The 2019 Rising Stars of the Profession: David Nides

Age: 34

If you've had any of your online data breached, there's a pretty decent chance KPMG's David Nides is looking into it.

As Managing Director of Cyber Response Services, he spends a lot of his time in the data breach response industry where no two investigations are ever the same, he says. And that sure keeps it interesting. "You never know what you will be working on next—responding to high profile hacking groups, state sponsored attacks, or trusted insiders," Nides says. "The challenge of chasing digital bread crumbs to figure out what happened, how it happened, and sometimes who did it is very exciting."

Working in the breach response industry, it's difficult to attract talent, develop talent, and most importantly retain talent, he says. As a result, "I am most proud of the team I have helped grow and what they have accomplished—responding to some of the nation's most significant data breach investigations, winning top technical competitions, and building market disrupting solutions."

Nides has had a good deal of success early in his career. Much of the credit for that success, he says, goes to KPMG. "Having a platform like KPMG that has invested in my career development, provided continuous opportunities for advancement, and flexibility to follow my passion," he says. "When you love what you do every day it's exciting and motivates others—and makes everything else fall into place."

Other keys to his success include some advice his father gave him.

"My father has always said, if you shall not ask, you shall not receive, Nides says. "Translating this to my professional career, I have always been bullish about   communicating to my leaders what my goals are, what I need to accomplish these, and what's on my mind. It's important to be heard even if others aren't asking."