Semiconductor and advanced electronics companies sit at the center of nearly every modern technology supply chain, from AI infrastructure and high-performance computing to consumer devices and national defense systems. That makes them a uniquely high-value target. Intellectual property theft, supply chain compromise, and nation-state espionage are not theoretical risks in this sector, they are persistent realities shaped by the strategic importance of the technology being protected. The leaders in this feature are securing the companies that manufacture, design, and enable the chips and materials powering the next generation of computing, and their programs reflect the stakes of protecting innovation that entire industries and governments depend on.
Michael Hanson — CISO, Solidigm
Michael Hanson has served as CISO at Solidigm, a semiconductor and storage technology company, since January 2022. Before Solidigm, he spent more than four years as CIO and CISO at Procore Technologies, where he established a security program that achieved five compliance certifications in two years, including PCI, SOC 1 and SOC 2, ITAR, and ISO 27001, while orchestrating a security operations center built on data-driven detection and automated response. He also formed a business systems team that consolidated a 267-application ecosystem down to 78 through value stream mapping, and built a data management strategy on a Snowflake data warehouse architecture. Before Procore, he spent five years as CIO and CISO at MINDBODY, developing an enterprise information security framework and IT control structure based on HIPAA, ISO 27002, and PCI-DSS. His earlier career includes founding Spearpoint Associates, a service-disabled veteran-owned consulting firm delivering enterprise IT architecture for classified and unclassified DoD networks, and serving as CIO for Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, where he secured all data and voice communications networks supporting FBI, CIA, DEA, and Marine Corps tenants and directed Caribbean communications resources during the 2010 Haiti earthquake response. That arc from military communications security through SaaS company CISO leadership to semiconductor storage technology security reflects a career built on protecting environments where operational continuity and classified-grade discipline both matter.
Lucas Moody — CISO, Astera Labs
Lucas Moody joined Astera Labs, a semiconductor connectivity company enabling AI and cloud infrastructure, as CISO in April 2026. He brings a career built across some of the most recognizable names in technology security. Before Astera Labs, he spent more than four years as SVP and CISO at Alteryx, and before that served as head of security technology at Twitter during a period of significant public scrutiny on the platform’s security posture. He spent a year and a half as VP and CISO at Rubrik and four years as VP and CISO at Palo Alto Networks, building security leadership credentials at one of the industry’s most prominent cybersecurity vendors. Earlier in his career, he was director of information security operations and engineering at Intuit, leading global teams through business restructuring and security maturity transformations, and spent six years as senior manager of information security at eBay focused on threat management, forensics, and security intelligence. He has managed multi-disciplined global teams across North America, Europe, and Asia and has led organizations through high-impact, headline security incidents. That progression through Palo Alto Networks, Twitter, and Alteryx reflects a security executive with direct experience defending some of the most publicly visible and frequently targeted technology platforms in the industry, now applied to a semiconductor company at the center of the AI infrastructure buildout.
Lauren Heyndrickx — CISO and Head of Global Infrastructure, Qnity
Lauren Heyndrickx joined Qnity, a premier technology provider across the semiconductor and advanced electronics value chain supporting AI, high performance computing, and advanced connectivity, as CISO and head of global infrastructure in September 2025. Before Qnity, she spent nearly five years at Ralph Lauren, rising from VP and CISO and chief privacy officer to SVP, CISO, chief privacy officer, and head of global infrastructure, combining security, privacy, and infrastructure accountability into a single executive mandate at one of the world’s most recognized fashion brands. Before Ralph Lauren, she spent more than four years at JCPenney, progressing from director of security engineering and operations through senior director and CISO to CISO and VP of IT infrastructure and security. Her deepest technical foundation comes from more than six years at Verizon Enterprise Solutions, where as director of global advanced security services she operationalized threat intelligence that increased detection accuracy by more than 300 percent while reducing incident review volume by over 90 percent, and as IT director of global security solutions she led the transformation of a traditional monitoring architecture into a global big data analytics platform processing more than 18 billion log lines per day. She began her security career in 2000 at Ubizen, a Belgium-based security software company, progressing through its merger into Cybertrust and eventual acquisition by Verizon, giving her more than two decades of continuous security leadership spanning the evolution of the industry itself. That depth across retail, fashion, and managed security services now informs how she protects a company whose materials and integration expertise sit inside the chip manufacturing process itself.
Jason Holbrook — CISO, NY Creates
Jason Holbrook stepped into the CISO role at NY Creates, a semiconductor research and fabrication consortium, in November 2025, after serving as interim CISO for the preceding three months. Before NY Creates, he spent a year as deputy CISO at the Research Foundation for SUNY and a year and a half as director of the security operations center at Yale University. Before Yale, he managed the security operations center at SailPoint and spent more than two years at The Home Depot managing incident and problem management and threat detection and response. He founded the Cybersecurity Apprenticeship Program at Texas A&M University in partnership with EY, placing students in real-world security operations center roles at industry-leading companies, and spent time as an associate on Goldman Sachs’ technology security incident response team. His foundational security experience comes from seven years in the United States Air Force, including roles on the Air Force Computer Emergency Response Team and as an IT specialist at the National Air and Space Intelligence Center. That blend of military cyber defense, financial services incident response, retail threat detection, and academic security operations now applies to protecting one of the nation’s most important semiconductor research and fabrication consortiums, an institution whose mission sits at the heart of US chip manufacturing competitiveness.
Jimi Mills — VP and CISO, Texas Instruments
Jimi Mills has spent nearly eleven years at Texas Instruments, building one of the more methodical internal career progressions in this feature. He joined as a security analyst in October 2015, advanced to SOC team lead and SOC manager, then cyber defense operations manager, before being named CISO in May 2022 and stepping into the VP and CISO role in January 2024. Before Texas Instruments, he spent more than two years as an IT security analyst and IT technician at the University of North Texas. That decade-long internal progression from frontline security analyst through SOC leadership to vice president and CISO at one of the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturers reflects a career built entirely from the ground up inside a single organization, giving him institutional knowledge of Texas Instruments’ security environment that few external hires could replicate.
Protecting the Foundation of Modern Computing
Every technology built today, from AI models to consumer electronics to defense systems, depends on semiconductors. The companies in this feature manufacture the chips, the materials, and the connectivity infrastructure that make that technology possible, which means their security programs are protecting more than corporate data. They are protecting the intellectual property and supply chain integrity that entire industries and national competitiveness depend on. The leaders in this feature carry that responsibility in an environment where the threat actors are sophisticated, the stakes are strategic, and the technology itself never stops advancing.
John Kevin Hao is a news and feature writer covering cybersecurity, technology, and business targeted for professional audiences.