Mark Weatherford

Mark Weatherford is the VP of AI Policy and Standards at Gretel where he is responsible for leading strategic initiatives to influence public policy, engage with stakeholders, and advocate for standards that ensure the quality and ethical development of synthetic data.

Mark has held a variety of executive level cybersecurity roles including Chief Cybersecurity Strategy Officer at Coalfire, Chief Strategy Officer at the National Cybersecurity Center, VP & Global Information Security Strategist at Booking Holdings, SVP & Chief Cybersecurity Strategist at vArmour, Principal at The Chertoff Group, VP & Chief Security Officer at the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, and Chief Information Security Officer for the state of Colorado.

Mark was also appointed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2008 to serve as California’s first Chief Information Security Officer and in 2011 he was appointed in the Obama Administration as the nation’s first Deputy Under Secretary for Cybersecurity at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Mark is a former U.S. Naval Officer where he served as the Director of Navy Computer Network Defense Operations, Director of the Navy Computer Incident Response Team, and established the U.S. Navy’s first operational red team.

Mark is a Board Director and on the Advisory Board of several technology companies where he has a successful track record in helping startups from founding to acquisition. He is also a Senior Fellow at the McCrary Institute for Cyber and Critical Infrastructure Security, a Senior Fellow at the Center for Digital Government, and on the Strategic Advisory Council at Idaho National Laboratories.

Among his many professional awards, he is an inductee into the 2023 Global Cyber Security Hall of Fame, the 2021 International CSO Hall of Fame, and the 2018 Information Systems Security Association (ISSA) Hall of Fame.