Illinois has long been one of the country’s most important transportation and logistics hubs, with companies operating across freight forwarding, supply chain platforms, trucking, warehousing, and heavy haul services. The leaders in this feature reflect that operational breadth. Their backgrounds span enterprise security program building, board-facing risk communication, infrastructure modernization, compliance, incident response, and the protection of large, distributed environments where uptime, visibility, and resilience matter to the business every day.
George Tibbs — Senior Director of Information Security, AIT Worldwide Logistics
George Tibbs is senior director of information security at AIT Worldwide Logistics, where he leads a globally distributed security team supporting operations across more than 100 locations worldwide. His profile describes a leader who works directly with executive leadership, boards of directors, and private equity ownership to translate cybersecurity risk into business and financial impact. A significant part of his current work has centered on transaction readiness, including cybersecurity due diligence support for a potential sale process, where he has presented security posture, control maturity, risk metrics, and regulatory readiness to prospective buyers and advisors.
Tibbs has progressed through multiple information security leadership roles at AIT, including information security officer, director of information security, and now senior director. Before joining AIT, he held security roles at Rewards Network and earlier technical positions at Sparton Corporation and the University of Illinois Springfield. Across that progression, his profile points to experience in enterprise governance, M&A integration, regulatory frameworks including CMMC, NIST, PCI DSS, and SOC, as well as cloud and identity modernization, incident response leadership, and executive tabletop exercises.
Simona Kovatcheva — Senior Manager, Information Security (Acting Director), Hub Group
Simona Kovatcheva is senior manager of information security and acting director at Hub Group, where she now holds a senior security leadership role inside one of Illinois’ best-known logistics companies. Her profile describes a cybersecurity leader with experience across multiple industries and more than a decade in the field, and her current title suggests a growing leadership remit as Hub Group continues building out its security function.
Before joining Hub Group, Kovatcheva spent more than seven years at Microsoft in roles that included senior security lead in the FastTrack security domain, senior cloud solution architect on the U.S. national team, and premier field engineer. She also held earlier technical roles at Arizona State University and interned at American Express. That background gives her a mix of cloud, security, and enterprise technology experience that now carries over into a transportation and logistics environment where scalability, platform security, and operational continuity all matter.
Mark Roberts — Chief Information Security Officer, Redwood Logistics
Mark Roberts is chief information security officer at Redwood Logistics, where he is leading the company’s security posture with a focus on SaaS offerings. His broader profile describes a cybersecurity and IT risk executive with more than 25 years of leadership experience building global IT programs, supporting M&A transactions, enabling regulatory compliance, and driving operational resilience. It also points to extensive experience working with C-level and board stakeholders, which is especially relevant in logistics businesses that continue to modernize digital platforms and customer-facing systems.
Before joining Redwood Logistics, Roberts held senior infrastructure and security leadership roles at Signode Industrial Group, Sensus, Bell and Howell, and GSK, alongside earlier work in software development, enterprise application integration, and project management. That background blends security with infrastructure and enterprise technology leadership, giving him a profile shaped by both operational execution and long-range program development.
Dan Lupescu — Director of Information Security, Stevenson Crane, Rigging & Heavy Haul
Dan Lupescu is director of information security at Stevenson Crane, Rigging & Heavy Haul, where he has served since 2019. While his profile is more concise than others in this slate, it still points to a long technical background spanning banking, infrastructure, and engineering-focused IT roles. That matters in a heavy haul and rigging environment, where security leadership often sits close to practical systems management and business continuity rather than just formal governance.
Before Stevenson, Lupescu spent more than a decade at Parkway Bank & Trust Company as assistant vice president and information technology officer, and earlier worked as a network engineer at Heritage Technology Solutions. The recommendation included in the material describes him as a broad and deeply knowledgeable IT professional with the ability to research, quote, implement, and troubleshoot technology solutions while also communicating effectively with senior management and non-technical staff. That combination of technical range and business communication is notable in operationally demanding industries.
Prakash Patel — Regional Infrastructure Manager of the Americas, Crane Worldwide Logistics
Prakash Patel currently serves as vice president of facilities technology infrastructure at Crane Worldwide Logistics after progressing through director, senior manager, and regional infrastructure leadership roles at the company. Although his current title is infrastructure-focused rather than explicitly security-focused, the profile presents him as a seasoned information security executive with more than fifteen years of experience leading security strategy, risk management, governance, and incident response. His work at Crane has included overseeing a portfolio of 200 sites across the Americas, managing network infrastructure and field services, deploying Fortinet infrastructure, implementing SD-WAN, and leading regional engineering teams.
Earlier, Patel served as chief technology officer and vice president of infrastructure at Compass Mortgage, where the details provided point to extensive work in information security policy development, breach management, incident response, disaster recovery, multifactor authentication, phishing awareness, global risk management, and redesigning enterprise networks across more than a dozen sites. He also held earlier infrastructure and consulting roles spanning cloud architecture, HIPAA-related environments, and systems engineering. Taken together, the material shows a leader whose transportation and logistics profile is rooted in infrastructure modernization closely tied to security and resilience.
Security leadership across Illinois logistics networks
The leaders in this feature show how cybersecurity in transportation and logistics is tied not just to compliance or technical defense, but to transaction readiness, distributed infrastructure, cloud and identity modernization, operational continuity, and executive-level decision-making. In an industry built on movement, coordination, and timing, the people leading these programs are helping make sure the underlying systems are secure enough to keep the business moving.
Explore more profiles of the leaders shaping cybersecurity across numerous industries in our CISOs to Watch collection.