TrendAI Appoints Richard Harrison as First Auckland-Based Global VP

TrendAI has named Richard Harrison, most recently chief information security officer (CISO) at Foodstuffs South Island, as its first Auckland-based global vice president of AI security. The role marks the first global executive post TrendAI, the AI security arm of Trend Micro, has ever based in New Zealand, and it lands two days before the company’s Spark 2026 conference opens in Wellington.

The appointment also puts a number on an uncomfortable trend. As AI security vendors compete for credibility with buyers, they are drawing from a CISO population that a 2026 report from Cybersecurity Ventures and Sophos puts at roughly 35,000 people worldwide, covering an estimated 359 million businesses.

A Global Title Lands in Auckland for the First Time

Trend Micro, the cybersecurity vendor behind TrendAI, rebuilt its enterprise business this year around a single brand. In March 2026 the company folded its enterprise portfolio into one AI-focused platform, TrendAI Vision One, pitched as a single console for managing AI risk across an organisation’s infrastructure, models and users.

Global vice president roles at security vendors are usually based in hubs like Silicon Valley, London or Singapore, not Auckland. TrendAI broke that pattern for Harrison, betting that a global AI security lead working out of New Zealand brings a closer read on what mid-sized organisations actually need than an executive stationed in a larger, more insulated market. Harrison will work with TrendAI’s global AI security leadership team and product group to help customers manage AI deployments while cutting governance gaps and operational complexity, the company said.

Two Decades on the Customer Side of Security

Harrison spent more than 20 years in cybersecurity before joining a vendor. His resume runs almost entirely through operating roles, not sales ones:

• Foodstuffs South Island – CISO overseeing security across more than 200 stores and roughly 14,000 staff at one of New Zealand’s largest retail cooperatives, his last post before TrendAI.
• Accenture – led the firm’s New Zealand Cybersecurity Practice, advising enterprise clients on risk and defence programmes.
• healthAlliance – CISO of what was then New Zealand’s largest public sector shared services health organisation.

TrendAI said Harrison understands what CISOs need day to day and over the long term, how to bridge the gap between security teams and senior leadership, and which product capabilities actually deliver value to customers. That background is the pitch behind the hire.

TrendAI’s Fast Build-Out

Harrison’s appointment is the newest step in a rapid sequence of moves TrendAI has made to establish itself in AI security.

1. December 2025: Trend Micro introduces its first bundled AI risk management offering at AWS re:Invent, covering AI systems from model development through runtime.
2. March 2026: The company rebrands its enterprise business as TrendAI, unifying its product line under one AI-focused platform.
3. June 2026: TrendAI opens its AI Security Package to partners through a new Inception Program.
4. July 2026: TrendAI names Harrison its first Auckland-based global executive, days ahead of the Spark 2026 stops in Wellington and Auckland.

Investors are watching the same buildout. A wave of security stocks catching a tailwind from the Anthropic-Alibaba fight shows how much capital is chasing the same problem Harrison now gets paid to help customers solve.

Closing the Gap Between Threats and Defenders

AI adoption is accelerating faster than security, governance, and risk models can keep up. The gap is widening between fast evolving threats and defenders’ ability to respond. Closing that gap and doing it in a way that builds real trust in AI is my key focus.

Harrison said in a statement announcing his appointment, adding that he wants to use his real-world CISO experience to help organisations reach that goal. It is a specific pitch aimed at a specific customer: security leaders who want a vendor executive who has sat in their chair, not just sold into it.

How Scarce Are Experienced CISOs Right Now?

Roughly 35,000 CISOs work worldwide against some 359 million businesses, a ratio near 10,000 to 1, according to the 2026 Cybersecurity Ventures and Sophos report. The SANS Institute and GIAC’s 2026 workforce survey found 60% of CISOs now rank the skills gap above headcount as their top concern, a first in the report’s three-year history.

Other recent data points move the same direction:

Every one of those numbers describes the pool TrendAI just recruited from. Other AI security vendors are chasing the same scarce operators. Xage has staked its agentic AI security bet on NVIDIA’s silicon, a competing wager that infrastructure-level defence is what convinces buyers, not another dashboard. Both approaches lean on the argument Harrison makes himself: buyers trust AI security advice more when it comes from someone who has run the programme.

The Spark Roadshow Reaches Wellington and Auckland This Week

Harrison’s first public engagement in the new role comes almost immediately. He is joining the lineup for Spark 2026, a global conference series spanning more than 90 cities, themed The Intelligence Shift. The series centers on case studies, executive panels, technology demonstrations and talks on how organisations are handling AI at scale.

The Australia-New Zealand (ANZ) leg opens in Wellington on July 28, 2026, followed by Auckland on July 29. Local editions feature case studies from ANZ-based organisations alongside the panels and demonstrations running across the wider series.

Harrison takes the stage first in Wellington, then in Auckland the next day, the first public look at what an Auckland-based global AI security executive actually does for TrendAI’s ANZ customers.