Mark Knowles
General Manager Security Assurance at Xero
Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand
Summary
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Senior🎓
Top SchoolMark Knowles is a seasoned cybersecurity leader and business executive based in Wellington, New Zealand, with over eight years in senior security and reliability roles and two decades of broader IT and project leadership. As General Manager Security Assurance at Xero he oversees security education, ISO 27000 and SOC2 compliance, risk management and technical security consultancy for a global SaaS platform. He has a track record of building and leading advisory practices and programme teams across finance, telecom and government—roles that blend strategic governance with hands-on operational assurance. Mark pairs an MBA-backed strategic lens with practitioner experience in separation, privacy and incident-ready controls, and brings an uncommon mix of SRE-minded reliability thinking alongside traditional security governance. Known for turning complex regulatory and compliance demands into auditable, practical programs, he excels at translating risk into clear business priorities.
8 years of coding experience
10 years of employment as a software developer
Masters in Business Administration, Strategy, HR & Marketing, Masters in Business Administration, Strategy, HR & Marketing at Victoria University of WellingtonUniversity Entrance, Economics, Accounting, Maths, English & Biology, University Entrance, Economics, Accounting, Maths, English & Biology at Kuranui College
Github Skills (25)
openvpn7
raspberry7
installer6
vpn-server6
raspberry-pi5
wireguard5
effort5
architecture5
powershell4
powershell-module3
excel3
azure3
documentation3
vpn3
desktop2
Programming languages (3)
Github contributions (5)
knowlesy/ai-testing
Mar 2025 - Mar 2025
Contributions:121 PRs, 93 pushes, 174 branches in 1 day
knowlesy/test-repo-1
Mar 2025 - Mar 2025
Contributions:614 PRs, 610 pushes, 300 branches in 1 day
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