Holmes announced the move in a LinkedIn post, writing that he accepted the role earlier this year after more than 25 years in the private sector helping organizations navigate cyber transformation, ransomware, extortion and major cyber events.“What attracted me to this role was the opportunity to gain a broader perspective on where national security is heading,” Holmes wrote. “Public sector was one perspective I had not yet experienced, and with AI, cyber resilience, threat intelligence, and public-private collaboration rapidly converging, I wanted a front-row seat to that transformation.”
According to his LinkedIn profile, Holmes is leading cybersecurity, AI, cyber resilience, threat intelligence and innovation initiatives for TxOAG. His work includes AI-enabled cyber operations, breach and extortion response workflows, threat intelligence analysis and cross-functional incident response readiness.
Before joining the agency, Holmes held executive roles at Legal & General, Kivu Consulting, Optiv Security Inc., EY, FireEye, Intel Corp. and McAfee. His background includes incident response, cyber recovery, security engineering, AI strategy, board advisory work and cybersecurity transformation. The new CISO role is his first venture into public service.
Cybersecurity is changing faster than at any point in his career, Holmes said, as AI accelerates both attack and defense. “The next decade of cybersecurity won’t be defined by better tools alone,” he wrote. “It will be defined by how effectively we combine intelligence, resilience, collaboration, and AI to defend against increasingly sophisticated threats.”
His LinkedIn profile lists studies at Harvard Business School and the University of Alabama, as well as a certification from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in designing and building AI products and services.
