Goldman Sachs Group has received plenty of kudos for its stunning profits. Last month in San Francisco, the investment bank was recognized for a different kind of dependability when Philip Venables, its chief information risk officer, won the annual RSA Conference Award for Excellence in the Field of Security Practices. The judges at the gathering of information security professionals cited Venables, a U.K. native who came to Goldman in 2000 from Deutsche Bank, for a data protection initiative that he started in 2001. It included a pioneering use of digital codes that give users control over specific pieces of data, rather than forcing them to rely on less-flexible physical barriers. The New York–based Venables, 41, is the first investment banking executive to nab the award in its ten-year history. Praised for his “dedication and conviction to the power of persistent security,” the low-profile Venables declined press interviews and didn’t even attend the event. He did send an aphoristic message to the conferees explaining what keeps him busy: “Information wants to be free. Code wants to be wrong.”
