BetterUp Names Bryan Payne as Chief Information Security Officer

(US and Canada) BetterUp, the San-Francisco-based inventor of virtual professional coaching and global leader in mental fitness for the enterprise, today announced that Bryan Payne, PhD, will join the company as Chief Information Security Officer.

Dr. Payne will continue BetterUp’s commitment to best-in-class data protection and security. The newly created role will also oversee all aspects of information security for BetterUp, including product and enterprise security, customer trust, compliance, and overall cyber risk management. This builds on BetterUp’s existing security program, which is already in compliance with GDPR, CCPA, and SOC 2 privacy regulations.

“From day one, trust and data security have been at the core of everything we’ve built at BetterUp. That’s been a critical linchpin in our pursuit to create tools that harness cutting-edge technology and product innovation – grounded in research and science – to support individuals and organizations to thrive,” said Alexi Robichaux, CEO and co-founder of BetterUp. “The security of our users has been integral to the deeply-rooted trust BetterUp has built over the years. We are incredibly excited to bring Dr. Payne and his exceptional expertise in security scaling to BetterUp, especially as we continue to support more and more members across the world through their transformation journeys.”

Payne has focused his entire career on computer security and data privacy, most recently at Netflix where he served as Engineering Director, Product and Application Security. During his tenure, he led the organization’s pioneering global scalable programs that covered product security for all software created at the company, customer fraud and abuse protections, infrastructure security, critical software services, and security program management. Prior to that, Dr. Payne was Director of Security Research at Nebula, Inc., where he led a world-class team to build security into an enterprise private cloud product while also founding and leading the global security group for OpenStack.

“I was immediately attracted to BetterUp’s mission to help people unlock their potential. To enable this business, it’s critically important for us to continue being good stewards of customer data and to scale the overall security program,” said Bryan Payne, Chief Information Security Officer of BetterUp. “I couldn’t be more excited to join during a time where the company is not only continuing to innovate on new products and solutions for customers, but also experiencing such transformational global growth.”

BetterUp supports hundreds of thousands of employees across global organizations like Hilton, AB InBev, NASA, Salesforce, Chevron, and Snap Inc. Most recently, the company also announced two additions to the executive team, including Tom Van Gilder as its first Chief Medical Officer, formerly Chief Medical Officer at Walmart, and Omar Dawood as President of BetterUp Care™, most recently from Calm and Ginger.

In late 2021, BetterUp announced its global expansion with the addition of new offices in Munich, London, and Amsterdam and a US$300 million Series E fundraising round, bringing the company’s valuation to US$4.7 billion and total funding to US$600 million, marking BetterUp as the largest mental health and coaching company in the world.