John Sileo

During 2003, John Sileo’s identity was stolen out of his business and used to commit a series of crimes, including $300,000 worth of embezzlement. While the thief operated behind the safety of John’s identity, John and his business were held legally and financially responsible for the felonies committed. Forced to defend his innocence, John spent two stressful years and $10,000 on a criminal lawyer to keep from going to jail.

During that time, John became an expert in identity theft prevention and mitigation strategies. The methods of survival he developed during this experience are the basis of his Award-winning book, Stolen Lives: Identity Theft Prevention Made Simple, and are responsible for the successful capture and conviction of his impostor. Stolen Lives recently won the #1 Business Book of the Year at the EVVY Awards.

As a professional member of the National Speakers Association, John delivers keynote speeches around the country to corporations, associations and consumers about protecting personal information and corporate data. Recent clients include Pfizer, Lincoln Financial Group, the Federal Reserve Bank, Principal Financial Group, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, the North Carolina Association of CPAs, Prudential Real Estate, Fifth Third Bank, and scores of financial institutions, national associations and corporations. John has been featured recently on Money Matters Today, NBC, ABC and Fox.

John is the president of The Sileo Group, a 43-year-old corporation that provides consulting services to businesses that wish to proactively protect private information. Sileo trains corporations on how to quickly detect and deter data theft and financial fraud on all rungs of the corporate ladder (from the mail-room to the boardroom).

John is a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar to New Zealand and graduated with Honors from Harvard University. He lives happily at the foot of the Rocky Mountains with his amazing wife, two spirited daughters, acoustic guitar, and Cairn terriers.


MOST REQUESTED PROGRAMS:

Identity theft is America’s fastest growing crime and second highest concern among all Americans. This crime not only affects families, but has legal and financial liability implications for all types of organizations. Good personal privacy habits lead to safer data within your organization. And safe data is profitable data.  

Protecting yourself and your business is simply a process of acquiring the right knowledge, skills and plan of action. This session will deliver those tools on a personal level, empowering you to leave behind the culture of fear in exchange for peace of mind.  

In Think Like a Spy: Bulletproofing Your Identity, you will experience:

• The #1 Obstacle to Privacy and how to overcome it
• How to Think Like a Spy: applying espionage techniques to data protection
• Bulletproofing Intellectual Property in your organization
• The Top 5 Social Engineering Triggers and how to respond to them
• Interrogation Tools to detect and avoid the latest scams before they bite
• Risk-Scenario Training that lets you experience prevention first-hand
• Targeting the Enemy: a plan of action for minimizing risk with less work
• Practical Skills to protect your wallet, trash, computer, mailbox, brain, business & more

Once we understand how to protect our personal identities, then we have the tools and motivation to begin protecting valuable corporate data. Identity theft and corporate data loss are a huge financial cost and legal liability to corporations and organizations. It is imperative in our information economy that we train our work-force on how to protect those information assets, whether they are digital, physical or intellectual.

Employing the Think Like a Spy Privacy Reflex will give your audience a concrete way as business leaders to evaluate and implement privacy protections throughout your organization. Your audience will learn:

• The 3 Stpes of Privacy Strategy
• The 3 Enemies of Corporate Privacy
• 5 Myths of Corporate Data Loss
• How to implement the Think Like a Spy Privacy Reflex
• How to prevent "insider theft” of your private information
• How to save hundreds of lost work hours & thousands of dollars
• How to secure sensitive customer, employee, & intellectual data

Every parent and young adult should be aware of the fact that college-age students are at the highest risk of identity theft and general abuse of private information. Just like most young adults were taught Stranger Danger in school, they should also be taught how to protect their increasingly threatened identities. This program is appropriate for both parents and young adults, but is geared to instill a Privacy Reflex in the younger generation. Your audience will learn:

• The threats posed by social networking sites like MySpace.com, Facebook, etc.
• How to balance the free flow of information via technology (the Internet, cell phones, text messaging, IMing) with the need for privacy
• A highly effective Privacy Reflex (Jujitsu) to protect their young identity
• Concrete response tools to protect themselves from becoming a statistic of identity theft or online predators
• How to avoid the bad financial habits of adults (over-extended credit cards, debt, information regurgitation, something for nothing syndrome, etc.)
• How to detect frauds, scams & social engineering before they bite

This program does not talk to parents about what role they can play in protecting their young adult, but those materials can be added for the appropriate audience.

INDUSTRY SPECIFIC PROGRAMS:

Your Financial Institution as Hero: Protecting Customers Against Identity Theft

No one is in a better position to educate individuals about identity theft prevention than financial institutions. Not only do they have the “financial ear” of their clients, but they have a responsibility to protect their customers and members from this highly financial crime. This speech applies to banks, credit unions, insurance companies, brokers, financial planners, accountants, etc.

Here is the good news. By educating your customers or members about how to protect themselves against America’s Fastest Growing Crime, your financial institution benefits at the bottom line. By wearing the white hat in the financial services industry, your organization will learn how to:

• Leverage identity theft education to develop more loyal customers
• Raise effective barriers to customer defection
• Lower your cost of doing business while raising customer service
• Improving share-of-wallet through prevention goodwill
• Lower the fraud-loss your institution incurs when your customer is victimized
• Take full advantage of the hero’s publicity
• Implement tipping-point customer referrals