Ireen Birungi

Ireen Birungi is a seasoned cybersecurity senior leader with over two decades of experience leading enterprise scale information security, cyber risk, and resilience programs across highly regulated environments. As Head of Information Security and CISO at Interac Corp., she is accountable for safeguarding Canada’s critical payment infrastructure and identity services ensuring their security, resilience, and regulatory compliance.

In her role, Ireen leads Interac’s enterprise cybersecurity strategy, spanning governance, risk management, security operations, identity and access management, cloud and application security, and cyber resilience. She has successfully guided the organization through complex regulatory and supervisory engagements, including alignment with Bank of Canada expectations for Prominent Payment Systems, the Retail Payment Activities Act (RPAA), PCI DSS, and ISO/IEC 27001 certification.

Beyond her enterprise responsibilities, Ireen is an active contributor to the broader cybersecurity community. She participates in national and international security forums, collaborates with financial sector peers, regulators, ecosystem partners and contributes to industry initiatives focused on strengthening the resilience of critical infrastructure and the Canadian financial, digital payments and identity services sector. Her leadership style emphasizes transparency, accountability, and talent development, with a strong focus on building high performing, diverse security teams

Ireen holds a degree in Economics from the University of Toronto and cybersecurity designations: CISSP, CISM, and CRISC, featured article and speaker on Information Security, Women in Payments nomination, nomination for an OBRIE, a prestigious executive leadership awards that recognize outstanding technology leaders, an active member of various security forums and community groups of C-level executives and a strong advocate for leadership development and inclusive culture in cybersecurity, she mentors emerging leaders and supports programs that expand opportunities for the next generation of security professionals.