Illinois’ retail sector spans national pharmacy chains, beauty brands, industrial distribution platforms, and large-scale consumer businesses that rely on secure operations across stores, digital channels, supply chains, and enterprise systems. The leaders in this feature reflect that range. Their backgrounds cover cybersecurity strategy, risk governance, security operations, compliance, infrastructure modernization, and the work of protecting organizations whose customer trust and business continuity depend on resilient technology environments.
Tyler Allison — Chief Information Security Officer, Walgreens
Tyler Allison serves as chief information security officer at Walgreens, where he brings more than a decade of security leadership experience inside the company across strategy, operations, identity, risk, and enterprise security program development. Before becoming chief information security officer, he held a series of senior roles at Walgreens including deputy CISO, acting global CISO, vice president information security officer for Retail Pharmacy USA, senior director, and director of the information security program. Across those roles, he helped lead major efforts tied to identity modernization, security operations, cyber risk management, vendor oversight, board-level reporting, and long-range security planning. That progression gives him one of the deeper internal leadership arcs in the sector, with experience built directly inside one of Illinois’ most prominent retail and pharmacy organizations.
Michael Simmons — Vice President, Information Security, Ulta Beauty
Michael Simmons is vice president of information security at Ulta Beauty, bringing a long track record of cybersecurity leadership across major consumer-facing organizations. Before joining Ulta in 2025, he served as vice president and chief information security officer at DICK’S Sporting Goods and previously held senior CISO roles at Southwest Airlines, where he led enterprise-wide security strategy, risk management, regulatory alignment, incident response, resilience, and engagement with executive leadership and boards. Earlier in his career, Simmons built extensive experience at Brinker International across information security, governance, architecture, IT strategy, and operational leadership. That combination gives him a strong profile for modern retail cybersecurity, especially in organizations where digital platforms, customer trust, and large distributed operations all intersect.
Mariam H. Jafri — Director, Security Integration & Assurance, Grainger
Mariam H. Jafri is director of security integration and assurance at Grainger, where she focuses on translating strategy into execution across security, technology, and business teams. Her work at Grainger has included leadership across governance, risk, compliance, and information risk management, with an emphasis on process improvement, measurable outcomes, and enterprise alignment. Before joining Grainger, she spent nearly seven years at Protiviti in risk technology solutions, building experience in compliance, internal audit, and technology risk. That background makes her a notable security leader in Illinois retail, particularly because her profile sits at the point where security governance, business coordination, and operating discipline come together in a complex distribution-driven enterprise.
Al Imran Husain — Chief Information Security Officer, MillerKnoll
Al Imran Husain is chief information security officer at MillerKnoll, where he leads the company’s global cybersecurity vision, strategy, and execution across a distributed environment that includes manufacturing, operational technology, AI governance, and enterprise risk management. His role centers on protecting business operations while enabling innovation, with responsibility spanning threat management, vulnerability reduction, incident response, compliance alignment, and culture building. Before joining MillerKnoll, Husain held chief information security officer roles at ImagineX Consulting and CMC Materials, and earlier led cyber risk and policy work at ITW while also holding security and compliance roles at Grainger, Trustwave, and in consulting. His experience across retail-adjacent enterprise environments, compliance-heavy operations, and global security transformation gives him a broad and practical leadership profile.
Where retail cybersecurity is being shaped
What stands out across this group is the range of environments they help secure. Illinois retail is not limited to storefront systems or e-commerce channels. It includes pharmacy operations, beauty and consumer platforms, industrial distribution, infrastructure modernization, and the governance structures that keep large organizations operating safely at scale. These leaders reflect that wider reality and the increasingly strategic role cybersecurity plays across the sector.
Explore more profiles of the leaders shaping cybersecurity across numerous industries in our CISOs to Watch collection.