Palo Alto Networks
Wendi Whitmore serves as senior vice president for Unit 42 at Palo Alto Networks. She is a globally recognized cybersecurity leader, with two decades of experience building incident response and threat intelligence teams that have helped clients solve some of the world’s largest breaches. Wendi leads Unit 42, a team of elite incident responders and world-renowned threat researchers. The combined team helps organizations tackle the most complex cyberthreats — from ransomware to state-sponsored espionage. In 2022, Wendi was named an inaugural member of the first-ever Cyber Safety Review Board launched by the United States Department of Homeland Security. She also serves as the chair of the industry advisory board for the Duke University Master of Engineering in Cybersecurity (MECS), and as a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Cybersecurity.
She began her career as a Special Agent conducting computer crime investigations with the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. Wendi joined Palo Alto Networks from IBM, where she led the global X-Force incident response, threat intelligence, incident command, and cyber range teams.
She previously held executive level positions in the professional services organizations of CrowdStrike and Mandiant.
Wendi regularly meets with executive leadership teams and boards to advise them on strengthening their security programs to address their most-pressing threats. She is a frequent speaker at high-profile technical conferences and has taught graduate-level computer science and cybersecurity courses at Carnegie Mellon University and The George Washington University.