Technology Strategist & Evangelist
They discover them during an incident. I've worked with enterprises across the Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe to close that gap before it becomes a story, through architecture, strategy, and the kind of executive communication that actually changes how organizations think about resilience.
Twenty-five years in enterprise technology, across multiple continents and every layer of the stack. The career moved the way it did for one reason: the ability to work at the intersection of deep technical knowledge and genuine human communication.
That combination is what made it possible to go from systems administration in the data center to presales engineering, from Washington DC to Singapore, from building and leading technical teams across APAC and ASEAN — Australia, India, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Korea, and Japan — to running global alliances and then product marketing. Add Canada and Mexico to the Americas work, and the picture is of a practitioner who has operated across most of the world's major enterprise markets. Each had different regulatory regimes, different buyer behavior, different relationships between IT and the business. Operating across all of them built a fluency in organizational complexity that most US-based technologists never develop.
That global track record is not a detour from the current work. It is the foundation of it. Understanding how enterprises in different cultural and regulatory contexts approach risk, resilience, and technology investment makes it possible to work more effectively with American organizations — because the contrast makes the assumptions visible.
I hold a BA in Theater Arts from UC Santa Cruz, trained in the Meisner tradition, alongside a CISSP and a career built across UNIX, Windows, backup architecture, and enterprise security. Those two things are not in tension. Formal training in how people listen, what makes an idea land, and what it takes to hold a room is precisely what makes complex technical risk legible to non-technical decision-makers. It is the single most undervalued skill in enterprise technology, and it is the one I have been building longest.
The current role as Principal Technologist for the Americas at Veeam brings all of it together. I work at the center of the company's evolution from backup vendor to data company following the Securiti.ai acquisition, engaging the largest commercial and federal accounts on data resilience, AI governance, and post-quantum readiness, and serving as a public voice on the topics that define where enterprise data security is heading.
Six domains where I operate with depth. Each reflects active, current work with enterprise clients.
Resilience isn't a product you buy. It's a maturity level you build. I work with organizations to assess where they actually are across data protection, disaster recovery, and operational resilience, then develop the process and strategy to close the gap. That includes the recovery side: clean room design, immutable backup validation, and incident response planning that accounts for people and process, not just technology. The question isn't whether prevention will fail. It's whether you have a tested plan for when it does.
Most organizations deploying AI have not asked what data the model is training on, what it can access, or what happens when it surfaces something it shouldn't. I work with clients to build the governance layer that makes AI deployable in regulated environments, covering data security posture management, LLM data hygiene, toxic data combination risk, and the policies that keep AI from becoming a liability before it becomes an asset.
Data encrypted today will be vulnerable to quantum computing within a decade, and adversaries are already harvesting it now to decrypt later. I help organizations understand what they have, what's at risk, and what to do about it, delivering cryptographic bill of materials assessments that inventory quantum-vulnerable encryption across their environment and produce a prioritized migration plan before the window closes.
Regulatory frameworks change faster than most organizations can track. I work with clients to apply AI tooling and modern data protection strategies to stay ahead of an expanding attack surface, mapping current posture against evolving requirements, identifying gaps before auditors do, and building governance structures that hold up as both the threat landscape and the rulebook shift.
Enterprise security has changed more in the last five years than in the previous twenty. Locking down networks and endpoints was never the whole answer, and zero trust architecture made that explicit — least privilege, internal segmentation, verified identity at every layer. Now AI has introduced a new attack surface that most security models weren't built for: adversaries using AI to attack faster than human response cycles can keep up with, and enterprise AI deployments creating data exposure risks that didn't exist before the model was trained. I hold a CISSP and have spent my career at the intersection of data protection and security strategy, helping organizations understand what their actual exposure is and how to build a posture that holds up against threats that are still evolving.
Technical risk only changes behavior when the people who control budgets understand it. I trained in the Meisner acting tradition at UC Santa Cruz alongside a career built in systems engineering and security, and that combination is the foundation of how I work. Meisner is about listening, responding to what's actually in the room, and making something land with a specific audience. That's exactly what executive communication requires. I host C-level forums, deliver keynotes at Gartner, IDC, and AWS events, and help technical teams build the narrative around their work that actually moves decisions forward.
The expertise above is the current expression of a career built across these disciplines.
Started in UNIX and Windows administration, moved into presales engineering supporting 50 named enterprise accounts with revenues over $500M. Designed bespoke solutions, built business cases and TCO models, and ran proofs of concept across data protection, security, and infrastructure platforms.
Led presales teams across ASEAN, building and managing engineers in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, and Korea. Doubled the business in 15 months. Also served as interim VP of Sales for two quarters, exceeding quota and forecast in both.
Built and led technical alliances with AWS, Microsoft, HPE, Cisco, Lenovo, and Google across the Asia-Pacific and Japan theater. Grew the AWS alliance from near zero to significant double and triple-digit year-over-year gains across multiple fiscal years.
Led solutions marketing for Commvault's APAC theater, covering data protection, cloud mobility, and analytics. Delivered keynotes at Gartner and IDC events, managed analyst and media relations, and built regional campaign assets and thought leadership content.
Currently serving as the primary technical voice for Veeam's data security posture management and AI governance capabilities. Regular presence at industry events, executive forums, and media engagements translating forward-edge technical concepts for non-technical audiences.
A decade based in Singapore leading teams and engaging customers across Australia, India, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Korea, and Japan — plus Canada and Mexico in the Americas — operating across regulatory regimes, market structures, and business cultures that most US-based technologists never encounter. Those markets each have distinct approaches to enterprise risk, technology buying, and the relationship between IT and the business. That experience is not background color. It is a direct input into how I advise organizations on resilience and governance strategy today.
Keynotes, executive roundtables, panel discussions, webinars, and podcasts. Also consultative workshops that help organizations work through specific data resilience and governance challenges. The format varies. The goal is the same: give the audience something concrete they can act on.
I host intimate C-level forums across the Americas, bringing together CISOs, CIOs, and CTOs for structured, off-the-record conversations on data resilience, AI governance, and cyber recovery. The format is designed to surface what executives are actually dealing with, not what they're willing to say on a panel.
Commentary on data resilience, AI governance, post-quantum cryptography, and the attack surface enterprises are not ready for.
Federal News Network · February 2026
Industry Exchange Cyber 2026. On the alignment of people, process, and technology in cyber resilience, and why automation alone isn't the answer when the bad guys are using AI to attack.
Read the ArticleA conversation with Brian Chidester on data resilience strategy, AI governance, and what enterprise and public sector organizations need to do differently before the next incident forces the issue.
Listen on Apple PodcastsFor speaking engagements, business inquiries, or a conversation about where data resilience and AI governance are headed.
For legal and expert witness engagements, please visit the dedicated Expert Witness page.