Karl Schimmeck

Karl Schimmeck is Senior Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer at Synchrony Financial, where he leads the company’s Information Security, Cybersecurity, and Data Protection programs and regularly engages with management, boards, regulators, and law enforcement on sensitive matters. He brings deep expertise in incident response, crisis management, and global cybersecurity regulations.

Prior to joining Synchrony, Karl served as Executive Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer at Northern Trust, overseeing the bank’s information security strategy, cybersecurity, data protection, and incident response. Before that, he held several leadership roles at Morgan Stanley, including Chief Information Security Officer for U.S. Banks and head of the Global Security Assurance team, covering security architecture, cloud security, and security monitoring. He also led Global Vulnerability Management, which included vulnerability management, application security, penetration testing, and cybersecurity exercises, and established the Government Partnerships and Industry Engagement office to manage Morgan Stanley’s collaboration with government agencies, regulators, and private sector partners on technology and security risks.

Earlier in his career, Karl was Managing Director, Cybersecurity, Business Resiliency & Operational Risk at the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA), where he led financial sector advocacy on cybersecurity and helped develop the NIST Cybersecurity Framework. He began in financial services in operational risk at Goldman Sachs, focusing on risk measurement, control design, and automation, and prior to that worked in product management and solution design at Parametric Technology Corp. (PTC). Karl started his career as a communications and information systems officer in the U.S. Marine Corps, achieving the rank of Captain.

Karl has provided extensive industry leadership, contributing to the founding of the Financial Services Analysis and Resiliency Center (FS-ARC) and Sheltered Harbor. He served in leadership roles within the Financial Services Sector Coordinating Council (FSSCC) and currently sits on the Boards of the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FS-ISAC) and the Cyber Risk Institute (CRI).

He holds an MBA from NYU Stern School of Business and a BS in Operations Research and Industrial Engineering from Cornell University.