Board Spotlight

Can you walk us through your career background and how that experience brought you into the organization?

I started installing firewalls in the mid-1990s and looked at the logs... and I right away entered incident management! Long story short, I joined the emerging informal association of CSIRTs in France - aka InterCERT France - at the turn of the century, then TF-CSIRT, and FIRST in 2013 while joining French GovCERT, CERT-FR.

I soon joined the FIRST Conference Program Committee, SIGs and Membership Committee, delivered training, and served as a mentor for Fellow teams before finally joining the FIRST Board in 2022.

I am also a SIM3 Auditor and trainer.

How has that shaped your perspective coming into your role?

Primarily, I wanted to contribute and give back what I learned thanks to the FIRST community.

Second, sharing: 'Sharing is caring' is something I often say and do practice. I have been teaching and training since I became an engineer, and now mentor CSIRT managers and CISOs. 'Knowledge transfer' is fundamental in what I have done and keep on doing. Giving back and sharing experience and knowledge is key in my life.

Third, community: SIGs as the heart and soul of FIRST, with highly valuable and structured deliverables, popular standards, and frameworks.

On top of that, communication: improving FIRST visibility so that supporters of emerging cybersecurity technologies would consider us as a reliable and valuable potential host or source of expertise.

Looking ahead, what do you see as the most important strategic priorities for the organization?

Our cyberworld is moving at a fast pace with AI as a disrupting dual-use vector both for defenders, and threat actors. FIRST must be a knowledge center for the former and evolve to foster expertise and good practices sharing.

Now that the FIRST infrastructure is sound, we can better align to meet members' expectations and offer new services.

Organizing events is another priority as it generates tremendous results and positively improves FIRST visibility and trust.

FIRST organization is expanding and the Board is transitioning to become more strategic.

More anticipation and forecasting are directions to follow and as it leads the community to better interact with both upper layers of management and with business representatives.

Olivier Caleff, FIRST, Chair

Published on FIRST POST: Jan-Mar 2026