Los Angeles has produced a genuine specialty in entertainment security: protecting film libraries worth billions, live events with tens of thousands of attendees and zero tolerance for downtime, and media companies that answer to leagues, studios, and networks all at once. Three of the seven leaders below built careers specifically in that world. The other four secure a specialty electronics manufacturer, a hospital system, a law firm, and a storage company. Several arrived by way of the military or law enforcement, and the region’s own CISO community, through SoCalCISO and Evanta, connects most of them directly to each other.
Diana Lovati – SVP and Global CISO, AEG
Diana Lovati became SVP and Global CISO of AEG in August 2024, leading enterprise cybersecurity, technology risk, and resilience across the company’s global portfolio of live entertainment, sports, and digital platforms, including preparation for LA28. She built the company’s first unified information security strategy and established a Global Information Security Review Board giving executive and board-level visibility across festivals, ticketing, sports franchises, and venues spanning MLS, NBA, and NHL compliance requirements. Before AEG she was founding CISO at True Anomaly, a Series A space and defense startup, and CISO at Ball Aerospace, where she became the company’s first female CISO and cut $900,000 from a $7 million budget without sacrificing capability. Her foundation is federal and military: cybersecurity risk manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory supporting the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover’s authorization to operate, information systems security manager at Northrop Grumman across 60 classified DoD networks, and a 15-month deployment to Afghanistan with the 1st Marine Division after six years in the US Navy.
Trina Ford – EVP and Global CISO, iHeartMedia
Trina Ford became EVP and Global CISO of iHeartMedia in July 2026, after nearly three years as SVP and CISO there. She came from AEG, where she held the SVP and CISO seat before Lovati, and before that was Corporate VP and CISO at AECOM. She spent eight and a half years at ADP rising from senior security program manager to Chief Business Security Officer and finally VP of Global Integrated Risk Operations, and eight years earlier at Royal Caribbean Cruises as head of IT compliance and security. She co-chairs Evanta’s SoCal CISO community and sits on the leadership board of the CyberRisk Collaborative. Her run through AEG immediately before Ford’s successor Lovati took the same seat is a small but telling marker of how tightly the entertainment security bench in this city overlaps.
Steve Tran – VP of Global Security, Iyuno
Steve Tran became VP of Global Security at Iyuno, the media localization company, in May 2025, responsible for physical, information, product, AI, and content security across 40 facilities in 29 countries. He was CISO of MGM through its $8.5 billion acquisition by Amazon, protecting one of Hollywood’s largest film and television libraries, and immediately after served as Chief Security Officer of the Democratic National Committee, covering IT, physical security, and cybersecurity through the 2024 election cycle. Before entertainment security he was a police officer, worked disaster relief with the Red Cross during Hurricane Katrina, and protected major sporting events including two World Series and a Super Bowl. He teaches cybersecurity at Chapman University and advises startups through GTM Capital and YL Ventures.
Sunil Agarwal – Corporate VP of Information Security and CISO, OSI Systems
Sunil Agarwal has led information security at OSI Systems, the security screening and electronics manufacturer behind Rapiscan and Spacelabs Healthcare, since July 2018, focused on CMMC, NIST 800-171, and ISO 27001 certification to support the company’s homeland security and defense contracts. He came from Vituity, the physician partnership group, where he led information security and infrastructure across a network of more than 100 hospitals, and before that spent five years as Director of IT Infrastructure and Security at Tyco SimplexGrinnell, the continent’s largest fire protection company. Earlier he built the security program at Arbonne from the ground up, achieving PCI compliance in record time, and worked as an IBM enterprise architect and a PwC consultant. His industry range, manufacturing, healthcare, fire safety, and consumer products, is unusually broad for one security career.
Jeffrey Aguilar – CISO, Hoag Health System
Jeffrey Aguilar became CISO of Hoag Health System in December 2024, bringing more than 28 years in information security. He came from Los Angeles County, where he was CISO for the entire County Office of the CIO for three years after serving as deputy CISO, and before that spent seven and a half years as CISO of the county’s Department of Mental Health. His earlier career was network consulting, including stints at British Telecom, International Network Services, and Lucent Worldwide Services. He has served as an adjunct professor and advisory board member at Pepperdine Graziadio Business School’s Cyber Risk Professional program for more than six years, moving from securing one of the largest county governments in the country to a private health system without losing the public-sector rigor.
Quincey Collins – Chief Security Officer, Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton
Quincey Collins has been Chief Security Officer at Sheppard Mullin, the international law firm, since June 2016, having joined a year earlier as interim CISO. Law firm security carries its own weight, since client confidentiality is the product itself, and his background is built for it: a principal information security consultant at General Dynamics Information Technology in Germany, an IT site lead for BAE Systems supporting European operations, systems administration work through CSRA, and an early NATO posting as a junior programmer and database administrator in Naples. He began in the US Air Force in IT quality assurance. He joined the board of ISSA Los Angeles in 2026.
Paul Miller – CISO and VP of IT, Public Storage
Paul Miller became CISO and VP of IT at Public Storage in September 2024, having already spent eight years there as VP of IT Engineering and Operations. He oversees IT infrastructure, cybersecurity, compliance, and technology risk management, reporting to executive leadership and the board. Before Public Storage he was director of enterprise infrastructure at Pharmavite and held a run of infrastructure and operations roles at Zenith Insurance spanning nearly seven years, rising from datacenter manager to AVP. He began as an electronics technician in the US Navy aboard the USS Ingraham. He serves as vice chair of the SoCalCISO advisory board, sits on the California chapter board of the Military Cyber Professionals Association, and is a governing body member for Evanta.
What This Group Says About Los Angeles
Los Angeles has built something no other American city has: a genuine bench of security leaders whose specialty is protecting content and live events rather than data in the abstract. Lovati, Ford, and Tran have effectively rotated through the same small set of entertainment employers, AEG, iHeartMedia, MGM, and their careers intersect directly. The city’s other security leaders, in healthcare, law, storage, and manufacturing, are just as accomplished but operate in a different register, closer to the standard enterprise CISO path. Both groups meet at SoCalCISO and Evanta, which functions here as it does elsewhere in California: a forum dense enough that most of these people already know each other.
Discover more CISOs to watch:
- CISOs to Watch in Austin: From the County Courthouse to the Cloud
- Houston’s Security Leaders to Watch: From the Refinery Floor to the Boardroom
- Boston’s CISOs to Watch: Securing Hospitals, Campuses, and Code
- CISOs to Watch in Atlanta: From City Hall to the Credit Bureau
- CISOs to Watch in Dallas-Fort Worth: From the Flight Line to the Boardroom
John Kevin Hao is a news and feature writer covering cybersecurity, technology, and business targeted for professional audiences.

