Luigi Rebuffi

Building an operational public – private cooperation among Cybersecurity Communities in Europe

Eight years ago, we started developing public-private initiatives on cybersecurity, and it’s increasingly working! It doesn’t just bring together the public and private sectors; it also fosters collaboration among diverse communities across various sectors with different interests. In a public-private partnership (PPP), you don’t lobby; you co-create your future. We began with R&D priorities but soon expanded to other market-relevant topics: certification, investments, user applications by sector, skills development, SME issues, regional approaches, policy issues, and more. On this journey of continuous maturation, we moved from working groups focusing on broad areas to progressively tackling more specific issues like trusted supply chains and information sharing, leveraging the interests of different stakeholder communities in Europe. Their maturity levels may vary across countries and sectors, but all are growing and recognizing their increasing interconnectedness. They are also realizing that Europe is not just about regulations but also about fostering digital economy growth and ensuring societal and national security through cooperation. Concrete actions with clear deliverables and tangible benefits for each community are key to their sustainable development. 

Founder and Secretary General of ECSO (European Cyber Security Organisation) as well as Founder and Secretary General of the Women4Cyber (W4C) Foundation.  Graduated in Nuclear Engineering at the Politecnico di Milano in 1983. He then worked in Germany on the ITER project for thermonuclear fusion. From 1991 worked at Thales, with increasing responsibilities on European R&D, becoming in 2003 Director for European Affairs. He created EOS (European Organisation for Security) in 2007. In 2016 he founded ECSO for the PPP with the European Commission on cybersecurity. In 2019 he created W4C. In 2020 he was nominated in the list of “IFSEC Global Influencers in security – Executives”.