Former federal CISO Touhill joins private sector, to lead Cyxtera's federal arm
By
Ross Wilkers
Former Federal CISO Greg Touhill heads to the private sector as president of the newly-started federal business at secure IT infrastructure company Cyxtera.
Former Federal Chief Information Officer Greg Touhill has taken up a new role in the private sector as president of the newly-established federal business at data center and cyber services company Cyxtera.
Touhill was appointed in September 2016 as the first-ever federal CISO under a larger White House effort to further secure legacy federal IT systems. The retired Air Force brigadier general was deputy assistant secretary for cybersecurity and communications at the Homeland Security Department prior to the CISO role.
Cyxtera started its Washington, D.C. area-based federal group to offer secure IT infrastructure services to federal agencies. The company operates six of its 57 data centers in the Washington region.
Private equity firms BC Partners and Medina Capital launched Cyxtera in the late spring shortly after the investment groups' acquisition of CenturyLink's data centers and related colocation business.
The investment firms combined the CenturyLink assets with four Medina-owned security and data analytics companies through $2.8 billion in total transactions to create Cyxtera.
Headquartered in the Miami region, Cyxtera also fraud prevention and authentication services in markets such as government and financial services. Its offerings also include investigative and cyber network analytics for threat prediction and detection.
Cyxtera's 57 total data centers around the world occupy nearly 2.6 million square feet of space. The company reports it has close to 1,100 employees and at least 3,500 total customers.