Vodafone chooses Portugal to host cybersecurity center

Portugal’s choice, Vodafone said, “recognizes the high quality of its professionals and the dynamism of the national technological ecosystem”.

The centre will be part of a global team that already has hubs in the UK, Germany, Romania and India.

At an early stage, “the centre will employ about 40 experts, with recruitment processes already underway and ongoing by the end of the year”.

Applications can be made via https://careers.vodafone.com and are intended for people with experience in areas such as cybersecurity, engineering, emerging technologies and digital transformation, as well as internal employees in the context of career development and professional requalification programs, according to the group.

“ The new teams, located at Vodafone Portugal’s headquarters, will work closely with experts from various international markets of the Group, integrating a global organization dedicated to cybersecurity,” the company said.

The GCC will bring together a wide range of skills, from security strategy and architecture to incident prevention, detection and response, ensuring an integrated approach to the Group’s digital protection.

Among its areas of action are the safe development of internal and third-party solutions, risk management, infrastructure protection, continuous monitoring and response to threats and will have “a particular focus on emerging technologies”, including solutions based on artificial intelligence (AI).

In addition to these values, the GCC will integrate cybersecurity operations, incident response, technological demonstration activities, customer interaction and collaboration with different areas of the group.

“ The creation of the GCC in Lisbon confirms the strategic importance of the Portuguese market for the Vodafone group and acknowledges not only the expertise developed in recent years in this area by the Portuguese operation, but also the high quality of the cybersecurity talent formed by national universities,” says Vodafone Portugal’s Executive President (CEO), Luís Lopes, quoted in a statement.

“ This is a very important step to position Portugal and its talent on the global map of cybersecurity and to strengthen Vodafone’s position as a reference employer”, says the manager.

In turn, Emma Smith, Vodafone’s ‘global CISO’ [global executive for information security], points out that cybersecurity “is essential to maintain customers’ trust.