Amazon's new board member is a cybersecurity founder who sold his last company to Google for $5.4B

by Todd Bishop on Sep 9, 2026 at 4:09 pm September 9, 2026 at 4:11 pm Share Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn Email New Amazon board member Kevin Mandia is a cybersecurity veteran. (Photo via Amazon) Amazon named cybersecurity veteran Kevin Mandia to its board of directors , adding new security expertise a few months after former NSA director Keith Alexander stepped down . Mandia founded Mandiant, the breach-investigation firm Google acquired for $5.4 billion in 2022 , and remained at the search giant as a strategic advisor through July 2025, according to his LinkedIn profile. He now leads Armadin , an AI security startup he started last year. Amazon said in its announcement that “cybersecurity is one of the most consequential risks and responsibilities organizations face today, and the threat landscape continues to evolve rapidly alongside advances in AI.” Amazon added a cybersecurity specialist to its board in 2020, when it elected Alexander, who also led U.S. Cyber Command. Mandia comes from the other side of the field, with two decades spent investigating corporate breaches rather than defending government networks. His appointment also puts an AI security entrepreneur on the board of a company whose cloud infrastructure underpins much of the internet. Armadin, founded in September 2025, uses AI to run attacks against corporate networks, probing defenses the way an intruder would. The board’s Security Committee, which oversees Amazon’s cybersecurity policies and its response to significant cyber incidents, is now chaired by Dan Huttenlocher, dean of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing. Mandia joins as a member, along with former Bridgewater co-CEO Jon Rubinstein. Amazon also named Mandia to the board’s Audit Committee, according to a securities filing . Mandia received 4,086 restricted stock units in connection with his election to the board, vesting in three equal annual installments beginning Nov. 15, 2027, the filing shows. The shares were worth about $1.03 million at Amazon’s closing price Wednesday. The filing disclosed that his sister-in-law, Kristin Mandia, is an Amazon employee with an annual salary of $185,000. The company said her compensation is consistent with that of other employees at her level with similar responsibilities.