Cynthia Hetherington

Cynthia Hetherington

Cynthia Hetherington is a strategic business leader and cybersecurity expert with over 25 years of experience advising Fortune 500 executives and boards on corporate intelligence, risk management, and data privacy. Her entrepreneurial career spans founding and scaling multiple successful organizations while maintaining consistent growth and profitability through rapidly evolving cybersecurity landscapes and regulatory environments.

As CEO and Founder of Hetherington Group since 1999, Cynthia has built a market-leading investigative intelligence firm from inception to over $5M in annual revenue with 30+ employees, maintaining 20% year-over-year growth. She develops comprehensive risk management frameworks for Fortune 500 clients, helping C-suite executives and boards identify and mitigate global threats across cybersecurity, employment, data compliance, reputational damage, corporate security, and intellectual property. Cynthia pioneered innovative investigative due diligence methodologies that combine traditional corporate intelligence with advanced cyber intelligence, enabling clients to make critical decisions in high-stakes mergers, acquisitions, and investment opportunities. Integral to all her work, Cynthia builds and maintains key relationships across government agencies, law enforcement, regulatory bodies, and corporate security departments.

Cynthia has expanded her impact through additional ventures, founding and leading the OSMOSIS Association, which has grown to 2,000 members across 72 countries working to standardize and advance the open-source intelligence (OSINT) community. She also established the HG Training, which trains over 8,000 analysts and investigators annually from government, military, corporate security, and law enforcement through partnerships with Dakota State University, CISA, and the National Centers for Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity. Previously, as Managing Director at Aon Consulting Group, she launched and grew their first Strategic Intelligence Unit within their forensic accounting and litigation practices, significantly enhancing their fraud detection and enterprise risk management capabilities.

Cynthia currently serves on two nonprofit boards, utilizing her experience to lobby Congress and facilitate strategic partnerships that benefit Raven’s work to protect children from online exploitation and threats. She also advises Skull Games, a nonprofit that provides analytical and operational support to law enforcement agencies to counter sex trafficking.

A recognized thought leader, Cynthia serves as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Arizona’s College of Applied Science and Technology. She has authored five industry-leading books including the recently published third edition of “OSINT: The Authoritative Guide to Due Diligence” (2024). Cynthia maintains extensive professional affiliations, including leadership positions with ASIS International’s Economic Crime Committee, the Association of Independent Information Professionals, and the New Jersey Association of Licensed Private Investigators, where she was named 2023 Member of the Year.

Cynthia received a Master of Science Management with a focus on Management of Information Systems from the New Jersey Institute of Technology, a Master of Library Science from Rutgers University, a Bachelor of Science in Philosophy from Montclair State University, and an Associate of Arts from Bergen Community College.