With more than 20 years of experience developing and implementing security technology, Tim Brown operates at the forefront of today's cybersecurity world. Since 2017, he's served as Chief Information Security Officer and VP of security for the Austin, Texas-based software company SolarWinds. In this role, Brown is responsible for the company's security compliance, internal audit, IT operations, risk measurement, and remediation efforts.
A key component of his job also includes spearheading the company’s "Secure by Design" initiative, enabling SolarWinds and the overall development community to produce exemplary secure and resilient software and services. Furthermore, Brown has been heavily involved in the launch of the SolarWinds® Hybrid Cloud Observability and SolarWinds Observability solutions, which have resulted in bolstering the company's state-of-the-art security framework.
Brown, who holds a Bachelor of Science in computer science from the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, began his career path as a software engineer. After nearly a decade of cutting his teeth at Wang Laboratories and Pilot Software, he moved over to Axent Technologies, where he got his first taste of cybersecurity. At Axent, he ran teams building products focused on identity management and multi-factor authentication. Shortly after Axent was acquired by Symantec in 1999, Brown joined the CTO office, where he focused on architecture and strategy across the company.
When Brown isn't helping to launch some great products, he's inventing them on his own, as he currently holds 18 patents on security-related topics. He is also a former Dell Fellow and is regularly asked to make presentations on IT security. Over the years, he's spoken in front of a wide range of audiences, including the Texas Cyber Summit, Black Hat EMEA, the Africa Executive Summit, CyberSecure, and the ISACA Conference North America, Lloyds of London, the U.S. Congress, and the White House.
Away from SolarWinds, Brown is a member of the advisory board for Clemson University. In the past he served on the board of the Open Identity Exchange; and was a member of the Trans Global Secure Collaboration Program. More recently, in April 2023, Brown was named CISO of the year by the Globee® Cybersecurity Awards.