Gerard Israel
Security Executive · Advisor · Educator

I secure the systems that can’t fail.

Fifteen years of security leadership across banking, healthcare, fintech, retail, and industrial systems, protecting the technology that keeps essential services running. I work upstream, shaping the build before the risk is baked in.

13+
Years in security
$1B
M&A security led
50+
Largest org built
Fig. 01 · designed upstream
The origin

I learned security on a particle accelerator. At 17, I expected to work alongside physicists at a national physics lab. Instead I was paired with the head of network engineering, because there was no separate security job in those days. If you ran the network for the accelerators, you secured them too.

The stakes were physical. The same technology was moving into hospitals to treat cancer, where a misconfiguration doesn't cause a data breach, it can send the wrong settings to a machine pointed at a patient. That is where security designed upstream comes from for me, and it has shaped every role since.

Four lanes, one operator

Where I lead

Industries

Where I've done it

The range

Measured impact, boardroom to classroom

$1B
M&A security led through acquisition
42→96%
Control coverage across 300+ healthcare sites
95%+
Attendance in the makerspace program, year over year
8–90
Age range of students taught to design and build
Perspectives

Writing on cyber-physical security

Notes on where IT, operational technology, and human safety meet. New pieces in progress.

Origin · OT

I learned security on a particle accelerator

Why coming up through operational technology, where failure is physical, changes how you think about every system after.

Essay · Strategy

The most important security decisions are made before any code is written

By the time we review the roadmap, the costly mistakes are already in it. Designing upstream, in practice.

Field notes · Critical infrastructure

Securing a factory floor is not securing an app

What building industrial capability teaches a security leader that enterprise IT never will.

Placeholder posts. Swap in real articles or link out to LinkedIn when ready.
Let's talk

Open to the right conversation.

Security leadership roles, advisory work, or building something that widens access to technology.