M. Kurt Alaybeyoglu is an accomplished cybersecurity and risk management leader with more than 15 years of experience spanning military cyber operations, national security missions, critical infrastructure protection and private-sector consulting. He brings deep technical acumen and strategic oversight, having designed and led programs at the intersection of IT and operational technology environments. His career has spanned cyber mission planning at the National Security Agency (NSA) to directing high-stakes security architecture initiatives for Fortune 500 clients.
Currently serving as a Senior Enterprise Security Architect at FirstEnergy, one of the nation’s largest investor-owned electric systems, Kurt leads efforts in substation and grid security design, NERC CIP compliance, SIEM tuning and adversary emulation. Previously, as Director of Enterprise Security Architecture at Launch Consulting, he directed multidisciplinary teams in risk assessments, threat modeling and secure cloud architecture. He led major incident response efforts and stood up tailored security operations centers using open-source tooling for small critical infrastructure operators. He has also served as Virtual CISO for a global life sciences consultancy, overseeing Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS)-related projects and internal audits for an organization valued at over $1 billion.
Kurt is an alumnus of The Chertoff Group Strategic Advisory Services team where he served as an in-house director from 2018 to 2021. He helped shape and deliver the Firm’s Cyber Risk Diagnostic, a methodology grounded in the MITRE ATT&CK framework and focused on actionable threat modeling and control assurance.
Prior to entering the private sector, Kurt served in a range of cyber operations and leadership roles within the U.S. Air Force and NSA. As a Cyber Fires Support Planner and Flight Commander supporting Central Command, he orchestrated over 100 offensive cyber operations and trained teams for national-level cyber missions.
Kurt holds a Master of Science in Information Assurance and Cybersecurity from Western Governors University and a Bachelor of Science in History from the U.S. Air Force Academy. He maintains advanced technical certifications including CISSP, GPEN, CEH, GCIH, and MITRE ATT&CK Defender.