Chief Information Security Officer

At Neo, we’re disrupting the future of finance. What matters most to us is challenging the status quo and providing a better financial future for all Canadians. We’re working everyday to reinvent the way Canadians spend, save, and grow their money - all together, in one place. We’re creating a seamless digital experience, with the modern day features you’ve come to expect. Our products speak for themselves - the Neo card was voted best cash back card in Canada and the Neo Money account was voted best bank account in Canada.

Backed by world class investors, we’ve raised $299M and are one of a few Canadian tech companies that have reached ‘unicorn’ status - valued over $1B. Check out the full story here.

The Role:

We’re looking to expand Neo leadership by adding an experienced, brilliant and proven Chief Information Security Officer to our team in Calgary, AB. As our CISO/CSO, you will oversee all information security and cybersecurity initiatives, while adding your industry expertise and strategic savvy to our team. You’ll work directly with our co-founders and roll up your sleeves to help us to develop and execute against the business strategy. You’ll collaborate with stakeholders across the business to identify and develop Neo’s key strategic priorities from a security perspective.

In this role, you can shape the future of banking in Canada. You will have oversight and responsibility for corporate IT security, digital product security, cloud infrastructure security, and overall security posture. You bring experience building security teams - including security testing teams - and can develop a comprehensive, effective approach for a product and technology-driven company leading the way in digital banking in Canada. Your visionary leadership will inspire a high performing team working together to grow a top-tier iconic brand.

What you'll be doing:

• Develop and execute our cybersecurity strategy, and act as a strategic partner to senior leaders by proactively identifying opportunities for innovation, improvement, and growth.
• Articulate a vision for the company's security now and in the future.
• Create a culture of security across the entire organization through public speaking, training, documentation and enforcing accountability.
• Assume full ownership of our security posture and roadmap, ensuring each item on our roadmap fits into the overall business strategy at Neo.
• Work closely with our Risk and Compliance team to ensure high-level controls and policies are implemented through best-in-class technology and automation.
• Work closely with our CTO, VP Software Development, and other leaders to ensure we build and maintain secure products and secure systems.
• Ensure alignment to documented industry standards for security, facilitating internal audits and working with third-party auditors as needed to maintain compliance.
• Inspire, manage and lead a high functioning cybersecurity team to achieve our vision, setting priorities and holding the team accountable for clear goals & milestones.
• Become an expert in our products, technology, and systems.
• Lead the company smoothly through change, adoption of process improvements, and further adoption of best practices while minimizing friction or disruption.
• Take a charismatic approach to communicating security posture or negotiating security agreements with other C-level and VP-level stakeholders in enterprise companies.
• Review contractual and legal terms related to security; author policies, build process documentation, and build practice documentation for internal and external use.
• Contribute significantly to creating trust in Neo, including external communications, thought-leadership, authoring articles, public-speaking or public-relations work.
• Ensure applicable security metrics are tracked and measured appropriately to demonstrate effectiveness and allow for continuous optimization.
• Ensure rigor and discipline across company-wide programs that are mission critical or where absolute perfection can really matter.

Who we are looking for:

• 10+ years of experience in related technology and/or cybersecurity roles including 3+ years experience in a similar leadership role (CSO, CISP, CTO, VP, etc).
• At least one major certification such as CISSP, C|CISO, CISM or similar, or post-grad degree.
• Exposure to substantial and significant scale within a fast-paced, fast-growing company.
• Fluency across both corporate IT security and product cybersecurity areas.
• Experience in a heavily regulated industry dealing with regulatory compliance and handling sensitive and private data (banking, finance, equities, medicine, etc).
• Demonstrated ability to drive change and manage teams to ensure quality, timely delivery of projects.
• Hands-on experience collaborating with in-house software development teams, including experience securing web and mobile applications and securing data environments.
• Expert knowledge of infrastructure security, strongly focused on cloud-based infrastructure security practices and technologies. Expertise in AWS cloud preferred.
• Success hiring and fostering growth of your team in parallel with fast-paced execution.
• Business-first and solution-oriented approach to security that goes far beyond identifying gaps, finding problems, allocating vendor spending, or documenting risks.
• Both tactically and strategically minded. You should be able to operate in the weeds, but also be the leader with the ability to build security strategy, roadmaps, and frameworks.

What will help you succeed:

• Adaptable, high-achiever energized by a startup environment.
• Team player who loves being part of an agile ecosystem.
• Maker with a drive to finish and make best-in-world security a differentiator at Neo.
• Pragmatic perfectionist with a belief that ‘it can always be better'.
• Highly analytical, operationally oriented and metrics driven.
• Interest in entrepreneurial opportunities where bigger efforts yield bigger rewards.
• A passion and obsession with startups and technology.