Head of Security & Trust

Valkai•San Francisco, CA

61d•$200,000 - $350,000

About The Position

You'll own the security program and customer trust that allow Valkai to deploy into demanding enterprise environments. This is a hands-on leadership role spanning enterprise security reviews, security operations, compliance, and AI governance. You'll work directly with customers and partner with Engineering, Product, AI Research, and Legal to turn security requirements into practical controls and clear commitments.

Requirements

Security leaders who build: You have built or scaled a security program and are comfortable moving between strategy, technical investigation, and day-to-day execution.
Enterprise credibility: You have personally led security reviews and customer audits, earned the trust of enterprise security teams, and helped resolve the issues that block deployment.
Technical depth: You can understand cloud architecture, identity and access, data flows, application security, and AI systems well enough to assess risk and work through solutions with engineers.
Compliance ownership: You have taken a company through audits or certifications, owning readiness, evidence, remediation, and the processes needed to maintain the program.
Strong judgment: You prioritize meaningful risks, make practical tradeoffs, and know which customer commitments the company can support.
Clear collaborators: You explain security and risk clearly to customers, engineers, and leadership, and create accountability across teams.

Nice To Haves

You have implemented an AI management system or led ISO 42001 certification.
You have supported life sciences organizations, financial institutions, law firms, or other highly regulated enterprise customers.
You have worked at an AI company or a high-growth enterprise software company.
You have experience with AI agent security, model-provider risk, privacy programs, or NIST AI RMF.
You have built security or compliance automation and are familiar with cloud environments such as AWS or Azure.
You hold relevant credentials such as CISSP, CISM, or ISO 27001/42001 Lead Implementer or Lead Auditor.

Responsibilities

Own Valkai's security strategy, roadmap, and operating program, with clear priorities, owners, and reporting on risk and progress.
Lead enterprise security reviews, technical diligence calls, questionnaires, and customer audits. Partner with Sales and Legal on security requirements and contractual commitments.
Build and maintain our Trust Center, security documentation, architecture overviews, and reusable responses. Automate evidence collection and review workflows to improve speed and accuracy.
Own the roadmap and execution for SOC 2, ISO 27001, and ISO 42001, including gap assessments, control implementation, auditor coordination, remediation, and ongoing maintenance.
Establish AI governance with Product, AI Research, Engineering, and Legal, including AI risk assessments, model and vendor reviews, data-handling practices, human oversight, and documented responsibilities.
Partner with Engineering to strengthen access controls, cloud and application security, tenant isolation, vulnerability management, and protections for AI agents and customer data.
Translate recurring customer concerns into product and security improvements, and select the tools, external partners, and future hires needed to scale the function.