive award and People’s Choice Award in 2005 and was a finalist for the ISE North America Executive Award in 2005.  As an active member of Menttium 100, she mentored female executives from Pepsi co. and Hewitt and is a certified member of ISC2.

Kim received her MBA with concentration in Finance and Marketing from the University Illinois at Chicago in 2000.