“IT should never be the department that keeps the lights on.”
he best technology leaders don’t wait for a seat at the strategy table. They earn it by proving that security, compliance and automation move revenue — not just the risk register.
That is the thesis of my last five years: a SOC 2 Type II certification that opened a Fortune 100 account, an AI platform that removed work instead of adding headcount, and four acquisitions integrated on 60- to 90-day cutovers without a single business interruption. When the same person owns data protection and AI strategy, governance ships with the platform instead of chasing it.
Operationalized NIST CSF controls into a SOC 2 Type II certification and maintained it across two audit cycles. It cleared security review at a Fortune 100 buyer and opened $2M+ in enterprise contracts that had been closed to us.
Led IT due diligence and post-merger integration for four acquisitions — identity, email, endpoints, financial systems and the SaaS stack — consolidated on 60- to 90-day cutovers, from a solo-operator target to a team of eight.
Architected the company’s first internal AI platform for data access and operational intelligence, then wrote the governance around it: acceptable use, vendor security review, API key control, DLP and shadow-AI monitoring.
A résumé has room for the highlights. This is the index.
Twenty years of hands-on work across eight organizations — a career inventory, not a snapshot of any one environment. Some of this I ran personally; some I owned at the program level. Ask me about any line on it.
I’m open to VP of IT, VP of Technology and CIO-level roles, plus advisory work and speaking on AI governance and IT strategy.
linkedin.com/in/joeltavarezLinkedIn is the only channel listed here by design — no email address or phone number on a public page.