Rick focuses on AI Governance and Ethics research and advising companies, venture capital firms, and numerous cybersecurity startups. He is an award winning CISO, where he has supported many organizations and industries. He is frequent speaker, podcast guest, and writer of papers for topics ranging from cybersecurity, neurodiversity, and AI governance and security.

In prior roles, Rick was a Healthplan CISO for Centene, CISO for multinational mobile services company, and Virtual CISO supporting international companies. During his time as vCISO he educated corporate boards, developed and matured security programs, built a SOC, and created the curriculum for a Cybersecurity Master’s degree program for an International University.

Rick has spoke at cybersecurity conferences such as RSA, Secureworld, and FutureCon, and guest on podcasts such as The CyberWire Hashtable, CISO Series, Google Cloud, Elevate Your Career, and The Rsnake Show talking about cybersecurity, AI, leadership, and Neurodiversity topics. He on the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) CXO Trust Advisory Council, and the Boards of his local Charlotte ISC2, BSides, and CSA Chapters.

Rick is a member of the CIS Critical Security Controls editorial panel and was a major author for Version 8 of the Controls. Rick has a Cybersecurity YouTube channel where he recorded an overview of changes to each of the 18 new CIS CSC v8 Controls, and has recent Keynotes and other videos on cybersecurity and neurodiversity topics.

Rick has alternated between being a cybersecurity management consultant and CISO throughout his 25+ year cybersecurity career, and has led many ethical hacking, incident response and forensics, and risk management teams. In his spare time Rick is the social coordinator for his Charlotte CISO community, a foodie, yoga teacher, and climbs at his local rock climbing gym.