Chief Information Security Officer (CISO)

Business Unit:

Information Technology

Industry:

No Industry

Overview

Houlihan Lokey, Inc. (NYSE:HLI) is a leading global investment bank recognized for delivering independent strategic and financial advice to corporations, financial sponsors, and governments. With uniquely deep industry expertise, broad international reach, and a partnership approach rooted in trust, the firm provides innovative, integrated solutions across mergers and acquisitions, capital solutions, financial restructuring, and financial and valuation advisory. Our unmatched transaction volumes provide differentiated, data-driven perspectives that help our clients achieve their most critical goals. To learn more about Houlihan Lokey, please visit HL.com.

Overview

Houlihan Lokey (NYSE:HLI) is a global investment bank with expertise in mergers and acquisitions, capital markets, financial restructuring, and valuation. The firm serves corporations, institutions, and governments worldwide with offices in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific region. Independent advice and intellectual rigor are hallmarks of the firm’s commitment to client success across its advisory services.

Houlihan Lokey is the No. 1 investment bank for all global mergers and acquisitions (M&A) transactions, the No. 1 M&A advisor for the past seven consecutive years in the U.S., the No. 1 global restructuring advisor for the past eight consecutive years, and the No. 1 global M&A fairness opinion advisor for the past 20 years, all based on number of transactions and according to data provided by Refinitiv. For more information, please visit www.hl.com.

Scope

As Chief Information Security Officer, you lead information security for a global investment bank whose business depends on the confidence of its clients. You are accountable for protecting that information across the firm’s global platform and are the firm’s senior voice on security with executive management, the audit committee, and the Board.

This role calls for a leader who is as comfortable setting standards as running an incident, with the credibility to secure executive support and the pragmatism to weigh protection against the way people actually work. You lead the firm’s security and governance teams, own the security investment portfolio, and partner across technology, legal, compliance, and the business to keep Houlihan Lokey both well defended and fast.

Key Responsibilities

• Own the firm’s information security strategy, operating model, budget, and multi-year roadmap, grounded in a risk-based assessment against the NIST Cybersecurity Framework and a prioritized maturity plan with measurable milestones.
• Partner with Legal and Compliance to author security policies and standards, and own their communication and enforcement firm-wide.
• Deliver risk-based reporting to senior management, the audit committee, and the Board, and lead the firm’s cybersecurity governance forum.
• Direct security operations with the firm’s managed detection and response and SOC providers, including SIEM modernization, monitoring across endpoint, identity, cloud, and SaaS, AI-enabled triage and response, and 24/7 incident response.
• Own identity and access management, including multi-factor and passwordless authentication, privileged access, and least-privilege access models.
• Mature vulnerability and exposure management across internal, external, and cloud environments, with clear remediation ownership and service levels.
• Own data protection and governance, including classification, encryption, data loss prevention, and support for legal and discovery requests.
• Establish application security standards for both professional and business-led development, including guardrails for AI-enabled development and agentic tooling.
• Lead the firm’s human risk program, including phishing simulations, red team exercises, and heightened protection for publicly visible executives.
• Rationalize the security tool portfolio and own vendor and third-party security risk, including security due diligence for acquisitions.
• Ensure compliance with regulatory, privacy, and client contractual requirements, and lead responses to audits, regulator inquiries, and client due diligence.
• Build, lead, and develop the information security and governance, risk, and compliance teams.

Required Qualifications

• 15+ years of progressive information security experience, including at least 5 years leading an enterprise security function in a global, regulated environment.
• Demonstrated ownership of a full security program, built or matured against a recognized framework such as the NIST Cybersecurity Framework or ISO 27001.
• Experience reporting to boards, audit committees, and regulators, translating technical risk into business terms and metrics.
• Deep working knowledge across security operations, identity and privileged access, cloud security, zero-trust access, data protection, and application security.
• Proven incident response leadership, including coordination with external counsel, response partners, and executives.
• Experience writing and enforcing policy in a professional services or partnership culture.
• Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, or a related field. Master’s degree or MBA preferred.

Preferred Qualifications

• CISSP, CISM, or equivalent certification, along with a current cloud security certification.
• Experience in investment banking or another regulated financial services environment.
• Experience leading security due diligence and integration for acquisitions.
• Experience consolidating a multi-vendor security stack and securing a hybrid estate through a cloud migration.
• Experience governing AI-assisted development and tools built by business users.

Soft Skills

• Communicate with clarity and credibility at every level, and influence without relying on authority.
• Balance judgment and pragmatism, enabling new technology safely rather than defaulting to restriction.
• Hold a firm line where it matters while preserving strong working relationships.
• Stay composed and decisive under pressure, and take full ownership of outcomes.

About the Team

We believe that as we grow individually, we also grow as an Information Technology team allowing us to contribute to the overall growth of Houlihan Lokey. We embrace challenges and try new things, always looking for ways to improve. We deliver technology products and services enabled everywhere, so business can happen anywhere. We like where we work, who we work with, and what we do. We cultivate a culture where we all thrive.

Compensation and Benefits

Houlihan Lokey is committed to providing its employees with an exciting career opportunity and competitive total compensation package, which may include other components such as discretionary incentive compensation. The firm’s good faith and reasonable estimate of the possible salary range for this role at the time of posting is:

$325,000-$350,000

Actual salary at the time of hire may vary and may be above or below the range based on various factors, including, but not limited to, the candidate’s relevant qualifications, skills, and experience and the location where this position may be filled.

Houlihan Lokey provides a competitive benefits package. Our current benefits offerings can be found here:

2026 Benefits

We are an equal opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.

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