Principle Enterprise Security Architect - Director

 SMBC Group is a top-tier global financial group. Headquartered in Tokyo and with a 400-year history, SMBC Group offers a diverse range of financial services, including banking, leasing, securities, credit cards, and consumer finance. The Group has more than 130 offices and 80,000 employees worldwide in nearly 40 countries. Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, Inc. (SMFG) is the holding company of SMBC Group, which is one of the three largest banking groups in Japan. SMFG’s shares trade on the Tokyo, Nagoya, and New York (NYSE: SMFG) stock exchanges.

In the Americas, SMBC Group has a presence in the US, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Peru. Backed by the capital strength of SMBC Group and the value of its relationships in Asia, the Group offers a range of commercial and investment banking services to its corporate, institutional, and municipal clients. It connects a diverse client base to local markets and the organization’s extensive global network. The Group’s operating companies in the Americas include Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. (SMBC), SMBC Nikko Securities America, Inc., SMBC Capital Markets, Inc., SMBC MANUBANK, JRI America, Inc., SMBC Leasing and Finance, Inc., Banco Sumitomo Mitsui Brasileiro S.A., and Sumitomo Mitsui Finance and Leasing Co., Ltd.

The anticipated salary range for this role is between $203,000.00 and $230,000.00. The specific salary offered to an applicant will be based on their individual qualifications, experiences, and an analysis of the current compensation paid in their geography and the market for similar roles at the time of hire. The role may also be eligible for an annual discretionary incentive award. In addition to cash compensation, SMBC offers a competitive portfolio of benefits to its employees.

Role Description

The Principal Enterprise Security Architect is a global technical and strategic authority responsible for shaping, governing, and evolving the Enterprise Security Architecture (ESA) strategy and roadmaps across the organization. This role ensures that the enterprise remains secure, resilient, and future-ready, with particular emphasis on cloud, AI/agentic systems, regulatory compliance, and innovation.

Operating as a forward-looking strategist and hands-on expert, the Principal Enterprise Security Architect will drive proactive planning, anticipate emerging threats, and embed security into every layer of the enterprise technology stack. They will play a critical role in future-proofing the enterprise security posture by integrating cutting-edge security capabilities and ensuring alignment with global financial services regulatory expectations.

This role will have up to 10% domestic/international travel during the fiscal year.

Role Objectives

• Define and mature the global enterprise security architecture strategy, ensuring alignment with business goals, risk appetite, and regulatory obligations.
• Develop and maintain multi-year security roadmaps, integrating emerging technologies, regulatory shifts, and industry best practices.
• Proactively plan for future-state architecture capabilities to address AI/agentic system security, zero trust, and cloud-native resilience.
• Act as a senior advisor to the Head of Enterprise Security Architecture, CISO, and Technology leaders.
• Drive enterprise-wide architectural governance, ensuring consistency across global regions, platforms, and regulatory jurisdictions.
• Champion innovation and future-proofing, continuously evaluating new technologies.
• Evaluate cloud-native services and emerging technologies, recommending secure integration strategies.
• Define guardrails, standards, and patterns that ensure scalable and resilient security strategy.
• Architect enterprise controls for AI/ML systems, mitigating risks such as adversarial attacks, data poisoning, model drift, and prompt injection.
• Design governance models for agentic systems (autonomous AI agents) to ensure safety, accountability, and alignment with regulatory expectations.
• Embed AI risk management frameworks (NIST AI RMF, EU AI Act) into enterprise security strategy.
• Partner with AI/ML, data science, and enterprise architecture teams to ensure secure innovation in AI adoption.
• Support regulatory reviews and audits, providing enterprise-level architectural evidence and strategic risk insights. i.e. NYSDFS, FRB, FFIEC, GDPR, CCPA, etc.
• Conduct proactive risk-based architecture reviews for global initiatives, cloud migrations, digital transformation, and AI deployments.
• Represent security architecture in enterprise-wide architecture boards, steering committees, and governance forums.
• Collaborate with enterprise architects, technology strategists, and regional security teams to ensure global alignment.
• Mentor and develop future