The CCTV User Group is delighted to announce that Dawn Holmes MSc, CSyP, CPP, CISSP has agreed to join us as a Non-Executive Director.
In this role, she will help guide the future development of the Group as we seek to increase the depth and reach of our support for the CCTV community and the broader security industry. We look forward to working with Dawn and benefiting from her expertise and experience in security and CCTV.
Dawn has an extensive background in security management, having designed and managed security systems and operations at many well-known companies. She earned a masters degree in security and risk management from the University of Leicester in 2011, has an advanced certificate in crime prevention and environmental design from Oxford Brookes University and holds a number of top-level industry certificates including Certified Protection Professional (CPP), Chartered Security Professional (CSyP), Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), and Accredited Data Protection Officer.
In addition to her wealth of experience in corporate security and CCTV, Dawn has been very active in the broader industry itself as a champion of education, standards and equality, diversity and inclusion. She has been an active supporter of ASIS for nearly 10 years and was vice chair of ASIS UK in 2021.
Dawn said she has been involved with CCTV for most of her career. Her first security management job at the 300-acre Boots site in Nottingham involved helping to set up one of the UK’s first fully digital CCTV control rooms, an experience which kindled her interest in how people work with security systems.
She said: “I am very interested in how the technology and the human work together. Naturally, setting up the technology can be a challenge, but sometimes I worry that we don’t pay enough attention to training the people. That’s 50 percent of the picture, and I’m concerned that sometimes we’re missing that side of things.”
However, she added, when properly managed, CCTV can be a great enabler, allowing people to be more effective in their roles both in corporate security and town centres where public space surveillance does so much to support local police and the community.
CCTV is a powerful technology that is growing in capability year on year, and Dawn worries about regulation keeping up with the pace of change and organisations failing to observe existing standards.
Dawn is keen to see the industry do more to inspire the next generation of security professionals. She has ideas for mentoring young people and encouraging them to consider a career in CCTV by, for instance, showcasing jobs such as video forensics & investigations and demonstrating the high-tech kit that they would be working with.
And she wants to continue working on equality, diversity and inclusion so that people from all backgrounds see more and more individuals like themselves represented at every level of the industry and to then consider this as potential career choice.
Dawn said: “Throughout my career in security I have enjoyed working with CCTV. It’s a powerful technology which is doing a lot of good in the private and public sector, but the technology is developing quickly and there is still much to be done with education and standards to ensure it is used properly and to build a diverse and inclusive industry. The CCTV User Group is at the forefront of setting standards and communicating best practice to the industry so I am naturally delighted to have the opportunity to work with the Group to achieve these things.”
Peter Webster, director of the CCTV User Group, said: “We are delighted to welcome Dawn to the CCTV User Group. Dawn has offered to share with us her wealth of professional experience and expertise in security and CCTV which we believe will add a new dimension to the CCTV User Group. We are looking forward to working with her and are excited about the opportunities ahead and the new perspective that she will bring.”