Fabio Cichero '07 moved to Sweden 13 years ago to study International Business Management at Mälardalens University. Upon graduation, with the incentive to learn Swedish, he opened a cafe on an island outside of Stockholm called Gotland together with a friend, which they operated over three summers. Mission accomplished! Today, in addition to speaking Swedish, he is the Commercial Director for Yubico, a cybersecurity Swedish/American company with headquarters in Stockholm and Palo Alto.



"At Yubico, I'm focused on our Southern European markets - Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, Slovenia, and Croatia. Living in Sweden, I do miss the Mediterranean weather, so I appreciate traveling for my work. I'm not made for only 3-4 hours of sun!"

Yubico's Hardware Authentication Token, a Yubikey, offers secure access to private and enterprise online accounts. Simply plugging in a Yubikey to your USB port triggers a second factor or multi-factor authentication. It's no surprise then that Yubico supports companies like Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft. Their latest version, the biometric Yubikey, even adds another level of security with a fingerprint scanner.

"People usually use their user name and password for authentication," shares Fabio, "but that is no longer sustainable; hackers have become too ingenious. With a Yubikey, you can secure your login to all your internet accounts and applications."

Reminiscing on his days at the American School of Barcelona, Fabio recalls being the first captain and quarterback of the Lynx Flag Football team in 2005, which he founded together with Mr. Miguel and Mr. Jordi. "We traveled for a couple of tournaments to Milan and France and were even sub-champions of Catalunya!"



Fabio shares that all his teachers impacted his life in their own way; however, now, he believes Mr. Maas was the most influential in hindsight. "He was my History teacher but quickly became my English teacher too because he was obsessed with English grammar."

Ms. Macmanee was also an amazing teacher. I was greatly saddened to hear of her passing. I also enjoyed chemistry with Mr. Mark, physics with Mr. Bartlett, and Mr. Brasher as a homeroom teacher."

Since Fabio's parents and sister, Manela '13, still live in Barcelona, he visits whenever he has the opportunity. "I like to drive by the ASB campus every couple of years. It has completely changed since I was a student there. The auditorium blew my mind!"



Once a Lynx, Always a Lynx!

Contributed: October 2021