Akshay Dhawan is a Senior Managing Director in the Cybersecurity practice at FTI Consulting, based in Washington, DC. He has more than 20 years of experience in cybersecurity and digital transformation. A trusted advisor, Mr. Dhawan is known for translating complex cyber threats and technology risks into clear, actionable business intelligence, positioning security as an enabler of growth, innovation and enterprise value.
At FTI Consulting, Mr. Dhawan advises clients on the design and implementation of enterprise cybersecurity programs, with a particular focus on cloud and AI systems and national security-driven regulatory environments. He partners closely with security executives and their teams to architect secure platforms, embed security into development lifecycles and deploy the processes and technologies required to drive security and resilience at scale. His work also includes leading and overseeing security and compliance assessment programs across a broad range of regulatory and industry frameworks, including NIST CSF, NIST 800-series, ISO 27001/27002, HIPAA Security Rule, NYDFS 500, SOC 2, CMMC and FedRAMP.
Prior to his current role, Mr. Dhawan held leadership positions at global consulting firms, where he built and led cloud security and compliance practices. He has also served as a fractional CISO for technology and financial services organizations, overseeing security transformations and complex cloud migrations while ensuring that cybersecurity functions drive business growth and operational resilience.
Mr. Dhawan has extensive experience supporting private equity firms and their portfolio companies across the full M&A lifecycle. His work spans pre‑transaction cybersecurity due diligence through post‑close transformation, including the integration and modernization of cybersecurity programs, tools, and operating models. He has also supported organizations undergoing complex carve‑outs, designing and building their security programs. This includes leading large‑scale identity and tenant separations, migrating users to new Entra ID and Microsoft 365 domains, implementing data loss prevention (DLP) and mobile device management (MDM) capabilities, and establishing secure cloud foundations through Azure security architecture and configuration.
Mr. Dhawan is an active contributor to the global cybersecurity community and has played a significant role in shaping industry standards. He is currently part of the AIUC-1 consortium that includes leaders across industry, government, academia, and non-profits to shape AI security best practices – defining how the world adopts AI agents securely and confidently. He served on the AICPA task force for information security frameworks, helping define benchmarks for modern data protection. A recognized thought leader, his perspectives on emerging cyber threats and cloud governance have been featured in leading financial and business publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, Planadvisers, and Kiplinger’s.
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