Jerod Brennen

Jerod Brennen is a vCISO, advisor, speaker, and teacher with 25 years of cybersecurity experience. Jerod is an expert at helping people improve the security of the technologies and business processes at their organizations. Whether serving as a leader, consultant, or specialist, he focuses on information risk management and presents regularly at InfoSec conferences. Jerod has hands-on experience in application security, business analysis, compliance, identity and access management, penetration testing, risk assessment, security architecture, incident response, and strategic planning. He's built and led security programs for organizations ranging from 10 employees to 50,000 employees across healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, retail, higher education, technology, and private equity. Jerod architected the first PCI compliance program for Abercrombie and Fitch, protecting $4 billion in annual revenue. At The Ohio State University, he directed a third-party risk program covering over 100 vendors. Today, Jerod advises boards and executive teams on cybersecurity program maturity, risk quantification, and AI governance. His clients operate in multiple industries, manage over $4.5 billion in combined revenue, and earn customer trust via NIST CSF, ISO/IEC 27001, and SOC 2 Type 2 audits while meeting regulatory requirements from CCPA, COPPA, FERPA, GDPR, and HIPAA/HITECH.