When attackers hit MGM and Caesars in 2023, casino security became a national story. Four of the six cybersecurity leaders below protect gaming companies: two resort operators and two of the world’s largest makers of slot machines and gaming systems. The other two defend a hyperscale data center operator and the county government that runs the Strip. Their backgrounds are among the most varied of any city in this series, running from Marine Corps red teams and Navy nuclear labs to business continuity planning at Sun Microsystems and a credit union’s in-house loan software.
David Tyburski – VP of Information Security & Global Deputy CISO, Wynn Resorts
David Tyburski was Wynn Resorts’ first CISO, charged by the board and senior management with building its security program from scratch. He joined Wynn Las Vegas in 2008 as a systems engineering manager and rose through information security management before taking the global CISO role in 2015, a post he held for more than a decade. The program now spans six properties across Las Vegas, Boston, Macau, London, and the UAE, with a 46-person team and a $25 million annual budget. Under his leadership Wynn built an identity platform covering more than 25,000 users across 550 applications, tripled vulnerability scanning coverage to 18,000 hosts, and patched 120 systems within 24 hours of the Log4j disclosure. The company also mandated FIDO2 hardware keys for administrator access before the 2023 MGM and Caesars breaches. Tyburski became VP of Information Security and Global Deputy CISO in April 2026. Outside Wynn, he chairs Nevada’s Governor-appointed Information Technology Advisory Board and founded a regional CISO peer network.
Kevin Kealy – CISO, Light & Wonder
At Everi Holdings, Kevin Kealy was CIO, and one of his assignments was to start the company’s flight department: buying a King Air 350i, hiring a chief pilot, and building the operation from nothing. It was a detour in a security career that began at UK internet provider Pipex and continued through more than 15 years as a security scientist at AT&T Labs, where he researched hacking and taught ethical hacking courses. He also lectured at Royal Holloway, University of London, where he earned a master’s in information security. Kealy built a practice as an interim CISO, taking Cabela’s to PCI Level 1 compliance in under nine months and building Select Comfort’s information protection program. He became CISO at Fidelity National Information Services in 2013 and global CISO of Ingram Micro in 2016. He joined Scientific Games in July 2019 and has led global security there through its 2022 rebrand as Light & Wonder.
Chad Lewis – VP of Cyber Security, Switch
Chad Lewis retired from the Marine Corps as a Master Sergeant after 20 years. He was lead instructor and curriculum developer for the Marine Corps Information Assurance Technician course, the first cybersecurity occupational specialty course of its kind in the Department of Defense, and was named Senior Instructor of the Year in 2003. He then spent nearly six years leading a special operations computer network operations detachment and closed his service as chief of the Marine Corps Red Team. Lewis spent more than 13 years at the Nevada National Security Sites, managing the cybersecurity program for more than 10,000 classified and unclassified IT and operational technology assets and securing a 400% funding increase over several years. He became VP of Cyber Security at Switch in April 2026, where his scope includes industrial control systems for data center power and cooling, OT segmentation, and security for AI infrastructure. He has taught information warfare and SOC analysis as graduate faculty at UNLV since 2021.
Brian Irvine – Deputy CIO & CISO, Clark County
Brian Irvine spent a decade as VP, CIO, and Information Security Officer at Unitus Community Credit Union in Portland, where he was named Credit Union Professional of the Year. His team there built an online loan application, then created a legal structure to sell it to other credit unions, returning 56% on the investment. He also represented Unitus on the board of Currencē, a credit union service organization, chairing its finance committee. Irvine went on to serve as SVP, CTO, and Information Security Officer at Northwest Bank, then directed infrastructure at BBSI, where his scope covered DevOps, engineering, the service desk, and information security. He joined Clark County in 2024 as Deputy CIO and CISO.
Alex Mutschler – CISO, Circa Resort & Casino
Networks came first for Alex Mutschler. He spent years in Salina, Kansas, as a network administrator for a bus manufacturer and IT director for a medical practice. At Sunflower Bank he maintained more than 350 virtual servers and networking for 60 branches, and built a new Active Directory from scratch for a three-company merger. He moved to Las Vegas in 2018 as a senior architect at MGM Resorts International, overseeing more than 550 network devices across multiple properties and states. Mutschler joined Circa Resort & Casino in 2020 as senior network architect and became CISO in January 2023. Since then he has introduced formal incident response and business continuity governance for the first time and stood up round-the-clock managed security monitoring. He also cut employee-driven risk events by more than 75% while the number of staff with email access tripled.
Xochitl Monteon – SVP & CISO, Aristocrat
Xochitl Monteon started in environmental health, safety, and physical security at a semiconductor maker. She built her reputation in business continuity, leading Sun Microsystems’ global program across 12 countries and later running her own risk consulting firm, Contingency Solutions, with clients including eBay, PayPal, and HP. At eBay and PayPal she ran continuity, IT services, and site operations. Intel followed for more than a decade, where she established company-wide cybersecurity governance and served as Chief Privacy Officer. After a stint as a Managing Director at JPMorgan Chase building cybersecurity reviews for acquisitions, she became SVP and CISO of Aristocrat in April 2025. Monteon advises NightDragon’s investment team and portfolio companies and sits on UNLV’s Cybersecurity Advisory Board. She also serves on the board and audit committee of the nonprofit Right To Be, on the advisory board of the Exceptional Women Awardees Foundation, and as an executive member of the Latino Corporate Directors Association. Her certifications include CISA, CISSP, CISM, CIPP/US, CIPT, FIP, and CBCP.
Built for a City That Never Closes
The range here is unusually wide. Lewis learned his trade on Marine Corps red teams and in federal nuclear labs. Monteon came through business continuity and privacy at global technology companies, and Kealy through telecom research and interim CISO work. Tyburski and Mutschler both started in systems and networks before Las Vegas resorts handed them security, and Irvine spent years running technology for credit unions before a county government recruited him. What they share is the operating environment. Casinos, data centers, and a county that hosts millions of visitors do not get maintenance windows, and each of these leaders has built a program to match.
Discover more CISOs securing their organizations:
- Victoria’s Cybersecurity Leaders to Watch
- Huntsville’s Cybersecurity Leaders to Watch
- Des Moines Cybersecurity Leaders to Watch
- Albany’s Cybersecurity Leaders to Watch
- Providence’s Cybersecurity Leaders to Watch
John Kevin Hao is a news and feature writer covering cybersecurity, technology, and business targeted for professional audiences.