Dillon Dieffenbach

Dillon Dieffenbach was inspired to co-found CI-Discern in early 2024 after spending more than 16 years with Ernst & Young (EY), where he was a Partner / Principal. CI-Discern is a cybersecurity services and solutions firm that is focused at the intersection of public and private interests to help Critical Infrastructure Owners, Operators, and Overseers to better secure their most critical assets. 

In his role as CEO at CI-Discern, Dillon leads a diverse and highly accomplished team of professionals that work across Critical Infrastructure verticals to align the security strategy to each organization’s goals. Once the security strategy is set, Dillon and the CI-Discern team provide and help to build in-house technical capabilities and security awareness with the mission of enabling organizations to optimize their security risk profile.

Dillon has helped lead CI-Discern’s rapid growth and in March of 2024, helped CI-Discern to achieve Idaho National Lab’s official licensee status for their Consequence-driven, Cyber-informed Engineering (CCE) program. He is proud to now also serve on the leadership committee of Furman University’s Hill Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and to participate as a member with the Government Business Executive Forum and American Public Power Association.

Prior to CI-Discern, Dillon held multiple leadership positions at Ernst & Young (EY), which is one of the “Big Four” consulting firms. His most recent role was to lead the Americas Cybersecurity Team for Energy and Critical Infrastructure. In this role, Dillon significantly expanded the number of Power & Utilities and Oil & Gas clients that the team served, while he performed the engagement partner role to help:

• A consortium of industry and government leaders to build a systemic risk register and corresponding mitigation strategies to better protect the US bulk electric system,
• A large investor-owned utility to assess and ultimately transform their cybersecurity program to better align with organizational goals, and a
• A natural gas distribution utility to transform their OT security program to better align to zero trust principles.

Prior to that role, Dillon lived in Tokyo where he founded and led the EY Japan Cybersecurity consulting practice. In his role, Dillon was able to successfully build the practice and to secure Japan’s largest domestic Pharmaceutical Company and largest Retail Company as clients. trategic Studies from the College of Naval Warfare in Newport, RI.