Business & Technology
SolarWinds appoints Justin Henkel as chief security officer
SOFIAH NICHOLE SALIVIO
News Editor
SolarWinds has appointed Justin Henkel as Chief Information Security Officer. He joins the software company from OneTrust.
Henkel takes on the role after nearly five years at OneTrust, where he began as Head of the CISO Centre of Excellence and later became Deputy CISO. His work focused on enterprise risk, resilience, and security operations.
The appointment brings in a security executive with experience across government and private-sector roles. Henkel also served as an intelligence officer in the United States Air Force from 2001 to 2025.
Before OneTrust, he held cybersecurity leadership roles at CME Group and iSIGHT Partners, focusing on threat intelligence. His background also includes vulnerability management and third-party risk.
Henkel takes on the remit as organisations face a more complex security environment and growing pressure to manage cyber risk across large, distributed technology estates. SolarWinds sells observability and IT management software to customers operating hybrid and distributed systems.
Security background
Henkel’s career spans military intelligence, financial services, and corporate cybersecurity. That mix is relatively uncommon in senior information security appointments, particularly at software suppliers serving a broad base of enterprise and public-sector customers.
He holds a master’s in intelligence studies, focused on political and military intelligence, from the American Public University System. He also has an executive certificate in technology and operations from MIT Sloan School of Management.
The leadership change also reflects how software groups are placing greater weight on senior security roles as cyber governance becomes more closely tied to operational decision-making. Boards and executive teams are giving resilience, threat monitoring, and third-party risk closer scrutiny.
SolarWinds remains closely associated with cyber resilience in the market’s eyes following the far-reaching security breach disclosed in 2020, which drew sustained attention from customers, regulators, and the wider technology industry. As a result, clients and partners are likely to watch senior security hires at the company closely.
Sudhakar Ramakrishna, President and Chief Executive Officer of SolarWinds, linked the appointment to the company’s security posture and broader technology direction.
“As the threat landscape grows more complex and threat actors more sophisticated, we need a CISO who has operated at the highest levels of both public and private sector security,” said Sudhakar Ramakrishna, President and Chief Executive Officer of SolarWinds.
“Justin’s breadth of experience across government and industry makes him exceptionally well positioned to strengthen our resilience posture as we continue to push the boundaries of what’s possible in AI-driven IT.”
Broader remit
The reference to AI reflects a wider issue facing technology suppliers and their customers as they bring new automation and machine learning tools into production systems. Security leaders are being asked not only to defend infrastructure and applications, but also to assess how those tools affect data handling, access control, and incident response.
At SolarWinds, the Chief Information Security Officer role sits at the intersection of internal security, product trust, and customer assurance. That can include oversight of resilience planning, threat intelligence, security operations, and governance processes that large customers increasingly expect to review.
Henkel described the move as coming at an important moment for the company.
“I’m proud to be joining SolarWinds at such a pivotal moment,” said Justin Henkel, Chief Information Security Officer of SolarWinds.
“I see a company that has shown both singular resilience and genuine innovation, and I believe together we’ll set a new standard for operational resilience that helps our customers confidently accelerate in the age of AI.”
His appointment comes as software companies continue to compete for senior security leaders with experience in intelligence, cyber operations, and enterprise risk. Demand has risen as customers ask tougher questions about how vendors secure products, manage vulnerabilities, and respond to incidents.
That pressure has extended beyond regulated sectors such as finance and government into mainstream enterprise software, where procurement teams often expect more detailed information on security controls and resilience measures before signing contracts.
Henkel’s background in threat intelligence may be particularly relevant in that environment, as companies try to move from reactive incident handling to a broader view of attacker behaviour, supplier exposure, and business continuity. His experience in both the Air Force and private-sector security teams gives him exposure to the cross-disciplinary risks many companies now face.
He joins SolarWinds after serving as Deputy CISO at OneTrust and following a military career that ran from 2001 to 2025.
SOFIAH NICHOLE SALIVIO
News Editor
FICO has added DataOps features to its FICO Platform to support wider AI adoption in businesses.
The update focuses on three areas: data pipeline operations, data quality and validation, and optimisation and decisioning. FICO has brought those elements together within the platform so companies can manage data flows, governance and decisions in one environment.
The move comes as many companies push ahead with AI projects while struggling with the underlying data systems needed to support them. Broken data pipelines, poor data quality and slow governance processes can undermine model performance and make operational decisions harder to explain, particularly in regulated sectors.
FICO said the enhanced platform now treats data quality and governance as a core part of the product. Data inputs can be classified and checked against defined standards before use, while data lineage can be tracked from source to decision and from decision to outcome.
The approach is aimed at organisations that need closer oversight of how data informs automated decisions. Industries such as credit, fraud and collections often face tighter scrutiny over reliability, traceability and compliance when using AI systems in live operations.
Alongside governance, the new DataOps functions are designed to reduce manual work in building, managing and monitoring data pipelines. Their scope includes decision context, data productisation and environment management across pipeline development.
FICO argues that applying software engineering methods such as version control, reproducibility, rollback and continuous integration to data infrastructure can make development cycles shorter and more predictable. In practical terms, teams can spend less time maintaining supporting systems and more time working on models and decisions.
Nikhil Behl, President of Software at FICO, outlined the company’s view of the problem facing AI projects in many organisations.
“The investment in AI is real. The infrastructure to support it, in most organizations, is not. For organizations running credit decisions, fraud detection, or collections operations at scale, the stakes of operational failure are high. A data pipeline that shifts subtly but without detection, a model that drifts without a correction, a deployment that cannot be rolled back safely – any of these can produce suboptimal or even catastrophic decisions that are difficult to explain and create risk of compliance failure,” said Nikhil Behl, President of Software at FICO.
Platform focus
The additions extend FICO’s existing decisioning tools rather than sit beside them as a separate layer. By linking data pipelines with model operations and decisioning, the company is positioning the platform as a system that manages the path from incoming data to business outcome within a governed framework.
For companies adopting AI, that integration addresses a common operational gap. Models may be developed successfully, but if the data arriving in production changes unexpectedly, or if teams cannot trace how a decision was reached, confidence in those systems can weaken quickly.
FICO, known for analytics and decisioning software used across financial services and other industries, has long focused on operational decision-making. The latest update reflects a broader industry trend in which software suppliers are trying to tie AI tools more closely to data management and governance controls.
Businesses in sectors including banking, insurance, telecommunications, healthcare and retail are under pressure to show that AI systems are reliable and accountable. That has pushed demand beyond model building alone towards tools that monitor data quality, document lineage and support rollback when systems behave unexpectedly.
Behl said the company sees the latest update as filling a missing link between data operations and decision management.
“FICO Platform now completes the enterprise intelligence stack, connecting data pipelines, model operations, and decisioning into a single governed environment. From the moment data enters the system to the moment a decision is made, organizations have visibility, control, and confidence at every step,” said Behl.
Mini Boden, the children’s line of Boden, is planning a local shoot in Barrington, near Burford.
The retailer is looking for children to take part in the shoot.
Boden is looking for girls or boys between three to 10 years old, and height around 100 to 145cm.
The brand currently sells in John Lewis department stores.
READ MORE: Oxfordshire mental health experts respond to social media ban
The shoot will take place on the town often referred to as the ‘gateway to the Cotswolds’.
The Cotswolds have been used for numerous shoots, with British Vogue regularly using the area as a location for its countryside fashion stories.
One of the most modern fashion shoots in the Cotswolds was the British Vogue feature in 2018 starring David and Victoria Beckham at their Cotswolds estate.
Applications can be filled out at https://forms.monday.com/forms/54eec8517d1fda0e3623b3fa41046e84?r=use1
In an update released on Tuesday, the former Top Gear and Grand Tour host said he had “good news” to share.
This relates to his drinks brand Hawkstone, the creation of which was shown on Amazon Prime series Clarkson’s Farm, the final episodes of which were released last night.
READ MORE: Jeremy Clarkson makes ‘sombre’ announcement amid difficulties
The popular show first premiered in 2021 and was an instant hit with viewers making stars out of its cast which include Mr Clarkson’s partner Lisa Hogan and farmhand Kaleb Cooper.
It has been renewed for a sixth series.
He said: “The good news is that Hawkstone has finally had an advert accepted and it will be shown just before kick off in the England match.”
England is set to play its first game at the 2026 World Cup against Croatia at 9pm this evening in Texas.
Hawkstone, which produces both beer and cider and is named after an Oxfordshire landmark, is also the name of the choir that won the latest series of Britain’s Got Talent.
READ MORE: Global music legend Katy Perry, 41, opens up on ‘hardest year’
Made entirely up of farmers, the Hawkstone Choir was initially formed by Mr Clarkson for an advertising campaign for the beer brand.
However, following that they continued to sing together with their harmonies and mental health messaging resonating with the ITV viewers.
It is unknown whether the singers will appear in this new commercial.
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