Wisconsin’s cybersecurity community extends well beyond healthcare and higher education. The cybersecurity leaders in this feature are securing global packaging manufacturers, industrial technology companies, payment processors, community banks, managed IT services firms, medical device companies, and financial technology platforms. Their backgrounds span defense contracting, global manufacturing, financial services, and managed security services, and their work reflects the full breadth of Wisconsin’s private sector economy and the security challenges that come with it.
Marcus Vaughan — Chief Information Security Officer, Ralliant
Marcus Vaughan joined Ralliant as CISO in November 2023, leading global security strategy, risk, governance, engineering, and operations for an industrial technology company spun out of Fortive Corporation. Before Ralliant, he spent nearly four years as VP of cybersecurity and product security at Northwestern Mutual, leading cyber defense, insider risk and forensics, threat intelligence and hunting, product security, cloud security, enterprise platform engineering, security architecture, and the cybersecurity PMO. Before Northwestern Mutual, he spent nearly two years as director of information security, quality, and DevOps at Rockwell Automation, serving on the Chief Digital Officer’s senior leadership team and overseeing global security operations spanning IT and OT environments. His earlier career includes a design architect role at Honeywell focused on global security transformation and cloud-native evangelism, and director of cloud and security services at NantHealth. That arc through industrial automation, global financial services, and connected enterprise security reflects a leader whose operational and OT security experience is directly relevant to the manufacturing and industrial technology environments Ralliant operates in.
Dean Langenfeld — Chief Information Security Officer and Global Head of Infrastructure, Modine Manufacturing
Dean Langenfeld has served as CISO and global head of infrastructure at Modine Manufacturing in Racine since December 2024, overseeing cybersecurity and infrastructure strategy across a complex global manufacturing environment. Within his first six months he doubled the size of the information security team, established vendor risk assessment processes, implemented a risk management framework, addressed SEC cybersecurity reporting requirements, and built an incident response plan that had not previously existed. He delivers quarterly cybersecurity reports to the board. Before Modine, he spent two years as director of core infrastructure services and data security program at Citrix, where he led the merger and integration of TIBCO and Citrix Systems into Cloud Software Group and migrated 60 percent of SAML and MFA-enabled applications to a greenfield Okta environment despite a 30 percent reduction in internal IT staff. Before Citrix, he spent nearly ten years at SC Johnson in Racine across technical manager, manager, and director roles covering end user technology, infrastructure, and operations across 130 sites in more than 40 countries. That deep Wisconsin manufacturing roots, combined with enterprise cloud and identity management experience at a global software company, gives him a grounded and technically current foundation for the CISO mandate at Modine.
Ben Schmalz — Chief Information Security Officer, Amcor
Ben Schmalz has served as CISO at Amcor in Oshkosh since June 2019, leading global information security, risk, and compliance for one of the world’s largest packaging companies. Before Amcor, he spent more than four years at Bemis Company in Neenah, progressing from IT security architect through IT security manager to director of IT security and infrastructure, where he served as CISO. Before Bemis, he spent more than nine years at Oshkosh Corporation, building his career from technical analyst through senior technical analyst, enterprise IT security manager, and defense security manager at Oshkosh Defense, where he served as information system security manager for classified and unclassified data environments and managed a budget of more than $10 million annually. That progression from technical analyst inside Wisconsin’s manufacturing sector through successive CISO roles at global packaging companies reflects a security leader whose career has been built almost entirely inside the manufacturing industry he now protects at enterprise scale.
Douglas Buan — Chief Information Security Officer, Wind River Payments
Douglas Buan has spent more than twelve years at Wind River Payments in the Madison area, stepping into the formal CISO title in June 2021 after more than a decade in director and senior director roles covering risk management, information security, compliance, and privacy. His background in payment card security is deep and credentialed: he holds a CISM from ISACA, a PCI DSS Internal Security Assessor certification from the PCI Security Standards Council, a Certified Cyber Crimes Investigator certification, and a Certified Financial Crimes Investigator certification, and serves as general counsel and first international vice president of the International Association of Financial Crimes Investigators, co-chairing its Cyber Fraud Industry Group. That combination of payments security operations, financial crimes investigation, and PCI DSS subject matter expertise makes him one of the more specialized security leaders in Wisconsin’s financial services community, with a global network of law enforcement, cybersecurity forensics, and financial industry investigative contacts that few CISOs in any sector can match.
Ken Schweiger — Senior Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer, Community First Bank
Ken Schweiger has spent more than thirty-four years at Community First Bank in Boscobel, Wisconsin, holding roles spanning commercial lending, operations management, VP of information systems, senior IS officer, and SVP and COO before taking on the CISO title in March 2018. He oversees information systems, the information security program, compliance, and physical security across a community bank where the boundaries between technology, security, and operations have always been closely integrated. His tenure is one of the longest single-institution careers in this feature, and it reflects the reality of security leadership at community banks: the person responsible for protecting the institution often built it from the inside across multiple decades. His background as a commercial lender before becoming a technology and security leader gives him an understanding of the business the security program is designed to protect that most technology-track CISOs do not develop.
Steve Kjenner — Chief Information Security Officer, Heartland Business Systems
Steve Kjenner has served as CISO at Heartland Business Systems in the Madison area since April 2018, where he leads security for a managed IT services provider whose clients span healthcare, financial services, and critical infrastructure. His background includes co-founding and directing Three Pillars Technology Solutions, a Madison-area managed services practice he helped transform from a break-fix operation into a profitable MSP, and HIPAA security officer and security analyst roles at QuadMed. Before his security career, he spent nearly seven years as IT manager at Care Wisconsin, serving as the agency’s HIPAA security officer and building the information security program for an organization that grew from four locations in one county to fourteen locations across nine counties during his tenure. That combination of community health organization security, managed services practice leadership, and nearly a decade as CISO at an MSP gives him a client-facing security perspective that shapes how Heartland Business Systems approaches security for the diverse organizations it serves.
Barry Brown — Chief Information Security Officer and Director of Product Management, LAITEK
Barry Brown has served as CISO at LAITEK in the Milwaukee area since May 2020, combining security leadership with product management responsibilities for a medical device IT company specializing in diagnostic imaging solutions. His background in medical device technology spans more than twenty years at Mortara Instrument, where he progressed from product integration engineer through program manager, senior systems engineer, and marketing director, leading the development of Mortara.Cloud and authoring IHE profiles that became healthcare interoperability standards. He also contributed to the development of the FDA-XML standard for ECG data submission in drug trials, lobbied Congress on the 21st Century Cures Act regarding source data from diagnostic tests, and led development of the ECG Warehouse under a CRADA agreement with the FDA. At Hillrom, he served as cybersecurity engineer for DoD Risk Management Framework activities, receiving an Authority to Operate for key cardiology products. That depth of medical device standards work, FDA engagement, and DoD security framework experience gives him a product security perspective that most CISOs in any sector do not carry.
Lee Laboy — Chief Information Security Officer, InvestCloud
Lee Laboy stepped into the formal CISO title at InvestCloud in February 2026, following nearly fifteen years at the same organization across VP of information technology and security and VP of information security roles. InvestCloud, which acquired Advicent Solutions in 2021, provides SaaS technology solutions for the financial services industry, serving major global financial institutions. His earlier career includes eight and a half years as IT manager at Willis, the global insurance brokerage, and earlier roles as a teacher of technology education and CAD at Wisconsin high schools, where he also coached varsity basketball and track. That arc from high school technology educator through insurance brokerage IT management to fifteen years building and ultimately leading the security function at a financial services SaaS company reflects a career shaped by patience, institutional commitment, and steady progression inside organizations rather than title-chasing across them.
Wisconsin’s Security Bench Runs Deep Across Every Sector
The leaders in this feature are securing a global packaging manufacturer, an industrial technology company, a payment processor, a community bank, a managed IT services provider, a medical device company, and a financial technology platform. That range reflects how broadly cybersecurity leadership has developed across Wisconsin’s private sector economy. Several of these leaders built their careers inside a single organization over many years. Others came from defense, manufacturing, or managed services backgrounds before landing in their current roles. All of them are doing consequential security work in Wisconsin, largely without the national attention that larger coastal markets tend to attract.
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