Chief Information Security Officer (CISO)

MasterControl•Salt Lake City, UT

About The Position

MasterControl Inc. is a leading cloud-based quality and compliance software provider for life sciences and other regulated industries. Our mission is to enable our customers to bring life-changing products to market faster while ensuring compliance and quality throughout the product lifecycle. We are committed to innovation, customer success, and making a positive impact on the world. We are looking for a Chief Information Security Officer, reporting to the CTO, to own our enterprise security strategy and risk program, including the security and governance of AI use across our engineering organization. You'll be the executive owner of risk assessment, security governance, and incident response, and a close partner to Sales, Customer Success, and Compliance when customer security reviews or due diligence conversations need executive-level backing. This is not a primarily customer-facing role, but you should be comfortable stepping into a customer conversation when a deal or renewal calls for it. Our customers trust us with sensitive data in a highly regulated industry, and much of our customer base is in life sciences — where a security or privacy failure doesn't just cost a deal, it can jeopardize a customer's own regulatory standing (GxP, FDA-regulated processes, clinical and quality data). Security and data governance are not back-office functions here; they are part of the product's value proposition and a precondition for enterprise and government customers to say yes. We also operate infrastructure across multiple regions, which means data privacy and residency obligations - including GDPR and other cross-regional requirements — are a standing part of the job, not a one-time compliance exercise. This role will shape how confidently we can expand into new regions and regulated verticals, and how well we protect the trust we've already built with existing customers.

Requirements

8-10 years in security leadership, with direct experience owning risk assessment programs (enterprise, product, and/or third-party risk).
Hands-on experience securing cloud environments on AWS and/or Azure.
Experience governing the security of AI/LLM usage — data boundaries, guardrails against prompt injection and data leakage, and secure use of AI in engineering workflows.
Deep working knowledge of at least one major compliance framework (FedRAMP, SOC 2, ISO 27001, or similar).
Experience with data privacy and cross-regional compliance requirements (e.g., GDPR) for organizations operating infrastructure in multiple regions.
Experience building or maturing a formal risk register and executive risk reporting.
Strong written and verbal communication — able to translate technical security concepts for customers and executives, and to work cross-functionally with Sales, Compliance, and Engineering.
Track record of leading incident response for a SaaS or cloud-based product.

Nice To Haves

Prior experience at a company servicing regulated or security-conscious enterprise/government customers.
Experience in life sciences or another regulated vertical with GxP, FDA, or similar quality/regulatory
FedRAMP compliance or authorization experience.
Experience pursuing or maintaining ISO 42001 or similar AI governance certification.
Experience partnering with Sales/Customer Success/Compliance as a named security resource in customer due diligence.
Relevant certifications (CISSP, CISM, CRISC, or equivalent)

Responsibilities

Define and execute the company's enterprise security strategy, aligned with business objectives and compliance obligations (including FedRAMP).
Own security governance, policies, standards, and risk management practices across the organization.
Embed security-by-design principles across systems, applications, cloud infrastructure, and engineering workflows.
Set policy for access control, data protection, and secure development practices, partnering with Engineering to embed requirements into the SDLC without becoming a bottleneck.
Own data privacy and residency requirements across the regions where we operate infrastructure, including GDPR and other applicable cross-regional obligations.
Own the security and governance model for how AI and LLM tooling are used across engineering — controlling what data can reach which models and keeping regulated data inside trusted boundaries.
Implement guardrails for AI and agentic workflows to catch data leakage, prompt injection, and unsafe outputs before they reach production or customers.
Partner with Engineering leadership to make security a built-in part of our AI-driven SDLC tooling, not a gate bolted on afterward.
Evaluate and, where appropriate, pursue recognized AI governance frameworks (e.g., ISO 42001) to give customers confidence in how we govern AI use.
Help turn our AI security posture into a competitive advantage in customer conversations, in partnership with Sales and Compliance.
Own the enterprise risk assessment program: identify, quantify, and track risk across infrastructure, applications, vendors, and third parties.
Run and continuously improve a formal risk register with clear ownership, remediation timelines, and executive reporting.
Lead risk assessments for cloud infrastructure and key third-party dependencies (e.g., AWS, Azure), and for new products, features, or architecture changes before launch.
Translate technical risk into business terms for executive reporting.
Support Sales and Customer Success in customer security conversations, questionnaires, and due diligence reviews — working closely with the Compliance team, who own the customer relationship.
Maintain and mature our compliance posture (e.g., FedRAMP, SOC 2, ISO 27001 as applicable) in partnership with Compliance/Validation.
Contribute to customer-facing security collateral (architecture summaries, trust documentation) that scales beyond 1:1 conversations.
Be available for direct customer engagement when a deal or renewal requires executive-level security assurance.
Own the cybersecurity incident response program: detection, escalation, communication, and remediation.
Lead cross-functional incident response involving Legal, Engineering, and executive leadership as needed.
Ensure continuous monitoring, threat intelligence integration, penetration testing, and vulnerability management.
Mature our detection and response capability (SIEM, monitoring, managed detection/response) to steadily reduce mean-time-to-detect.
Drive post-incident reviews and continuous improvement.
Build, lead, and develop the security team (or oversee the security function, depending on current staffing).
Represent security at the executive/leadership table; advise the CEO/CTO on risk posture and security investment priorities.
Set and manage the security budget and tooling stack.