CISO Conversations: James Robinson, Many Jobs, One Journey to Netskope CISO
SecurityWeek, Thursday, October 15th, 2026
Netskope's CISO went from vocational school and Cisco's Networking Academy to security leadership by taking each new opportunity.
SecurityWeek profiles James Robinson, who describes himself as 'more sporty than STEM' at a small Illinois high school, where a vocational electronics program that had just joined Cisco's Networking Academy launched him into networking.
He became a CCIE-certified network engineer at State Farm, and when the dot-com crash blocked a move to Cisco, he was told 'this security thing is going to be big' and moved into security.
He then held roles at Anheuser-Busch, Emerson, Websense and Optiv before becoming CISO at Netskope.
The interview covers how varied jobs built his perspective and what he looks for in security leadership.