Phil Venables

Phil Venables is recognized as one of the most experienced security executives in the world. He was appointed as the first Chief Information Security Officer of Google Cloud, where risk, security, compliance, and privacy were overseen across one of the largest technology platforms on earth. Prior to that, nearly two decades were spent at Goldman Sachs — first as the firm's inaugural CISO, a role held for seventeen years, and subsequently as Chief Operational Risk Officer, operating partner in the private equity business, and Board Director of Goldman Sachs Bank. In 2024, he was inducted into the Chief Security Officer Hall of Fame. He is currently engaged as a Partner at Ballistic Ventures and Senior Advisor at Warburg Pincus.

At the highest levels of security policy, Venables has been called upon to advise governments and institutions around the world. From 2021 to 2025, he was appointed to the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology at the White House, where initiatives spanning cyber resilience and artificial intelligence were advanced. He is seated on the Information Security and Privacy Advisory Board of NIST, the Security and Technology Advisory Board of MITRE, and is counted among the membership of the Council on Foreign Relations. Degrees in Computer Science, Formal Methods, and Cryptography were earned at the University of York and The Queen's College, Oxford, and he is credentialed as a Chartered Fellow of both the British Computer Society and the Institute of Information Security. Phil Venables lives in Hoboken, New Jersey.