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Job Description
The SVP & Chief Security Officer (CSO) will report directly to the Chief Operating Officer and will be accountable for Fannie Mae’s enterprise-wide security strategy and operations. This executive will have end-to-end responsibility for the design, execution, and continuous evolution of the company’s security programs, encompassing cybersecurity, operational resilience, and, to a lesser extent, physical security.
The CSO will lead an organization of approximately 350 professionals and will be responsible for strengthening and modernizing the enterprise security function at scale. This is a highly visible leadership role requiring both strategic vision and hands-on engagement, with a mandate to enhance core capabilities, address critical gaps, and position security as a clear business enabler across the enterprise.
This leader will provide vision and direction for enterprise security, establishing policies, standards, and operating frameworks that effectively protect the company’s people, assets, information, and infrastructure. A key priority will be translating complex cyber and security concepts into clear business implications, ensuring that executive leadership and the Board have a strong understanding of risk, tradeoffs, and investment priorities.
The CSO will work closely with senior leadership across Technology, Risk, Legal & Compliance, and the business segments to drive a coordinated, enterprise-wide approach to security and resilience. This includes embedding security into business initiatives, improving transparency into risk, and aligning security strategy with enterprise priorities and regulatory expectations. The CSO will engage regularly with the Executive Leadership Team and Board to shape security strategy, inform risk discussions, and ensure appropriate visibility into emerging threats, vulnerabilities, and mitigation efforts. This includes defining security priorities, guiding investment decisions, and ensuring alignment with Fannie Mae’s risk appetite and supervisory environment.
This executive will be responsible for advancing a modern, integrated security capability thatleverages data, intelligence, and technology to proactively identify and mitigate risk. Key areas of focus will include strengthening identity and access management, rethinking security architecture, stabilizing and rebuilding cyber engineering capabilities, and leveraging AI and automation to enhance decision-making and operational effectiveness.
Given Fannie Mae’s regulatory environment and critical role in the financial system, the CSO must bring a strong understanding of operating within highly regulated frameworks and partnering with oversight bodies. This leader will ensure that security programs meet supervisory expectations and align with enterprise risk management practices, while enabling business objectives and innovation.
In addition, the CSO will be accountable for the financial and operational performance of the security function, including budget management, resource allocation, and vendor oversight. This leader will build and lead a high-performing organization, fostering a culture of accountability, technical depth, and continuous improvement.
Key Responsibilities:
- Define and execute Fannie Mae’s enterprise security strategy across cyber, physical security, and resilience
- Establish and maintain security policies, standards, and governance frameworks aligned with regulatory expectations and enterprise risk appetite
- Oversee security operations, including threat detection, incident response, investigations, and crisis management
- Lead enterprise-wide business continuity and disaster recovery programs to ensure operational resilience
- Partner with Technology, Risk, Legal & Compliance, and business leaders to embed security into enterprise initiatives and operations
- Engage with executive leadership and the Board on security strategy, risk posture, and emerging threats
- Monitor the evolving threat landscape and ensure proactive identification and mitigation of risks across the enterprise
- Oversee third-party and vendor security risk management practices •
- Drive modernization of security capabilities through the use of data, analytics, and advanced technologies
- Build, develop, and retain a high-performing security organization
Ideal Experience:
The successful candidate will be a highly regarded security leader with a broad enterprise perspective and deep technical expertise across cybersecurity domains. This individual will bring a demonstrated track record of operating within large, complex, and highly regulated environments, ideally within leading financial services institutions.
Critically, this leader must combine strategic leadership with genuine technical depth. Fannie Mae is seeking a CSO who can engage deeply on topics such as encryption, identity, authentication, and modern security tooling - not simply serve as the outward-facing leader of the function.
The ideal candidate will bring experience from a leading, highly regulated financial services environment, with a track record of operating at scale within complex organizations. This individual has likely held a senior leadership role within a large security function and has been directly responsible for driving meaningful initiatives across multiple domains, including cyber operations, engineering, and risk management.
The role requires a leader who combines enterprise perspective with hands-on engagement - someone who is comfortable operating at both the strategic and execution levels, and who remains close enough to the work to meaningfully assess, prioritize, and drive change across the organization.
This individual must be highly effective in engaging senior leadership and demystifying cybersecurity for non-technical stakeholders. The ability to translate security into business value - articulating risk, tradeoffs, and investment priorities in clear terms - will be essential to success.
The CSO will be an experienced people leader, capable of leading a large, complex organization while remaining close enough to the work to drive meaningful change. This role requires a leader who can operate with both authority and humility, building credibility through expertise, judgment, and follow-through.
Given the current state of the organization, experience leading transformation and rebuilding efforts will be important, particularly in areas such as identity and access management (IAM), security architecture, and cyber engineering. At the same time, the candidate should be able to build on existing strengths in areas such as data loss prevention, endpoint security, insider threat, and vulnerability management.
The ideal candidate will bring strong external perspective and industry connectivity, staying current on emerging threats, technologies, and best practices, and leveraging that insight to continuously evolve Fannie Mae’s security posture.
15 years of related experience in the security field is seen as crucial, with 10 years in leadership roles
Qualifications
Education:
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For most roles, employees are expected to work onsite on a regular basis at their designated office location. In-office work cadence is determined by your manager. Proximity within a reasonable commute to your designated office location is preferred unless the job is noted as open to remote.
Fannie Mae is an equal opportunity employer and considers qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender identity/gender expression, marital or parental status, or any other protected factor. Fannie Mae is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities who are employees or applicants for employment, unless to do so would cause undue hardship to the company. If you need assistance using our online system and/or you need a reasonable accommodation related to the hiring/application process, please complete this form.
The hiring range for this role is set forth below. Final salaries will generally vary within that range based on factors that include but are not limited to, skill set, depth of experience, certifications, and other relevant qualifications. This position is eligible to participate in a Fannie Mae incentive program (subject to the terms of the program). As part of our comprehensive benefits package, Fannie Mae offers a broad range of Health, Life, Voluntary Lifestyle, and other benefits and perks that enhance an employee's physical, mental, emotional, and financial well-being. See more here.