FILE PHOTO: Cerved Group's logo is pictured on a smartphone in this illustration taken, December 4, 2021. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
MILAN (Reuters) - Cerved, an Italian credit data firm owned by global financial data and software group ION, has hired a former intelligence services official as chairman, in the latest sign of the growing importance of corporate data safety.
Cerved, which was acquired and taken private by ION in 2021, said it had named Luca Peyrano as chief executive and Giuseppe Del Deo, the former deputy head of Italy's Department of Information Security (DIS), as executive chairman.
"With over 20 years of experience in the top ranks of Italian intelligence, Del Deo will bring a vision centred around information sovereignty and the protection of the economic system's critical infrastructure," Cerved said in a statement.
The new CEO Peyrano is a veteran ION executive who is currently executive chairman at Cedacri, a banking software business owned by ION in Italy.
Cerved, which supplies data to assess a company's creditworthiness, said it was expanding its offer to include predictive analysis of geopolitical risks and also to monitor threats to supply chain and cyber security.
"It's not enough nowadays to know if a company can sustain financial commitments. It's necessary to anticipate risks it could run, and protect its data," Del Deo said.
Last October, Italy's biggest bank Intesa Sanpaolo named a former senior police officer as its head of security, a new division it created after a major data breach caused by a disloyal employee.
(Reporting by Valentina Za; Editing by Keith Weir)
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