Brett McDowell

Executive Director, FIDO Alliance

Brett McDowell is a Fellow at the National Center of Digital Government and the Executive Director of the FIDO Alliance, the multi-stakeholder organization he helped establish in 2012 to improve cybersecurity by removing the world’s dependency on passwords through new open technical standards and updated public policy for strong authentication. Mr. McDowell manages the strategic direction of the FIDO Alliance and coordinates its coalition activities with numerous external industry groups, standards bodies and government agencies worldwide. Previously, Mr.McDowell was Head of Ecosystem Security at PayPal, where he developed strategies, lead initiatives, and spearheaded their authentication strategy to make the Internet safer for PayPal and their customers. Mr. McDowell has held several leadership positions including founding Management Council Chairman for the Identity Ecosystem Steering Group, the private-sector led collaboration with US Government to implement President Obama’s National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace.  Mr. McDowell was also co-founder and Chairman of DMARC.org, Treasurer for the National Cyber Security Alliance, Secretary for StopBadWare.org, and Vice President for FIDO Alliance before joining them as Executive Director in 2014. Prior to joining PayPal in 2010, Mr. McDowell managed a number of IEEE Industry Standards and Technology Organization initiatives, serving as Executive Director for Kantara Initiative, Liberty Alliance Project, and VoiceXML Forum. Mr. McDowell has extensive industry standards experience having worked with IETF, ISO, ITU-T, ANSI, OASIS, W3C and the ETSI ICT Standards Board.

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