I work at the intersection of cyber defense, AI safety, and emerging risk, where the threats are converging and the playbooks are still being written.

My career has taken me from the Marine Corps to NSA, U.S. Cyber Command, the U.S. House of Representatives, Mandiant, and Netflix. Across every role, one throughline: understanding adversaries, building high-trust teams, and translating complex problems into strategies leaders can act on.

Today, I advise organizations, governments, and research institutions on AI governance, agentic threat preparedness, and unifying safety and security into a single discipline. I contribute to global standards efforts including the EU AI Act (via OWASP AI) and lead executive education on cybersecurity and AI strategy at SANS.

If you’re navigating the future of AI risk or security strategy, let’s connect.

Chris Cochran

As a U.S. Marine who spent years working alongside special operations teams, I learned that different missions require radically different mindsets.

Everybody loves the Navy SEAL archetype: aggressive, adaptive, and masters of improvisation.

But if you deploy AI agents with that mindset, you are inviting disaster. AI doesn’t have the judgment to improvise. When it tries, it makes mistakes.

In high-stakes business environments, you don't need the "bang" of chaos; you need the "whisper" of control. You need more of a Delta Force methodology.

In my latest article, I break down why AI requires more determinism, and less heroism, and introduce CONTROL for governing agentic AI.

Read the full strategy below. 👇

Field CISO & VP, AI Security @ SANS | Bridging Cyber Defense and Frontier AI Risk | Ex-NSA, Netflix, Mandiant | US Marine Veteran

Let me set the tone clearly: This is not a debate about which group is "better." Both are elite. Both accomplish the impossible. As a US Marine, I res

Open article: Why You Need to Manage AI Agents Like Delta Force, Not Navy SEALs by Chris Cochran • 4 min read

Why You Need to Manage AI Agents Like Delta Force, Not Navy SEALs

What is your current view of AI in cybersecurity? I bet its a mixed bag. 

Foster Nethercott wants to hear directly from you. 

Make your voice heard. 

Just want the TLDR? Rob T. Lee and Foster will be hosting a livestream July 15th to cover the insights. 

Links to both in the comments. 

SANS Institute

Transformational CIO with over 20+ years leading people, processes, and technology involved in managing global IT infrastructure, cybersecurity, strategy, technology governance, and operations in diverse, fast-paced, environments.  Focused on business and technology alignment to secure and advance the speed of doing business and enhancing the bottom line.  Core goal is to positively impact lives for those building and using secure, advanced technology through mentoring, training and encouragement.

Experience: Industries impacted include manufacturing, financial services, healthcare, insurance, energy and non-profits. Extensive efforts in mergers and acquisitions, cybersecurity, infrastructure management, disaster recovery, and building staff, partner and vendor relationships. Serving extensively in multiple, concurrent interim CIO, CISO, and CTO roles to coach teams and organizations through change, challenges or roadblocks.  Organizations range in size from $100MM to $5B+ annually- So far.

Expertise: Leadership, SaaS, Infrastructure, Cybersecurity, Turn Around, IT Management, Mergers and Acquisitions/Divestitures, Start-ups, Digital Transformations, Data Center Management, Network Management, IT Project Management, Tactical and Strategic Planning, C-Level Communications, and Disaster Recovery/Resilience Management.

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