Food and beverage manufacturers run plants, supply chains, and brands that consumers rely on every day, which makes them a growing target and a demanding place to lead security. The seven CISOs below protect some of the best-known names in American food and beverage, and many of them have deep roots in the companies they now defend. One started at Tyson Foods as a systems administration intern in 1997. Another has spent nearly three decades at Hershey. A third began as an information security analyst at Perdue Farms and returned years later as its CISO. Others came from an Air National Guard refueling wing, a global travel company, and a Mexican food manufacturer, and two teach the next generation of security professionals at local colleges.
Larry Woods – VP, CISO & CPO, Post Holdings
Larry Woods spent more than eight years running IT for the College of Business at the University of Nevada, Reno, and led technology infrastructure at Kellogg Community College while running his own consultancy for small businesses in fields including agriculture and construction. He joined Post Holdings in 2012 as IT operations manager in Battle Creek, Michigan, where he executed the carve-out of infrastructure from Ralcorp to standalone Post systems. As director of IT infrastructure and operations, he built playbooks to bring newly acquired companies onto core systems within months of closing, cut network spend by 30%, and implemented a software-defined perimeter that sharply reduced the company’s external footprint. As senior director of enterprise information security, he led security across six semi-autonomous business units, chaired the IT Security Council, and moved two units to Zero Trust. Woods became VP, CISO, and chief privacy officer in March 2023.
Mike Rogers – CISO, Hormel Foods
Mike Rogers led global identity and access management at Carlson Wagonlit Travel, delivering security awareness training to more than 19,000 employees in seven languages and raising entitlement review response rates from 80% to 100% while cutting the process from three months to two weeks. Over nearly nine years at UnitedHealth Group, he directed security architecture, served as chief of staff for the enterprise cyber defense team, and ran a talent rotation program that trained cyber analysts from within to address staffing shortages. He went on to serve as CISO of Optum Connect IT Performance Services and as business information security officer for UnitedHealthcare, a line of business with more than $200 billion in annual revenue. Rogers became CISO and director of information security and compliance at Hormel Foods in August 2022. A frequent speaker, he delivered the FutureCon Minneapolis keynote in 2024 and has presented at Claroty Nexus and Proofpoint Protect.
Roberto Garcia – CISO, Bar-S Foods
Roberto Garcia started at Sigma Alimentos in Monterrey, Mexico, as an IT business analyst for warehouse operations, then worked as an IT business consultant for logistics before becoming information security officer. He joined Bar-S Foods in 2013 as cybersecurity and IT operations manager, a role he held for more than nine years. Garcia became CISO of Bar-S Foods in August 2022, drawing on experience managing infrastructure, security, enterprise applications, and operations across multiple geographies.
Matt Bunch – VP & CISO, Tyson Foods
Matt Bunch joined Tyson Foods as a systems administration intern in 1997 and has spent more than 29 years with the company. He worked as a Unix and OpenVMS administrator, helping convert Tyson’s sales and inventory management system to a new platform, then moved through systems consulting, enterprise infrastructure management, and solutions architecture, where he evaluated Tyson’s identity management options. After leading client engineering, he moved into security in 2016 as associate director of IS security and rose through director and senior director of information security and cyber. Bunch became CISO in September 2023 and VP and CISO in January 2025. He also serves as a strategic advisor to Autharva, which focuses on identity control for AI agents.
Jeremy Bauer – CISO, Molson Coors
Jeremy Bauer managed IT for a Waukesha call center at NOVO 1 for six years before serving nearly 12 years in the Air National Guard, first as a command post controller and then as communications security manager for the 128th Air Refueling Wing, overseeing encryption, emanation protection, IT audit, and FISMA compliance. He joined Foot Locker in 2015 as a senior security analyst and rose to senior director of information security, building a vulnerability management system, integrating identity and access management platforms, and creating a security review board. Bauer joined Molson Coors in April 2020 as senior director of information security and CISO, with global responsibility for managing cyber risk. Since 2017 he has also taught evening cybersecurity classes as an adjunct professor at Waukesha County Technical College.
Steve Hendrie – VP & CISO, The Hershey Company
Steve Hendrie spent six years as a systems analyst at Cardinal Technologies before joining The Hershey Company in 1997 as an e-business systems architect, where he helped create a new department and led the design of a multi-million-dollar e-business infrastructure, including its firewalls and single sign-on. As senior information security architect, he led the design and implementation of a complete identity and access management solution. He then managed Hershey’s information security architecture team, developing three- and five-year security strategies, before becoming director of global information security in 2014 and CISO in 2017. Hendrie was named VP and CISO in June 2020, capping nearly three decades with the company.
Kyle Waggoner – CISO, Perdue Farms
Kyle Waggoner started at Perdue Farms in 2005 as an information security analyst, running the security perimeter and awareness program for its corporate and manufacturing footprint, and later engineered security into its plants and distribution platforms. At Altria he worked as a security solutions architect and then as business information security officer, owning cybersecurity for international operations in China and Israel. He returned to Perdue as CISO in June 2019, building a security organization that spans IAM, OT/ICS, data protection, and third-party risk, more than doubling NIST CSF maturity, and modernizing a 24/7 SOC that integrates IT and OT telemetry across plants. He also established AI security and GenAI governance and reports to the board and audit committee. Waggoner has taught information security management at Salisbury University’s Perdue School of Business since 2014 and sits on customer advisory boards for CrowdStrike, Armis, Rubrik, and Arctic Wolf.
Grown From Within
What stands out about these seven is how many of them built their careers inside the companies they now protect. Bunch, Hendrie, Woods, and Garcia rose through infrastructure and operations roles before taking the top security seat, and Waggoner came back to the company where he started. Rogers and Bauer brought experience from healthcare, retail, and military service. Across cereal makers, meat processors, brewers, and confectioners, they share the job of keeping plants running and products moving, and in Bauer’s and Waggoner’s case, of training the people who will follow them.
Discover more CISOs securing their organizations:
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- Where Downtime Isn’t an Option: Healthcare’s CISOs to Watch
- Where the Fleet Comes Ashore: Virginia Beach’s Cybersecurity Leaders to Watch
- The Gate City’s CISOs to Watch
John Kevin Hao is a news and feature writer covering cybersecurity, technology, and business targeted for professional audiences.