Principal Cybersecurity Advisor

Summary

Our client seeking a senior cybersecurity transformation advisor to lead strategy, architecture, and execution for a large-scale enterprise firewall and network security policy transformation within a highly regulated financial services environment. This role combines executive-level advisory with hands-on technical leadership across policy discovery, rationalization, migration, automation, validation, governance, and operational transition.

The ideal candidate has led complex, multi-year firewall transformation programs involving thousands of Layer 3/4 and Layer 7 rules across data centers, cloud, campus, and edge environments. They can engage CISOs and senior technology leaders while working credibly with architects and engineers on routing, NAT, zones, objects, application-aware policies, segmentation, rule dependencies, migration sequencing, and cutover risk.

This is a high-visibility consulting role for a transformation leader who can establish the target-state vision, translate it into an executable roadmap, govern delivery, and remain technically engaged through implementation and operational handoff.

Responsibilities

Cybersecurity Strategy & Transformation

• Lead current-state assessment and target-state design for enterprise firewall, segmentation, and network security policy capabilities.
• Define the transformation roadmap, workstreams, migration waves, governance model, architecture principles, delivery controls, and measurable outcomes.
• Direct discovery and normalization of firewall rules, objects, services, NAT, zones, applications, user context, and policy dependencies across complex multi-vendor estates.
• Guide the conversion of legacy Layer 3/4 access rules into appropriately governed Layer 7 and application-aware policy, using least privilege and business intent.
• Establish policies for rule cleanup, deduplication, recertification, exception handling, ownership, expiration, decommissioning, and evidence retention.
• Own transformation risk management, including dependency mapping, migration sequencing, rollback criteria, outage avoidance, and post-change validation.
• Align security architecture, network engineering, application teams, risk, compliance, operations, and business stakeholders around the transformation plan.

Firewall Policy Engineering & Technical Leadership

• Provide design authority for firewall policy architecture, network segmentation, application connectivity, and secure access patterns.
• Lead technical analysis of Layer 3/4 and Layer 7 policies, including source, destination, service, application, identity, NAT, routing, zone, and security-profile implications.
• Validate rule-conversion logic and resolve issues involving shadowed, redundant, overly permissive, stale, or undocumented rules and objects.
• Define migration factories, engineering standards, reusable patterns, quality gates, and test approaches that support safe execution at enterprise scale.
• Guide pre-cutover testing, traffic and path analysis, implementation rehearsals, rollback planning, post-cutover verification, and exception resolution.
• Review detailed designs and implementation artifacts, challenge technical assumptions, and make risk-based decisions when business intent or rule ownership is unclear.
• Coach architects and engineers while maintaining clear executive visibility into delivery progress, technical debt, risk, and decisions.

Tufin, Check Point & Multi-Vendor Transformation

• Serve as the lead advisor for Tufin-based security policy management, with strong experience in SecureTrack and SecureChange capabilities, workflow design, topology and path analysis, compliance controls, rule lifecycle management, and change automation.
• Lead transformation of Check Point firewall policy, including objects, groups, services, NAT, layered policy, access control, application control, management domains, and operational processes.
• Assess and guide Palo Alto Networks policy migration or coexistence where applicable, including Panorama-managed environments, application-aware policy, zones, tags, identity context, security profiles, and rule ordering.
• Define integration requirements across Tufin, firewall management platforms, IT service management, CMDB, IPAM, vulnerability management, and reporting systems.
• Design governed workflows for access requests, risk analysis, approvals, automated policy design, provisioning, verification, recertification, and audit evidence.
• Evaluate automation opportunities while preserving segregation of duties, change control, traceability, and human approval for higher-risk changes.

Transformation Governance & Executive Advisory

• Serve as a trusted advisor to cybersecurity, network, infrastructure, risk, and business executives throughout the transformation.
• Translate complex policy, architecture, migration, and operational risks into clear decisions, investment priorities, and executive recommendations.
• Establish program governance, decision rights, workstream accountability, architecture review, dependency management, escalation paths, and executive reporting.
• Define and track transformation measures such as rule reduction, application coverage, policy compliance, change-cycle time, automation rate, recertification completion, exception aging, deployment quality, and incident impact.
• Build business cases and investment rationales for tooling, engineering capacity, remediation, migration, and operating-model changes.
• Ensure the transformed capability is sustainable through documentation, knowledge transfer, role clarity, support procedures, and operational readiness.

Risk & Regulatory Alignment

• Ensure the transformation aligns with financial-services regulatory expectations, enterprise risk requirements, change controls, cybersecurity standards, and operational resilience objectives.
• Partner with Risk, Compliance, Audit, Legal, and control functions to define evidence, approvals, exception processes, and audit-ready reporting.
• Incorporate segmentation standards, least privilege, policy ownership, periodic recertification, and compensating controls into the target operating model.
• Identify and communicate material risks arising from undocumented access, broad rules, application ambiguity, unsupported platforms, weak ownership, or incomplete migration evidence.

Required Qualifications

• 12+ years of progressive experience in cybersecurity, network security, security architecture, or consulting, including significant responsibility for enterprise transformation delivery.
• Proven leadership of at least one large-scale firewall or network security policy transformation involving complex rulebases, multiple environments, and regulated change processes.
• Deep practical knowledge of firewall policy design and migration across Layer 3/4 and Layer 7 controls, including routing, NAT, zones, objects, services, applications, identity, segmentation, and rule-order behavior.
• Strong hands-on experience with Tufin, particularly SecureTrack and SecureChange, applied to policy discovery, analysis, workflow, compliance, recertification, automation, and verification.
• Advanced experience with Check Point firewalls and management platforms in large enterprise environments.
• Ability to assess policy intent, trace connectivity end to end, identify migration dependencies, and make technically sound tradeoffs under delivery pressure.
• Experience establishing transformation roadmaps, governance, migration waves, quality gates, testing strategies, cutover plans, and operating-model changes.
• Credibility with engineers and architects combined with the ability to advise CISOs, CIOs, risk leaders, and executive steering committees.
• Demonstrated success influencing across cybersecurity, network, infrastructure, application, risk, compliance, audit, and business teams without direct authority.
• Excellent written and verbal communication, including executive presentations, architecture decisions, transformation plans, risk narratives, and business cases.

Preferred Experience

• 10,000-plus-rule enterprise firewall estates, multi-domain environments, or globally distributed transformation programs.
• Palo Alto Networks and Panorama migration, coexistence, or policy optimization experience.
• Check Point-to-Palo Alto, legacy-to-next-generation firewall, data center, cloud, or hybrid policy migrations.
• Tufin integration with IT service management, CMDB, IPAM, vulnerability management, and automated provisioning workflows.
• Application dependency mapping, traffic analysis, policy usage analysis, and business-owner recertification at scale.
• Financial services, banking, insurance, healthcare, or another highly regulated industry.
• Segmentation, Zero Trust, cloud network security, data center modernization, or merger and acquisition integration.
• Consulting experience leading client workshops, executive steering committees, technical design authorities, and delivery recovery efforts.
• Development of security policy standards, control frameworks, operating models, and audit evidence for large enterprises.

Preferred Certifications

One or more of the following is preferred:

• CISSP, CISM, CCSP, or CRISC
• Check Point Certified Security Expert or comparable advanced Check Point certification
• Palo Alto Networks Certified Network Security Engineer or comparable advanced Palo Alto Networks certification
• Tufin product training or demonstrated equivalent delivery experience
• GIAC, SABSA, or relevant cloud and network security certifications