AVP, Application Security & AI Security

About The Opportunity Our client is seeking an experienced and forward-thinking AVP, Application Security & AI Security to lead the continued development of two rapidly evolving security functions: Application Security (AppSec) and AI Security.

This is a unique opportunity for a proven security leader who enjoys building, leading and executing, rather than simply managing an established organization. The ideal candidate will bring strong Application Security experience, a solid understanding of emerging AI security risks, and the ability to work effectively across technology, engineering and business leadership.

This role will play a critical part in establishing the organization’s next-generation security capabilities as the use of AI, cloud technologies and modern application development continues to expand.

What You’ll Do

• Lead and evolve the organization’s Application Security and AI Security programs.
• Build and mature security capabilities across multiple technology and development value streams.
• Provide leadership and direction to AppSec engineering resources aligned to development teams.
• Establish program goals, priorities, operating processes and performance expectations.
• Develop and maintain meaningful security metrics, dashboards and executive reporting.
• Partner closely with technology, engineering, development, infrastructure and business leaders to embed security into the development lifecycle.
• Establish and maintain appropriate training and development programs for security and engineering teams.
• Work closely with architecture leaders and security architects to translate technical strategy into executable programs.
• Provide leadership around emerging AI security risks, governance and controls.
• Partner with AI and technology leaders to understand how AI is being developed, adopted and embedded across the organization.
• Help establish appropriate security practices around AI development, AI-enabled applications, developer use of AI tools, citizen development and AI capabilities embedded within SaaS platforms.
• Evaluate emerging technologies and security risks and determine how they should be addressed within the broader security strategy.
• Communicate security priorities, risks, progress and recommendations to senior technology and business leadership.
• Build a culture of security that enables innovation rather than unnecessarily restricting it.
• Recruit, develop and lead high-performing security professionals as the organization continues to scale.

What We’re Looking For

We are looking for a working leader—someone who can operate at both the strategic and tactical levels.

The Successful Candidate Will Bring

• Significant experience leading Application Security / Product Security / Security Engineering functions.
• Experience building or transforming security programs and teams.
• Strong understanding of modern application development and the software development lifecycle.
• Working knowledge of AI Security, generative AI and the security implications of rapidly emerging AI technologies.
• The ability to speak credibly about both Application Security and AI Security, while recognizing that these are distinct and evolving disciplines.
• Experience working with cloud technologies; Azure experience is strongly preferred, although strong experience in another major cloud environment may be considered.
• Strong understanding of cloud security, infrastructure and modern development technologies.
• Experience partnering directly with software engineering and development organizations.
• Strong executive communication and stakeholder management skills.
• The ability to establish strategy while remaining close enough to the technology and execution to make sound decisions.
• A track record of building organizations, processes and programs rather than simply managing mature environments.
• Strong business acumen and the ability to translate technical security issues into business impact and actionable recommendations.

The Ideal Candidate

The Ideal Candidate May Currently Be a

• Director / Senior Director of Application Security
• Director of Security Engineering
• Product Security leader
• Application Security executive
• Deputy CISO or similar security leader

We are particularly interested in high-potential security leaders who are ready to take the next step in their careers.

Our client is open to a strong AppSec leader wh…