Principal IT Security Architect

Job Details

CNO Financial Group, Inc. (NYSE: CNO) is a leading insurance and financial services company focused on securing the future of middle‑income America. Through brands such as Bankers Life, Colonial Penn and Washington National, CNO delivers life and health insurance, annuities, financial services, and workforce benefits to more than 3.3 million policyholders, supported by $38.3 billion in total assets.

With a strong financial foundation, national presence, and a culture rooted in integrity, excellence, and people‑first values, CNO offers meaningful opportunities for professional growth and impact across its U.S. locations, including its headquarters in Carmel, Indiana.

CNO Financial Group’s IT Team is hiring a Principal IT Security Architect who will play a key role in shaping CNO’s enterprise security strategy, architecture, standards, and approach to securing both existing and emerging technologies. This role is responsible for defining security requirements; designing, implementing, and evaluating security solutions; conducting internal and third‑party security assessments; and developing security policies, standards, and procedures. Working closely with IT leaders, Enterprise Architects, and other Principal Architects, this position applies deep technical expertise and industry knowledge to design enterprise‑level security architectures.

The role will lead security architecture efforts across all cybersecurity domains for new technology implementations, major system changes, and mergers and acquisitions, and will drive updates to architecture, standards, and policies in response to regulatory or business change. This position requires broad and deep information technology experience, strong architectural judgment, and the ability to influence across the organization.

Core responsibilities and deliverables:

• Defining complex security architectures that are necessary to integrate new entities when a merger or acquisition is complete, including leading various levels of technology resource through the decision-making process.

• Communicating complex technical and security concepts in clear, business‑focused language to audiences ranging from technical teams to senior and executive leadership.

• Analyzing and understanding the impact of regulation changes on security architecture, standards and policies, including making and communicating updates as needed.

• Providing guidance and coaching to cybersecurity lead and senior architects and engineers, and providing overall technical expertise to the cybersecurity department and business stakeholders.

• Researching, modeling, and tracking secure system standards, industry trends, market technology, potential threats, tactics, and procedures for ecosystem applicability and reference.

• Developing formal management reporting dashboards aligned to widely accepted standards, including appropriate metrics that inform senior leadership as to the state of information security risk and exposure.

• Effectively communicating risk and mitigation activities to all levels of the organization during incident or risk treatment actions, to inform critical decision-making and deliver risk reductions.

• Identifying, quantifying, and documenting requirements to address security risks as they relate to IT and enterprise projects.

• Recognizing and identifying potential areas where existing security policies and procedures require change, or where new ones need to be developed, especially regarding future business expansion.

• Performing third-party security risk assessments, especially for cloud service providers and responding to third-party requests for information on CNO’s information security program/policies.

• Ensuring that the organization is leveraging the proper technologies to meet SOX, PCI, and HIPAA/HITECH compliance requirements.

• Serving as a subject matter expert for the incident lead during Incident Response activities.

• Leading matrix working groups during Incident Response activities.

• Supporting legal and Internal Audit activities and information gathering when needed, and effectively communicating complex security topics to these teams.

• Assessing, advising, and supporting AI security initiatives by applying AI governance frameworks, evaluating security posture, identifying adoption risks, and mitigating exploitation threats.

What you’ll need (Minimum requirements):

• Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology or a related field of study, or equivalent experience.

• 12 years of progressive IT experience with 5+ years’ experience as a security architect or related role.

• Demonstrated enterprise‑level expertise across core cybersecurity domains, including identity and access management, privileged access management, security operations, incident response, vulnerability management, infrastructure and application security, and business/technology resiliency.

• Experience implementing and ensuring compliance with DoD STIG, Critical Infrastructure Protection, FedRAMP or other security requirement frameworks or guides.

• A strong ability to apply business and technical knowledge to solving technology and security challenges, including security incident response activities.

What will set you apart (Preferred experience):

• Masters Degree in Information Technology or a related field of study.

• Strong verbal and written communication skills to communicate complex technology concepts, risks and incident occurrences to all levels of an organization, including IT leadership, Third Party Partners, and business partners.

• CISSP or other relevant security certifications (CCSP, CISM, SSCP, etc.)

• Strong experience across complex enterprise technology environments including operating systems, networking, storage, identity providers, data center infrastructure, cloud service provider architecture, and mainstream platforms (e.g., Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, etc.)

CNO Financial Group offers the following benefits for this position, subject to applicable eligibility requirements:

• Medical, Dental, and Vision insurance

• Performance-based bonus or sales incentive

• 401(k) retirement plan with company match

• Short-term & long-term disability insurance

• Paid time off and 10 corporate holidays

• Paid parental leave

• Company-paid life insurance

• Mental & Financial Well-Being resources

Click on this link for additional information.

CNO supports a flexible work environment and encourages Associates to work where they are most productive. This position may work fully remote from any EST or CST US-based location. All work must be performed within the United States, and occasional travel to corporate offices may be required.

Associates living within 60 miles of a corporate office (Carmel, IN or Chicago, IL) have access to work from that location as needed.

The stated pay range is based on a national-average location. Actual salary is determined by factors including relevant work experience, skills and location. This position is also eligible for CNO’s performance-based annual bonus program.

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Compensation

Pay Range: $157,800.00 - $236,800.00 Annual

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation.