Top 100 Interview: Mark Eggleston

VP, CISO Health Partner Plans

Mark Eggleston is a senior information security and privacy executive with a unique background combining expertise in information technology, program, and people management with diverse clinical experience in managed care and healthcare systems. He has served in several senior roles during his 16 years at Health Partners Plans including as Vice President and CISO since July 2015. He sits on the advisory board for several research firms and professional organizations.

How will you drive your organization’s cybersecurity strategy forward in 2021?

My priorities are to continue to leverage our journey to the cloud. Like most businesses, we are in a hybrid cloud mode, so continuing to use more cloud-based technology is big on the docket.

We are also working to implement an interoperability solution, and that’s something really important from a CMS compliance perspective to give our members access to their clinical information, pharmacy information, and other information that we or our partners have from them on any app that they want.

What should information security executives focus on in 2021 to generate business value?

We need to apply the lessons learned over the last year. COVID-19 was a catalyst for a lot of digital innovations and now we need to keep that pace up without the team burning out. That means moving more things into the cloud while still ensuring that the proper security controls are in place. In addition to that, I would encourage folks to continue to think agile and think about how you be a business partner and enabler versus a blocker and a naysayer.

I think that kind of thinking is really what’s kind of kept our profession behind all these years. So, I think we need to think and act more progressively.

Mark Eggleston is featured in our Top 100 Global Leaders in Information Security Report. Click here to read the full list.