Chief Information Security Officer

Confidential Careers; Herndon (VA); Hybrid; USD 300,000 - 360,000; Full time

Job summary

Confidential Careers seeks a transformative VP / Chief Information Security Officer to lead enterprise, product, cloud, and AI security for a global software company in Herndon.

In this strategic role you will embed security across Product, Engineering, IT, Sales, Services, Legal, Finance, and corporate functions, partnering with the C-suite to enable trusted growth.

Qualifications

• Experience as CISO or VP of Security in a global software/SaaS environment.
• Experience across product security, cloud-native environments, and AI governance.
• Proven ability to align security with business strategy and executive stakeholders.
• Strong leadership and cross-functional collaboration skills.

Responsibilities

• Define enterprise security strategy, risk appetite, operating model, and investment priorities.
• Lead security operations, threat detection, vulnerability management, incident response, crisis management, and cyber resilience.
• Advance product security through secure-by-design, threat modeling, secure SDLC, and software supply-chain practices.
• Build an AI security and governance program covering responsible AI use, sensitive data, AI agents, model and prompt security.
• Strengthen customer trust, audit readiness, third-party risk, privacy partnership, and regulatory preparedness.
• Establish executive and Board-level security metrics focused on business risk, resilience, customer confidence, and AI readiness.
• Build and develop a high-performing, collaborative security organization.

Skills

Enterprise security

Security leadership

Risk management

Product security

AI governance

Cloud security

Executive communication

Job description

VP / Chief Information Security Officer – $300,000 – $360,000 + 20% bonus

Herndon, VA | Hybrid

A large global software company is seeking a transformative VP / Chief Information Security Officer to lead enterprise, product, cloud, cyber-risk, and AI security.

This is a strategic business-partnering role—not a controls-only position. The CISO will help the company move faster with confidence by embedding security across Product, Engineering, IT, Sales, Services, Legal, Finance, and corporate functions.

The opportunity

You will:

• Define enterprise security strategy, risk appetite, operating model, and investment priorities
• Lead security operations, threat detection, vulnerability management, incident response, crisis management, and cyber resilience
• Advance product and application security through secure-by-design, threat modeling, secure SDLC, and software supply-chain practices
• Build an AI security and governance program covering responsible AI use, sensitive data, AI agents, model and prompt security, AI-generated code, third-party providers, and emerging threats
• Strengthen customer trust, audit readiness, third-party risk, privacy partnership, and regulatory preparedness
• Establish executive and Board-level security metrics focused on business risk, resilience, customer confidence, and AI readiness
• Build and develop a high-performing, collaborative security organization

Your first-year impact

You will establish the enterprise security baseline, identify the highest-risk systems and AI use cases, improve remediation and incident response, clarify security ownership across distributed teams, and deliver a prioritized roadmap balancing risk reduction, investment, customer commitments, and business speed.

Ideal background

You have already served as a CISO, enterprise-wide Deputy CISO, or VP of Security in a global software, SaaS, or technology company. You bring experience across product security, cloud-native environments, application security, identity, security engineering, detection and response, software supply-chain risk, customer assurance, AI governance, and executive communication.

Most importantly, you know how to challenge leaders constructively, make risk-based decisions, and position security as an enabler of trusted growth.