Built in the CSO chair. Practiced at the boardroom table.

I’ve spent my career helping organizations turn risk into resilience. For 15 years I served as Chief Security Officer and CIO at Silicon Valley Bank, protecting the bank of the innovation economy — and the founders, operators, and investors it served.

My tenure as CSO of Silicon Valley Bank spanned 15 years — an unusual span in a role with industry-average turnover under two years. I held that seat through the 2008 financial collapse, the 2013 Target breach that reshaped retail security, the 2017 NotPetya outbreak, the 2020 SolarWinds compromise, and the 2021 Colonial Pipeline incident — each of which redefined what cybersecurity leadership demanded.

Early in my career, I realized cybersecurity isn’t just about technology. It’s about people, trust, and leadership. Over 30 years I’ve sat on both sides of the table: as a defender protecting institutions from real threats, and as a design partner to the platforms that shape the modern security stack — Palo Alto Networks, Zscaler, CrowdStrike, FireEye, and Eclypsium.

My mission is simple: help leaders see security not as a barrier, but as a strategic advantage. Today, through vCSO.ai, I partner with growth-stage companies, PE/VC sponsors, and cybersecurity product teams that want mature cyber posture without slowing the business down — fractional executive leadership, paired with Theodolite for analysis that used to take consultant teams weeks.

Resilience is more than surviving disruption. It’s learning, adapting, and leading through it — a mindset that applies as much to organizations as it does to life.