Steve Proud is Chief Information Security Officer at Instructure, where he leads the company’s global approach to security, risk, and compliance. He is responsible for ensuring the platforms educators and learners rely on are secure, resilient, and trusted.
Steve believes that earning and maintaining customer trust is the foundation of great security. He emphasizes that trust must be built through transparency, strong safeguards, and a clear commitment to using data in ways that support, not define, each learner’s journey. At Instructure, Steve focuses on reducing risk, strengthening compliance, and partnering closely with product and engineering teams to embed security into the core of the platform.
With more than 15 years of experience in cybersecurity, Steve has built and led global security teams across organizations, including Sinch, Mailgun, Trace3, NCC Group, Sungard Availability Services, and Boeing. His background spans penetration testing, enterprise security, and large-scale resilience programs.
Steve is known for transforming security into a strategic business enabler. He believes true security and privacy come from understanding and managing the risks that matter most to institutional trust, resilience, and reputation, and helps organizations prioritize effectively by translating complex technical risk into clear business impact.
He emphasizes structured risk communication grounded in three factors: technical feasibility, likelihood, and business impact. His approach helps organizations make more informed decisions, prepare for cyber incidents, and focus resources where they matter most.
Steve holds a bachelor’s degree in cybersecurity from Pennsylvania State University and is a CISSP. Outside of his work at Instructure, he and his wife run Hoops with a Purpose, a nonprofit dedicated to motivating and empowering students to reach their full potential in basketball and beyond.
