Jeff Buss
Member of the Board
Jeff joined the Board at Waterleaf in 2023 and has over 30 years of progressive leadership, IT and cybersecurity experience ranging from running small IT shops to being the CIO of a large global consulting firm. Jeff joined Waterleaf from Nordic Consulting where he was the Global CIO and helped the firm double revenue in 30 months while acquiring 5 companies and selling Nordic to a strategic buyer. Here he orchestrated the firm's technology and security portfolio, built the firm's cybersecurity consulting practice, and led an industry-leading IT and cybersecurity team. Before Nordic, Jeff was a Managing Director at Ernst & Young where he served as a cyber security advisor to 4 of the 5 largest banks in America and ran two national practices as well as started and ran the Global partnership with Splunk. He grew a team from 4 to 42 in 18 months and drove over $38M in sales in less than 24 months.
Early in his career, Jeff served as a Naval Flight Officer with carrier-based Electronic Attack Squadrons and then shifted his focus to IT Operations and Cybersecurity. He retired as a Captain from the Navy with multiple command tours and operated and defended one of the largest global networks in the world, the $25+B Department of Defense Information Network (DODIN) with over 3M users, including the White House. Prior to departing military service, he was the CTO for cyber development at the Defense Information Systems Agency and Deputy Director of the Center for Cybersecurity Studies at the US Naval Academy. Currently, Jeff serves on the advisory board of Unknown Cyber.
Jeff earned a B.S. in Finance from Marquette University, an M.B.A. from the University of Iowa and two M.S. degrees, one in Information Technology and another in National Security Strategy. Jeff holds the following certifications: CISSP, C|EH, ITIL V3, and Security+.
