Timothy Youngblood didn’t bought right down to be a CISO, nevertheless he turned CISO at 4 fundamental enterprises, took on angel investing and gained the Most Valued Member award on the Summer season season Investor Capital Expo of the world’s largest angel group ultimate summer season.
The path to security administration
Some rivers rush headlong to their trip spot, others meander slowly with out seeming to acknowledge the place they’ll inevitably end. Tim Youngblood is that latter type. Why and the way in which did he choose a occupation in cybersecurity?
“I really feel it chosen me,” he says. “I bought right here from a single family home in Atlanta. We didn’t have so much money, nevertheless I had a buddy – I often called him my rich buddy – whose father bought an IBM PC after I used to be 10 years outdated. I’d go over, and we carried out with it. On every day foundation. I beloved it. Until his mother said, ‘Hey, I didn’t undertake you’; and it wanted to stop.”
Nevertheless he’d been bitten by the computer bug (in every senses – slowly evolving pun meant). “There was a strip mall shut by that I would cycle to. It had shops with pc methods on present. They’d demo modes, and I taught myself how one can program, until moreover they acquired tired of me and kicked me out. Nevertheless I found a Radio Shack, and {{that a}} completely completely different ball recreation. The store supervisor was type to me. I honed my knowledge and love of pc methods at Radio Shack; and I went on to graduate from college with a degree in Laptop computer Knowledge Methods.”
He left college as a programmer and transitioned from enchancment into Native House Group (LAN) and Massive House Group (WAN) deployments – nevertheless with no clear intent on cybersecurity (which hardly existed as a occupation). It wasn’t until he later joined KPMG and started doing audits that he had any formal teaching in security related factors. “KPMG moreover did formal security hazard assessments. We did penetration testing, and that’s the place I acquired my first formal teaching spherical cybersecurity.”
He acquired his huge break when he joined Dell. It was inside the early days of Sarbanes-Oxley and Dell had a failure in every laptop computer. ‘We would have liked to apply the supervisor teams. They couldn’t merely pull insurance coverage insurance policies off the online and say they’d been doing these points – that was in no way going to work. So, we uplifted the administration development, and in the end your complete course of rolled into me turning into Dell’s first CISO in 2010.
Youngblood arrived in cybersecurity administration with a love of pc methods nevertheless no clear intent to work in cybersecurity. Nevertheless from there, his cybersecurity occupation took off – cybersecurity had chosen him. After KPMG, he spent two years as a director at Jefferson Wells (part of the Experis group) sooner than working in compliance, protection and hazard at Dell (and later turning into CISO).
After Dell, he turned CISO at Kimberley-Clark, then firm VP and CISO at McDonald’s, then SVP, CSO & product security officer at T-Mobile, turned an advisory board member with quite a few organizations and an angel investor with the Keiretsu Dialogue board, and adjunct professor on the School of Oklahoma in 2025..
CISO churn
CISOs famously have a extreme churn cost – it reveals in his private occupation path. There are loads of causes. A decade prior to now, the CISO might be held accountable for breaches. If the breach was important, CISOs might be fired or be anticipated to fall on their very personal sword. That’s a lot much less frequent at current, nevertheless the churn stays extreme. Why?
Youngblood offers invaluable albeit personal notion.
“Restlessness, I assume,” he steered. “I want to sort out an issue and do one factor that hasn’t been achieved sooner than. That’s what excites me.”
The current crop of senior security leaders consists of, nearly by definition, ‘pioneers’ – the occupation didn’t exist sooner than they principally created it. When he joined Dell, he hadn’t been looking out for a ‘CISO’ place; nevertheless he relished the issue he had accepted. “I was doing points that had in no way been achieved at Dell – establishing the worldwide compliance group, and the company’s first hazard administration office.” He hadn’t sought a CISO place (Dell didn’t have a CISO place), nevertheless the work he did in the end created the place, and he moved on to fill it.
It’s value noting that he has an entrepreneurial spirit – one factor commonplace inside the additional dynamic and worthwhile CISOs. When he was youthful – keep in mind he didn’t come from a wealthy background – he and mates found a load of books in a dumpster. They loaded them proper right into a pink wagon and went across the neighborhood selling them door-to-door. This pure inclination to make additional from what’s initially apparent has in no way left him. Early in his expert occupation, whereas nonetheless at KPMG, he studied for and gained his second diploma – a grasp’s in know-how commercialization from the McCombs College of Enterprise on the School of Texas at Austin. McCombs describes the course as a ‘program for entrepreneurs’.
There’s a strong facet of, ‘Been there, achieved that, what’s subsequent: and what can I make of it?’ In Youngblood’s personal mannequin of CISO churn.
Angel investor
This combination of on the lookout for new challenges whereas making one factor new drew Youngblood, inevitably, in direction of angel investing. It didn’t happen in a single day. It barely existed when he first turned involved in new ideas and enterprise capitalism. It grew out of an inherent curiosity in new ideas and startup companies.
“In each group I labored for, I started a course of to help usher in new ideas and innovation into this technique. Lastly I often called it PIE – portfolio innovation enablement. I would have 5 – 6 startups come and pitch to me and my administration group. It wasn’t just for security. I’d convey inside the CIO’s office, and privateness, audit and licensed. So, yearly I’d hear 40 to 50 pitches from startups. It was a way of fast monitoring the lobbying course of for model spanking new companies trying to get into huge corporations, and yearly, two or three would end up in our portfolio.”
Nevertheless he didn’t merely sit in his office prepared for the model new companies to return knocking. He started touring to Israel some ten years prior to now, which was creating its standing for model spanking new and trendy ideas (see From IDF to Inc: The Israeli Cybersecurity Startup Conveyor Belt). And he met with VC companies.
The confluence of these quite a few components (must face new challenges, adventurous spirit, entrepreneurial perspective, deep understanding of cybersecurity, and consciousness of the startup engine room) had the inevitable consequence. “As soon as I accomplished my ultimate operational job at T Mobile, I assumed to myself, ‘Hey, I’ve achieved all of the issues I want to do as a CISO. What’s one factor new that I’m good at?’ Properly, I’ve been deciding on winners and losers for a few years now, and coping with VC groups. So, why can’t I have the benefit of the benefits of this financially by being an angel investor?”
Angel investing by CISOs was in its infancy. Silicon Valley CISO investments (SVCI, a bunch comprising better than 60 CISOs) was based mostly in 2019 with the mission ‘of fueling the next period of cybersecurity innovation’. This is not gorgeous. On the entire, although not in complete, at current’s prime CISOs entered a model new and dynamic enterprise in its early days Like Youngblood, an adventurous and entrepreneurial facet is frequent. It is nonetheless a dynamic and shortly rising enterprise, and prime CISOs could also be very correctly recompensed.
IANS 2025 ’state of the CISO report’ notes that big organizations pay CISOs that blend security and IT responsibility “a median annual pay of $1 million [with] the best quartile starting at $1.5 million”. This under no circumstances applies to all CISOs, nevertheless it is indicative of a well-paid occupation. The combo of high-quality pay, an entrepreneurial bent, and an in depth knowledge of cybersecurity and its desires, makes one factor identical to the angel investor SVCI inevitable.
Youngblood’s occupation path has always been barely non-standard. He didn’t merely be a part of an angel group dedicated to cybersecurity, nevertheless instead chosen to moreover be a part of the Keiretsu Dialogue board, a worldwide angel neighborhood based mostly in 2000 by Randy Williams – and typically described as a result of the world’s largest angel group. Worldwide, it has better than 4000 members in 60 chapters. Membership is by invitation solely, nevertheless he had constructed a powerful relationship with many VC companies. Like SVCI, Keiretsu focuses on startups with extreme improvement potential; nevertheless not like SVCI this is not restricted to cybersecurity companies.
“I started by focusing, naturally, on cybersecurity. I’ve acquired a great deal of deal stream coming from VC groups I had labored with whereas a CISO – they enable me to guage corporations that they are assessing for his or her portfolio, and I get options to spend cash on them as correctly. I’ve expanded that and joined a lot of angel groups. I’m part of the world’s largest angel group, which is the Keiretsu Dialogue board. And via them and a few others, I check out medical devices, clear tech, media corporations – and I merely made my first shopper product funding earlier this yr. Now I’m completely swung into the angel investing world and have regarded on the a lot of aspects of what grows an excellent enterprise and what an excellent group looks like.”
CISO in residence
Youngblood’s place as an angel investor brings us neatly to his most modern CISO place, as a CISO in residence.
‘In residence’ CISOs are one different present evolution in CISO roles, usually linked to enterprise capital and supplied by the VC company to ship an advisory comparatively than deep hands-on security place. Proper right here the request bought right here from the company comparatively than a VC group – nevertheless the preamble was nonetheless funding.
“I’d been wanting on the draw back of non-human identities, which had been an enormous topic at every agency I had labored at.” It’s a difficulty that merely retains rising with enterprise transformation, SaaS, and now agentic AI.
“I was looking out for someone trying to resolve this. I talked with a lot of founders of startups, most of them nonetheless in stealth. Then I acquired linked with a company that had been focused on NHIs since being based mostly in 2021. I was truly attracted by that, and I used to have the ability to make an funding. Nevertheless the CEO said, ‘Hey, I’d want to work with you in any other case.”
They talked about how that completely completely different methodology would work and settled on the idea of CISO in residence – a tenured senior diploma authorities that guides the company within the correct course; and it was a spot he took. “I’m guiding the product group on how one can align the product with the desires of monumental enterprises, working with the promoting and advertising and marketing group on the company messaging, supporting and guiding the platform approach, and connecting the entire dots with the salespeople.”
He used the emergence of AI for instance of this place. “We had been specializing in and discussing the next layer of AI. Once more inside the Fall of 2024 I started talking to the company about AI brokers, and now they’re an important buzz in cyber. Properly, all AI brokers work off NHIs, so it was important we would cope with the NHIs of agentic AI as shortly as attainable. I discussed this with the VP of product, he agreed, and now it’s inside the product. That’s the type of issue {{that a}} CISO in residence does.” It’s recognizing options, necessities and enhancements, after which serving to the company do the correct issue within the correct approach to have the perfect impression ahead of the rivals.
Be part of with Security Leaders on the CISO Dialogue board
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#CISO #Conversations #Timothy #Youngblood #Fortune #CISOCSO
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