VP of IT and Security

Karbon is the global leader in AI-powered practice management software for accounting firms. We provide an award-winning cloud platform that helps tens of thousands of accounting professionals work more efficiently and collaboratively every day. With customers in 40 countries, we have grown into a globally distributed team across the US, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the Philippines. We are well-funded, ranked #1 on G2, growing rapidly, and have a people-first culture that is recognized with Great Place To Work® certification and on Fortune magazine's Best Small Workplaces™ List.

This is a foundational leadership role at Karbon.

As VP of IT & Security, you will own the following areas:

• Internal IT
  - Identity & Access, devices and configuration
• Security
  - Corporate & Application
• Enterprise incident response, business continuity, and disaster recovery

You are a player-coach. You'll set strategy and own the roadmap, but you're comfortable rolling up your sleeves, analyzing logs, writing and tweaking policies, configuring tools, running a vendor evaluation, or sitting in a SOC 2 evidence review.

You’ll report directly to the CEO and work closely with Engineering, Finance, Legal, and the broader executive team.

You will lead, on day one, an existing small Sec Ops team that will report to you.

This role doesn't exist yet in its current form. You'll be building something meaningful from the ground up and leading the migration of our IT function from our MSP to an in‑house team.

• Own the day-to-day running of Karbon's device fleet and internal systems.
• Establish and manage IT service delivery and support, including helpdesk operations, incident and problem management, and SLAs as we migrate away from our MSP to an internal function.
• Own identity and access management (Okta) including device provisioning and employee onboarding and offboarding.
• Manage endpoint management (MDM) and device policies across our global fleet of pc’s and mac’s.
• Build and manage vendor relationships, including contracts, renewals, and performance.
• Identify opportunities to optimize licence costs.

• Define, maintain, and champion Karbon's strategy, policies, and standards across the organisation.
• Own the internal security tooling stack including EDR, SIEM, email security.
• Lead the Application Security team.
• Develop and maintain Karbon's information security policies and risk management framework.

• Maintain Karbon's Risk Register and own Karbon's SOC 2 program end to end: audit readiness, control design, and auditor relationships, coordinating with internal teams and external partners as control owners for evidence collection.
• Serve as the internal subject matter expert on compliance requirements for customer, partner, and enterprise sales conversations.

• Own and maintain the incident response plan and playbooks
• Define incident severity, escalation paths, and communication protocols, coordinating legal, insurance, and regulatory notification obligations during significant events.
• Own business continuity plans and backup strategy.

Experience

• 12+ years in IT and security with at least 5 years in a senior leadership role.
• Proven track record managing or building an internal IT function - experience having transitioned from an MSP model is a strong advantage.
• Hands‑on operational & security experience and able to assist teams when required.
• Deep familiarity with compliance frameworks such as SOC 2.
• Experience in a B2B SaaS environment is strongly preferred.

Technologies

• Identity & Access Management (Okta & Entra preferred)
• Mobile Device Management / Endpoint Management
• EDR solutions such as Jamf Protect & Microsoft Defender for Endpoint
• At least one major cloud platform either Azure, AWS or GCP
• Office Productivity Platform
  - Google Workspace (preferred) or O365
• Netskope Experience highly regarded

Skills and Approach

• You can move between strategy and execution without losing momentum in either direction.
• Strong communicator able to translate technical concepts into business…