Andy Schneider, born and raised in Munich, Germany, entered the field of IT Security at an early stage in 2000. Trained as a Mainframe System Programmer, he took responsibility for a regional bank institute’s entire mainframe landscape security. He then grew his specialisation in the field of IT Security and IT Risk Management throughout various related roles like Consultant, Specialist and CISO, while transforming IT Security across different businesses and company sizes, including startup, regional and multinational within banking, IT and media. With more than 20 years of international security experience, he currently acts as the Field CISO EMEA of Lacework (acquired by Fortinet in Aug 2024), a US Cloud Native Security vendor and is also active advisor for TX Ventures (a Swiss VC), EquityPitcher and several security startups. Andy worked for various companies like TX Group (the largest private media company of Switzerland), always aiming to become Cyber Security more agile, more user focused and embed security by design into digital products. He further holds several well-respected professional certifications, such as the C-CISO, CISM, CISSP, CRISC, and is also certified in ISO 27001 and ITIL V3. He lives with his wife and two sons in Zurich, Switzerland.