Sector Chief - Critical Manufacturing

Sam Merrell has been serving as the Chief Information Security Officer for Kennametal, Inc. since February 2021.  Prior to Kennametal, Merrell served as the Head of Cyber Intelligence for Covestro AG, where he also served as president of the American Chemistry Council Cybersecurity Committee.  Before Covestro, he was a Corporate Cyber Defense Center Team Lead in the Bayer Corporation.  Previously, he worked at the CERT Program at the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA. Merrell has experience working with the US Department of Homeland Security, assisting Critical Infrastructure owners and operators to improve their information security management practices. Other work includes supporting the protective mission of the United States Secret Service and improving enterprise security efforts of the US Air Force. Merrell holds a Master’s degree (MSIT, Information Security and Assurance) from Carnegie Mellon, the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) certification, and certificates from SANS and ITIL. He has served as a member of the Executive Writer’s Bureau and as an officer in the Pittsburgh chapter of the International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium, Inc., (ISC)² as well as on review panels for (ISC) ² scholarships. He was a finalist for the Pittsburgh Technology Council “CISO of the Year” in 2022.