One person on this list was appointed by the President of the United States to a Department of Homeland Security post. Another built his career at the same university over 20 years, starting as a desktop support technician. A third spent 13 years in Chicago’s financial exchanges before healthcare security ever entered the picture. Cleveland’s cybersecurity leadership bench pulls from federal service, global finance, and two major universities, and the paths into these seats look almost nothing alike.
Rakesh Sharma – VP & Global CISO, Cleveland Clinic
Rakesh Sharma spent his first decade in global capital markets, working for Accenture across Chicago, Frankfurt, and London on projects for the London Stock Exchange, Deutsche Börse, and the Chicago Board of Trade. He then moved to JPMorgan Chase, followed by seven years at CME Group as Director of Post-Trade Technology and four years at ICE as Global Head of CDS QA Technology. In 2015 he took a different turn, spending seven years leading CISO advisory work at Level Nine Group. Sharma joined Cleveland Clinic in 2022 as Senior Director of Cybersecurity, served as interim CISO from November 2024, and was named VP and Global CISO in February 2025. He sits on the Health Sector Coordinating Council’s Cybersecurity Working Group and advises Brava Security, Abnormal AI, and SecurityScorecard.
Tony Mansoor – CISO & Senior Director, Cleveland State University
Tony Mansoor started at Cleveland State University in March 2006 as a desktop and server specialist supervising student technicians. He has been there ever since, more than 20 years now, moving up through Information Security Administrator, Information Security Manager, and two directorships covering infrastructure, security operations, and technical support. He became CISO and Senior Director in July 2025. His work now spans identity and access management modernization, data governance, compliance, cloud adoption, and AI governance for the university. Before Cleveland State, Mansoor worked as a network and systems administrator at two smaller organizations, setting up and maintaining IT equipment from the ground up.
Bo Vykhovanyuk – CISO, Case Western Reserve University
Auditing is where Bo Vykhovanyuk began. He spent nearly three years at PricewaterhouseCoopers managing IT audit and security engagements for three Fortune 500 companies, then nine months at Grant Thornton directing a datacenter security and disaster recovery assessment. In 2008 he joined the University of Cincinnati as an IT Auditor, where he ran the university’s first IT risk assessment and built its first five-year IT audit plan. He moved into security leadership there as Associate Director of the Office of Information Security, developing a three-year data compliance and information security plan endorsed by the Board of Trustees, then served six years as Assistant Vice President and CISO. He also taught as adjunct faculty at UC for seven years, earning Faculty of the Year in the School of Information Technology and a spot on the College of Business Faculty Dean’s List. After a year leading information security at the edtech company Zovio, Vykhovanyuk spent nearly three years as CISO of Northern Kentucky University, where he implemented multi-factor authentication and built a three-year security awareness roadmap. He became CISO of Case Western Reserve University in August 2024.
Brian Harrell – VP & CSO, FirstEnergy
Brian Harrell was appointed by the President of the United States as the sixth Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection at the Department of Homeland Security. He also served as the first Assistant Director for Infrastructure Security at CISA. His career began in the US Marine Corps, and in 2015 he founded The Cutlass Security Group, a disabled-veteran small business in Pennsylvania offering M&A cybersecurity due diligence and national security consultation for critical infrastructure companies. Harrell spent five and a half years as VP and Chief Security Officer at AVANGRID before joining FirstEnergy in March 2026 in the same capacity. His portfolio there covers cybersecurity across both IT and operational technology, privacy, physical security, and business continuity for ten electric companies and 12,000 employees. He serves on the boards of the Global Cyber Security Hall of Fame and the Security Industry Association, sits on the TSA Security Advisory Committee by appointment of the TSA Administrator, and advises Penn State’s Homeland Security Advisory Council.
Melanie Roush – VP, IT Infrastructure and Cyber Security, Parker Hannifin
Melanie Roush built her security career across four very different industries. She started as an IT Security Specialist at Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati, then spent four years at HP as Global IT Security Delivery Lead. Six years at The Walt Disney Company in Orlando followed, working as a Senior Information Security Analyst. She moved to Yum! Brands in Louisville as Director of Global Information Security for four years, then became CISO of Dover Corporation in Downers Grove, Illinois. Roush joined Parker Hannifin in March 2020 as Vice President of IT Infrastructure and Cyber Security, where she now oversees both functions for the Cleveland-based motion and control manufacturer.
Patrick McCrann – (Former) CISO, AmTrust Financial Services
Patrick McCrann spent 17 years in banking security before moving to insurance. At New York Community Bancorp and Ohio Savings Bank he defined an enterprise-level cybersecurity control framework, implemented a LogRhythm SIEM environment from architecture through automated response workflows, and redesigned Active Directory permissions using AGDLP group nesting to eliminate direct user permissions and reduce excessive privilege. Before that he managed network services at Alamo Rent-A-Car, running data communications for 480 sites across 41 states. McCrann moved to Aetna in 2017, building a comprehensive security program across seven affiliated companies and leading a centralized SIEM implementation that cut false positives by 40%. He served as CISO of AmTrust Financial Services from September 2019 to June 2026, where he built the cybersecurity program around HIPAA, PCI DSS, and SOX requirements while managing incident response and mentoring the security team.
Where Cleveland Finds Its Security Leaders
There is no single pipeline here. Harrell came through the Marine Corps and two federal appointments before taking on a utility’s full security portfolio. Sharma spent 13 years inside financial exchanges in Chicago and London, then seven more advising other CISOs, before a hospital system hired him. Vykhovanyuk and McCrann both started in audit, one at PwC and one in banking, and both ended up running security programs. Mansoor never left the university where he started as a desktop technician, and Roush moved through consumer products, technology, entertainment, restaurants, and industrial manufacturing without ever leaving security. What holds this group together is not a shared route but a shared destination: a city where hospitals, universities, utilities, and manufacturers all need someone who has seen the problem from more than one angle.
Discover more CISOs securing their organizations:
- Orlando’s Cybersecurity Leadership Bench
- Where Two Rivers Meet: Sacramento’s Cybersecurity Leaders to Watch
- Derby City’s Cybersecurity Leaders to Watch
- Where the Ohio River Bends: Cincinnati’s CISOs to Watch
- Portland’s Security Leadership Bench
John Kevin Hao is a news and feature writer covering cybersecurity, technology, and business targeted for professional audiences.