Biography

Lydia Payne-Johnson

Bio

Lydia Payne-Johnson is the Director of IT Security, Identity Management and Cybersecurity Risk at The George Washington University.  In this role, Lydia is responsible for leading her teams’ service delivery, including alignment with the university’s digital transformation strategy.  In addition, she is leading the development of GW IT’s cybersecurity risk-management program.  She is a dynamic, multi-talented executive with more than 35 years’ experience in regulatory compliance, risk, information security, data management, and consumer marketing across financial services, health information management, and higher education.  She’s a published subject matter expert, noted industry panelist, speaker and mentor. She’s an exceptional communicator and a culture change agent.

An effective leader, Lydia has been a Chief Privacy Officer and successfully led teams at Freddie Mac, Morgan Stanley, PwC, Verispan and CIT Group. She designed and led implementation of privacy and cybersecurity policies, standards, risk and controls frameworks, and data classification schema, risk monitoring measures, data loss prevention, incident response, as well as privacy impact and third-party assessments.  In addition, Lydia is adept at forging partnerships across businesses, IT and service lines.

Early in her career, Lydia was Senior Vice-President and Global Advertising Director with Dean Witter Reynolds Inc.  At Dean Witter, she was the primary driver overseeing creative processes for the firm’s highly successful, and globally recognizable media campaigns.

Lydia has a J.D. from New York Law School, where she is an Adjunct Professor and teaches Information Privacy Law.  Lydia's undergraduate degree is a B.A. in Music from Hunter College. She is a Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP), certified in GIAC Law of Data Security & Investigations (GLEG) and a Certified Change Practitioner. Lydia is a graduate of the Executive Leadership Program of the Dartmouth College Tuck School of Business, KPMG’s Executive Leadership Institute for Women and the Securities Industry Institute of the Wharton School of Business.