Annie Searle

Annie Searle, Principal of Annie Searle & Associates (ASA), helps companies build world-class risk programs. An internationally known expert in operational risk management, with extensive experience in the financial, IT and emergency services sectors, Searle thrives on complex challenges. She has spent the last decade teaching the next generation of risk and cybersecurity leaders at the University of Washington’s Information School (iSchool) while using her risk practice to write, speak and publish through the ASA Institute for Risk and Innovation.

Earlier in her career, Searle was co-founder and CEO of Delphi Computers & Peripherals for 15 years, delivering custom hardware and solutions to companies as diverse as Vulcan Ventures, Harborview Medical Center, Boeing Aerospace, Longacres Racetrack, and Seattle Mystery Bookstore. For her work at Delphi, she won the 1992 Northwest Woman Entrepreneur Award as well as a Matrix Table “Woman of Achievement” award in 1994. She sold Delphi and moved to Washington Mutual Bank (WaMu) in 1999. She spent 10 years at the bank, most of them as a senior executive reporting jointly to the CIO and the CRO, with enterprise level responsibility for business continuity, disaster recovery, crisis management, technology risk and compliance, and some elements of information security, including threat analysis and root cause analysis.

Searle’s first book focused on identifying and handling personal risk, titled "Advice From A Risk Detective," currently in its third edition. She published "Risk Reconsidered" in 2018. Searle is also executive editor of a six-volume set of research notes written by students, titled "Reflections on Risk," and of a chapter on root causes in "Conduct Risk: A Practitioner’s Guide" in 2016.

Searle is a lifetime member of the Institute of American Entrepreneurs and an inaugural inductee of the Hall of Fame for the International Network of Women in Emergency Management and Homeland Security (inWEM). She retired from teaching in June of 2023 as an Associate Teaching Professor Emeritus. Her current professional affiliations include in ISACA, InfraGuard, the Global Association of Risk Partners (GARP), the Region X Regional Infrastructure Security Group (CISA) and the Seattle Disaster Management Committee.

ASA's website can be found at www.anniesearle.com.