Neil MacDonald VP & Gartner Fellow Stamford, CT USA Years of Experience 18 years at Gartner 29 years IT industry Resources Create Analyst Alert Contact Gartner Roles and Responsibilities Neil MacDonald is a Vice President, Distinguished Analyst and Gartner Fellow Emeritus in Gartner Research, based in Stamford, Connecticut. Mr. MacDonald is a member of Gartner's information security and privacy research team, focusing on securing next-generation virtualized and cloud-based computing environments from advanced attacks. Specific research areas include endpoint protection, virtualization security, application security, protection of cloud-based workloads and protection from advanced targeted attacks using context-aware security and big data analytics approaches. He is currently Gartner's Lead Analyst on HP. Previous Experience Mr. MacDonald joined Gartner in 1995 as an Analyst on Gartner's networking research team, where he focused on network computing infrastructure, including identity and access management, directory services and networked operating system security. This later evolved into Gartner's identity and access management research area. From 2001 through 2003, Mr. MacDonald led Gartner's worldwide team of industry-focused analysts, extending Gartner's research relevancy outside of the IT department to business executives wanting to use information technology to better run their business. When this research team was folded back into the main research organization in 2004, Mr. MacDonald rejoined the information security research team. Prior to joining Gartner, Mr. MacDonald worked for an information management organization in IT operations, where he was a network specialist responsible for the planning, deployment, security and support of a 9,500-node multiprotocol and multiserver network. Professional Background Florida Power and Light, Networking Specialist, 8 years MD Buyline, Systems Analyst, 1 year Texas Power and Light , Transmission and SCADA Control Engineering, 4 years Industry Awards/Accolades Named top information security industry analyst in 2011 "Most Powerful Voices in Security" by SYS-CON media http://www.sys-con.com/node/1974029 November 2011 - Named one of top 10 influencers in information security "Security Industry All-Stars" by Network World http://www.networkworld.com/slideshows/2011/110111-security-all-stars.html#slide6 Education B.S. (distinction), Electrical Engineering, University of Kansas M.B.A., Florida International University LATEST RESEARCH More by this author Title Publish Date Author(s) Midmarket Context: 'IT Security Budgets and Staffing Projections for 2013' 10-May-2013 James A. Browning, Neil MacDonald Cool Vendors in Client Computing, 2013 03-May-2013 Terrence Cosgrove, Nathan Hill, Federica Troni, Mark A. Margevicius, Phillip Redman, Neil MacDonald Cool Vendors in Security: Security Intelligence, 2013 29-Apr-2013 Joseph Feiman, Neil MacDonald, Dionisio Zumerle, Avivah Litan, Andrew Walls, Ray Wagner Cool Vendors in Security: Security Services, 2013 29-Apr-2013 Ray Wagner, Neil MacDonald, Joseph Feiman, Ruggero Contu, Peter Firstbrook, Jay Heiser Cool Vendors in Security: Infrastructure Protection, 2013 23-Apr-2013 Ray Wagner, Neil MacDonald, Lawrence Orans, Lawrence Pingree, John Girard, Joseph Feiman, Don Sears