Cynthia Hetherington

Cynthia Hetherington, MLS, MSM, CFE, CII is the founder and president of Hetherington Group, a consulting, publishing, and training firm that leads in due diligence, corporate intelligence, and cyber investigations by keeping pace with the latest security threats and assessments. She has authored three books on how to conduct investigations and annually trains over 7,200 investigators, security professionals, attorneys, accountants, auditors, military intelligence professionals, and federal, state, and local agencies on best practices.

Ms. Hetherington serves as a Limited Term Adjunct Instructor in the College of Applied Science & Technology (CAST) at the University of Arizona; a Subject Matter Expert & OSINT Instructor, at the National Security Agency Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Operations (CAE-CO) and Cyber Defense (CAE-CD); an OSINT Instructor, Department of Defense, United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM); a Faculty Member of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE); and Lead Instructor at OSINT Academy, a collaboration between Dakota State University, the United States National Security Agency, and Hetherington Group.

For more than 25 years, Ms. Hetherington has led national and international investigations in corporate due diligence and fraud, personal asset recovery, and background checks. With a specialization in the financial, pharmaceutical, and telecommunications industries, her investigations have recovered millions of dollars in high profile corruption cases, assisting on the investigations of the top two Ponzi cases in United States history.

Ms. Hetherington has been shortlisted for the prestigious Women in IT New York’s 2022 Security Leader of the Year. In 2021, Ontic Center for Protective Intelligence honored Ms. Hetherington with the Protective Intelligence Pioneer Award. In 2019, she was honored with the Enterprising Woman of the Year Award by Enterprising Women Magazine and the CybHER Warrior Award by Dakota State University Madison Cyber Labs. Also in 2019, she was shortlisted for the coveted Women in IT New York’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award and named a finalist in the esteemed Ernst & Young LLP New Jersey Entrepreneur of the Year Awards. Ms. Hetherington is a recipient of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners’ James Baker Speaker of the Year Award.