POWER PLAYERS: Meet the 20 cybersecurity execs and important names shaping Google's security posture (GOOGL, GOOG)

Heather Adkins, director of information security

One of the longest-standing security execs at Google, Adkins was a founding member of the company's security team since 2002. She helped pen the company's earliest security policies, worked to build its first firewall, and has trained many of the company's top cybersecurity talent.

Adkins is primarily tasked with managing Google's internal security for global employees, and her team also oversees the company's strategy for protecting users.

Vitaly Gudanets, vice president of security engineering

An executive with more than two decades of experience in enterprise security, Gudanets is vice president of security engineering at Google, a role he has held since 2017. He first joined the company in 2009 as a senior director of data centers, where he oversaw software that runs the massive facilities supporting Google's web services.

Before joining Google, Gudanets spent two years as chief information officer at the software firm Rainmaker Systems. He's also previously worked at SanDisk and cybersecurity company Symantec, according to LinkedIn .

Royal Hansen, vice president of security

As a VP for security, Hansen drives Google's strategy to secure its technical infrastructure for enterprises and consumers. He has overseen tools that filter spam for Gmail users, protect the confidentiality of Google Cloud services, and provide guidance to IT teams using Google products.

Hansen joined Google in 2018 after a long career in the financial industry, previously serving in executive roles at Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Fidelity, and American Express.

Camille Stewart, global head of product security strategy

Camille Stewart, Google's Global Head of Product Security Strategy

Stewart is a lawyer and executive who advises Google's product heads on security and risk issues. She has shaped policies to combat election interference and misinformation, as well as broader security standards that permeate the entire company.

Stewart joined Google in 2019 as head of security policy for Android and Google Play before taking the lead on company-wide product security strategy in April. Before that, she was a cyber fellow at Harvard, and previously served as an executive at Deloitte and a cybersecurity advisor to the Department of Homeland Security.

Suzanne Frey, vice president of product security for Android and Google Play

Frey oversees the security and privacy of Android and Google Play, which have more than 3 billion users .

She first joined Google in 2006, working in operations strategy. Frey rose through the ranks to become VP of engineering in Google's cloud division in 2018 before taking the security reigns at Android and the Play store last year, according to her LinkedIn .

Parisa Tabriz, head of product, engineering, and user experience for Chrome

A self-described " security princess ," Tabriz has spent more than 14 years in security roles at Google. She joined the company as a security software engineer in 2007, working her way up through manager and then director roles within the company's Chrome division before being named a product head in 2020.

Tabriz leads the team of engineers, researchers, and program managers that builds Chrome. She also works closely with Project Zero , Google's team of security researchers that sniffs out previously undiscovered vulnerabilities in software from other companies.

Dave Kleidermacher, vice president of engineering for Android security and privacy

As a security engineering VP, Kleidermacher is tasked with protecting the Android and Google Play platforms, as well as Google devices including Nest thermostats and Fitbit watches. He joined the company in 2017 from Blackberry, where he was chief security officer.

In addition to his work at Google, Kleidermacher has spoken out about the need for more diversity in tech, and specifically in cybersecurity. He withdrew from the Black Hat security conference last year , arguing that terms like "black hat" and "white hat" – used to refer to unethical and ethical hackers – need to change.

Jeanette Manfra, director of security and compliance for Google Cloud

Jeanette Manfra, Acting Deputy Undersecretary for Cybersecurity at the DHS, listens to testimonies about Russian interference in U.S. elections to the Senate Intelligence Committee in Washington, U.S., June 21, 2017.

Formerly assistant secretary for cybersecurity and communications at the Department of Homeland Security, Jeanette Manfra joined Google Cloud in early 2020 as global director of security and compliance, part of the division's new Office of the CISO.

At Google, Manfra brings her expertise from the public sector while representing the company's security engineering and risk organisations externally, as she outlined in an interview with Bank Info Security .

Manfra served under three Presidents during her time at the Department of Homeland Security, where she helped establish the US's first civilian cyber defense agency.

Mark Risher, senior director of product management, security and identity

Risher is in charge of Google's security and identity teams, which verify the logins of billions of users across its products. His team also builds tools to defend against phishing and fraud targeting people with Google accounts. Risher is leading the push toward a "passwordless future" at Google , wherein network information and biometric identifiers may one day make passwords obsolete.

Risher first joined Google in 2014 when it acquired Impermium, the identity verification startup he founded. He was previously senior director of product management – and "Spam Czar" – at Yahoo Mail.

Stephan Micklitz, director of engineering on Google's privacy and security team

Based in Germany, Micklitz is responsible for setting the company's global data privacy standards. He was part of the team that created the product now known as Google Account, which lets users log in to Google services using a single set of credentials. Since then, he has helped build consumer security tools like Google's Security Checkup .

Micklitz got his start at the German software design firm SD&M AG and subsequently worked at jambit GmbH , another software firm, before joining Google in 2007.

Shane Huntley, head of Google's Threat Analysis Group

Huntley leads the Threat Analysis Group, Google's team of researchers who sniff out hackers and cybercriminals that are targeting its users. Under his direction, the team has exposed hacking operations linked to Iran, North Korea, and Russia, The Wall Street Journal reported .

He first joined the company as a software engineer for the Threat Analysis Group in 2010 after working for the Australian government. Huntley worked as a senior staff software engineer and threat intelligence manager at Google before taking the helm at the Threat Analysis Group in 2017, according to his LinkedIn .

Phil Venables, chief information security officer and Cloud VP

Google is investing aggressively in its cloud business, and late last year poached a Wall Street veteran to oversee cybersecurity. Phil Venables joined Google Cloud in December as its first chief information security officer, a somewhat unusual role focused on both internal security and customer defenses, as he recently told The Wall Street Journal .

Venables was previously at Goldman Sachs, where he served as chief information security officer for almost 20 years. Before that, he held similar roles at Deutsche Bank, Standard Chartered and Barclays. At Google, Venables reports into Urs Hölzle, senior vice president of technical infrastructure – and Google's eighth employee.

Toni Gidwani, Threat Analysis Group security engineering manager

Gidwani leads the Threat Analysis Group's team of analysts that keep tabs on sophisticated cybercriminals and defend against malware . Her team has developed practices to alert users when they're the targets of phishing campaigns or when a hacker has deployed software to try to break into their account.

Before joining Google, Gidwani led research at the cybersecurity firm ThreatConnect and previously worked for the US Department of Defense.

Dan Kaufman, head of privacy and security for hardware

Since 2015, Dan Kaufman has led Advanced Technology and Products (ATAP), a group responsible for more pioneering ideas such as Soli, the gesture-detecting radar feature in Google's Pixel 4 smartphone.

More recently, he also took over duties leading privacy and security for Google's hardware division, which encompasses "everything from engineering security reviews, compliance, privacy reviews, incident response and protecting our infrastructure and operations," according to his LinkedIn page. Before Google, Kaufman spent a decade at DARPA, the Pentagon's tech R&D arm.

Dan Prieto, strategic executive of security, global public sector, Google Cloud

Daniel Prieto, strategic executive of security, global public sector, Google Cloud

At Google Cloud, Daniel Prieto is focused squarely on the public sector, leading strategy and policy for Google's work with governments. Part of that work has involved pushing for the public sector to adopt a "zero trust" approach to security, meaning no persons or entities are trusted by default.

Prior to Google, Prieto was director of cybersecurity policy at the White House. He also worked as a top technology officer at the Department of Defense.

Sunil Potti - VP, general manager of Cloud security

Sunil Potti, Vice President and General Manager of Security at Google Cloud

As general manager and vice president of cloud security, Sunil Potti is tasked with, among other things, delivering Google's security know-how to enterprise customers on the Google Cloud Platform.

Before Google, he was chief product and development officer at cloud company Nutanix. He's also held roles at Cisco and Citrix. Potti reports into SVP Urs Hölzle.

Ben Hawkes, Project Zero technical lead

Ben Hawkes founded and currently manages Google's Project Zero – a team of hackers focused on finding previously undiscovered vulnerabilities across all manner of software.

The group was spun up in 2014 and has discovered flaws across platforms including Windows and Apple's iMessage.

Hawkes has been key in establishing the group's disclosure policies. When Project Zero finds a problem, they report it to the manufacturer and allow 90 days for a fix. Previously, the group would disclose the flaw publicly after those 90 days were up, but recently extended the time by an extra 30 days to reduce the time end users may be exposed to cyberattacks.

Scott Roberts, director of Android security assurance

As the director of security assurance for Android, Roberts leads a team that responds to vulnerabilities for its 3 billion users. He also oversees the Android security rewards program, which pays out bounties to hackers who find and disclose gaps in smartphone security.

Roberts joined Google in 2015 from Amazon, where he led a team of product managers at Amazon Web Services. Before that, he spent more than 12 years at Microsoft, where he worked on security teams in the company's networking and video games divisions.

John Asante, security and trust center director, Google Cloud

Leading Google Cloud's security and trust center, John Asante oversees the team responsible for security, fraud and abuse.

Before moving over to the Cloud division, Asente was head of cybersecurity and privacy response for Google and parent company Alphabet, leading the teams responding to security and privacy incidents.

Prior to Google, he held leadership roles in cybersecurity for Visa and Microsoft.

Jesse Burns, technical director, security, office of CTO

Jesse Burns is part of the office of the CTO at Google Cloud, reporting into CTO office director Will Grannis. Burns focuses on ways Google's technology can combat all manner of threats, including phishing.

Before Google, Burns was vice president of research at NCC Group, a cybersecurity advisory firm headquartered in the UK.

Via PakApNews