About Kevin Bonasera

The tools changed. The instinct did not.

I help organizations connect marketing, technology, systems, AI, cybersecurity governance, operations, and change — and take ownership when important work needs to move forward.

Let’s Talk Strategy

Education

B.A. / Bachelor’s in Business

Ohio Dominican University

Master of Arts in Teaching

University of South Florida

Master of Science in Information Technology

University of Denver · 2026

The practice

Business. People. Systems.

My work sits at the intersection of growth, systems, and technology—helping organizations improve what they have, decide what comes next, and take ownership of the work required to get there.

Get Found

Help the right people find, understand, and choose your business.

Build Better Systems

Connect the systems that turn attention into action and follow-through.

Adopt AI Responsibly

Decide where AI belongs, how people should use it, and how change should be managed.

Govern Risk

Bring ownership, evidence, and accountability to cybersecurity and compliance.

I learn your business. I champion what you are building. When an important initiative needs an owner, I step in and help move it forward.

The rivers, maps, and contour lines come from my story. The work itself is marketing, technology, systems, AI, operations, and organizational change.

Field principles

Read the conditions. Understand the environment. Build something useful.

Education

My education has followed the same path as my work: understanding businesses, people, and the systems connecting them.

Bachelor of Science

Ohio Dominican College

Business Administration

The foundation: business, organizations, decision-making, and how companies create value.

Master of Arts in Teaching

University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee

Elementary Education

The human side: communication, learning, leadership, trust, training, and helping people adapt to change.

Master of Science

University of Denver

Information Technology

The systems side: data analytics, AI, responsible technology, governance, cybersecurity, resilience, operations, risk, and organizational change.

Data + Analytics
AI + Governance
Risk + Resilience
Operations
Change

My graduate work in information technology at the University of Denver deepened that work across technology leadership, responsible AI, governance, risk, resilience, continuity, and organizational change.

Technology works best when the business case, the system, and the people using it all make sense together.

Technology + AI Advisory Research + Applied Thinking

Why cybersecurity

I became interested in the part between the framework and the real world.

My interest in cybersecurity did not start with wanting to become the person configuring firewalls or running penetration tests.

It came from a different question:

How does an organization actually know that its cybersecurity program is working?

Policies can exist. Controls can be documented. IT providers can be doing good technical work.

But leadership still needs to know what the organization depends on, which requirements apply, who owns each responsibility, what evidence exists, where the gaps are, and whether remediation is actually happening.

That governance layer is what pulled me deeper into cybersecurity.

University of Denver

Graduate work turned that interest into something practical.

During my MSIT work at the University of Denver, I became increasingly interested in cybersecurity, AI governance, resilience, business continuity, and the systems organizations use to turn risk and compliance requirements into day-to-day practice.

From frameworks to operations

How formal cybersecurity and AI requirements become day-to-day practice.

In graduate coursework, I worked with governance, risk, and compliance technology to explore how organizations can translate formal cybersecurity and AI requirements into something measurable and manageable.

That work involved concepts such as:

Framework requirements
Controls
Control ownership
Policies
Evidence
Risk registers
Gap identification
Remediation
Audit trails
Continuous monitoring
Leadership dashboards

The work connected standards and frameworks including:

NIST Cybersecurity Framework
NIST AI Risk Management Framework
NIST 800-53
ISO 27001
ISO/IEC 42001
FedRAMP
GDPR
EU AI Act

Academic study, not certification. The point was learning how frameworks become operational — using a real governance and compliance environment to understand how requirements turn into controls, ownership, and evidence.

Governance under pressure

Responsibility, authority, and control when automated systems operate under real conditions.

My capstone, Shaping AI Resilience: Governance Tradeoffs in AI-Enabled Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Planning, pushed the question further.

I studied what happens when responsibility remains with people while increasingly autonomous systems gain more operational control.

That work focused on:

Human oversight
Accountability
Override authority
Escalation
Traceability
Resilience
Business continuity
Governance under degraded conditions

It reinforced something I now bring into client work: governance only matters when responsibility, authority, evidence, and operational control actually line up.

Cybersecurity Governance + Compliance AI Advisory

How I work

I step into gaps, connect the people and systems, and help important work move forward.

A connected story

The outdoor work was also business work—operations, logistics, customers, and systems.

I did not take the traditional path after college. I worked my way into some of the wildest places I could find.

Colorado. Lees Ferry. Bristol Bay. Belize.

Whitewater. Jet boats. Brown bears. Bugs. Remote lodges. Off-grid islands. Weather. Fuel. Food. Guests. Staff. Runways. Boats. Logistics.

And underneath all of it: Business.

I wrote expansion plans. Built websites. Designed sales materials. Traveled to shows. Helped launch a guide school. Worked on custom boats. Sold the experience. Delivered the experience. Solved the problems no brochure ever mentioned.

This was not adventure first and business second. It was both, all the time.

The promise you make to the customer only matters if the business behind it can deliver.

When the environment is unforgiving, weak systems show up fast.

Teaching

Fifteen years in Sarasota and Manatee classrooms still shapes how I communicate, train, and lead change.

Fifteen years inside Sarasota and Manatee County classrooms gave me something you cannot learn from the outside: a working understanding of students, teachers, parents, curriculum, technology, communication, adoption, and what actually happens when a new idea reaches the classroom.

Inside the classroom. Outside the classroom. Still teaching.

Inside the classroom

15 years working directly with students, teachers, families, teams, curriculum, assessment, technology, and constantly changing expectations.

StudentsTeachersFamiliesCurriculumDataTechnologyCommunicationAdoption

The classroom taught me to read people quickly, explain difficult ideas clearly, adjust in real time, build trust, and make systems work for the humans expected to use them.

Outside the classroom

I have also designed and built education from the other side.

Cybersecurity Bootcamp

Designed curriculum and learning experiences for high school students in a camp / company environment.

Curriculum DesignDigital LearningTrainingProgram DevelopmentTechnologyContentStudent Experience

That perspective matters because I understand both the person building the program and the person sitting on the other side of it.

Education is still part of the work.

Today, I bring that experience into consulting, technology, marketing, training, content, and change.

I am especially interested in working with education companies, publishers, curriculum providers, learning platforms, camps, training organizations, and businesses trying to reach teachers, students, families, or schools.

EdTechPublishingCurriculumTrainingContentSalesMarketingDigital Strategy

I know the classroom from the inside. I understand how products and programs are built from the outside. That is a perspective I want to keep using.

Still Teaching

5th Grade Math

I still take on a small number of Sarasota tutoring students each year.

10 flexible sessions · $1,200

MathOrganizationConfidenceLife Skills

Fly Casting

I still offer free local fly-casting instruction for individuals and small groups, and am available for larger groups and presentations.

CastingDouble HaulTrip Prep

Coaching

I still volunteer locally in youth lacrosse.

TeachAdaptBuild Confidence

Teaching was never a chapter I closed. It became part of how I build, communicate, lead, and help people adopt something new.

That is true in a classroom. It is true in technology. And it is true in business.

Collaboration

Bonasera Consulting is my independent practice; I bring in trusted collaborators when their experience strengthens the work.

Kevin Bonasera and collaborator Mark Stegman outdoors with two dogs

I often collaborate with Mark Stegman, a longtime friend and colleague from our days at The Ohio State University.

Mark is based in Cincinnati; I am in Sarasota. We work remotely year-round, and his annual Sarasota visits give us time with mutual clients and a little time around Siesta Key.

Bonasera Consulting is my independent practice. Mark is not an owner or partner. I bring him into select engagements when his experience or execution strengthens the work.

Shared History

A long personal and professional relationship built on trust.

Digital Experience

Years helping companies strengthen brands, marketing, and customer growth.

Business Perspective

He also runs Cincinnati Watch Company — firsthand experience building a brand of his own.

The goal is not to build a giant agency. It is to bring the right people to the work when they are needed.

Family

Our family has grown up connected to both places, languages, traditions, and communities. That perspective has made me value continuity, flexibility, relationships, and building a life where work supports something bigger than work itself.

Sarasota

Home, community, schools, coaching, clients, and the place where I am building this next chapter.

Öland

Family roots, perspective, time together, and a lasting connection to place.

Continuity

Creating meaningful experiences while staying connected to the people, places, and traditions that shaped us.

I want to build good work, but I also want that work to make room for a good life.

Öland, Sweden

Family roots, perspective, and a lasting connection to place.

My wife is from the southern part of Öland, and our family returns whenever we can. Summers mean long northern light, Midsummer celebrations, cool Baltic air, family, and time outside.

On southern Öland, the contour lines flatten into the open alvar.

I love hiking around Ottenby, where the land opens toward the sea and makes you slow down, look farther ahead, and pay attention to the conditions around you.

For me, it connects curiosity, travel, work, and family. Clarity matters. So does knowing what to hold onto.

A hand-drawn field-atlas portrait of a traditional yellow Swedish stuga with red geraniums and a Swedish flag, a smiling woman greeting from the open doorway — ÖLAND · THE STUGA

Öland reminds me to keep learning and exploring while making room for what matters most: being a good husband, a present father, and building a life and business with purpose.

Family
Curiosity
Perspective
Place

Camp Kawanhee

A childhood connection carried forward through fly fishing, mentorship, and giving back.

Years later, my family and I found our way back to Kawanhee. I have helped strengthen fly fishing into a more complete standalone program involving casting, fishing, boating and water safety, curriculum, trips, mentorship, leadership, and life skills.

Sunset over the Camp Kawanhee waterfront, with pines, a dock reaching into calm water, and contour linework traced across the sky — CAMP KAWANHEE

Teaching
Mentorship
Leadership
Giving Back

This is not consulting work. It is something I care about because it connects generations, creates experiences for young people, and gives me a way to return some of what Kawanhee gave me.

The imagery tells my story. The strategy we build should tell yours.

The connection

These are not four unrelated businesses.

Marketing, operations, AI, and cybersecurity increasingly run through the same systems.

A website creates a lead. A CRM captures it. Automation moves it. AI may help process it. Employees and vendors access it. Policies determine how it can be used. Cybersecurity protects it. Governance determines who is responsible when something changes or goes wrong.

The common thread is the system.

I have always been most interested in understanding how the pieces connect, where they break down, who owns them, and how to make the whole system work better.

Systems First. Smarter Growth.

Cybersecurity Governance + Compliance Let’s Talk Strategy

A practical first step

Let’s Talk Strategy.

Bring the problem, not a software shortlist. Tell me what you’re trying to improve. We can start there.

Let’s Talk Strategy

The tools changed. The instinct did not.

Get Found

Build Better Systems

Adopt AI Responsibly

Govern Risk

How I approach the work

Business. People. Technology.

Turning requirements into something measurable.

My capstone pushed the question further.

Sometimes the missing piece is ownership.

Bears. Bugs. Boats. Business.

I have always been a teacher.

Good work is rarely a solo act.

The work matters more when you know what you are building it around.

The island of the sun and the winds.

Continuity, mentorship, and connection to place.