Wells Larsen

Founder & Fractional CIO | CTO | CISO

Mufasa Security · Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul Area

Mar 2024 – Present(2 yrs 2 mos)

Independent advisory and fractional executive practice. I engage as virtual CISO, CTO, or CIO — embedding at the executive level to help organizations align technology, security, and governance to business outcomes. I see security the way an architect sees a system: inputs, dependencies, failure modes, and the second- and third-order ripple effects that most people don't see until it's too late. That's what lets me move between a boardroom and a design session without losing fidelity to either side. ----------------------------------------------- Selected Client Engagements: ◆ Leading an organization through end-to-end CMMC audit readiness, including gap analysis, policy alignment, and control implementation. ◆ Designed and deployed AI Agents modeled on human behavioral patterns to stress-test decision-making in high-stakes operational scenarios. ◆ Contained a live deepfake-enabled impersonation incident — validating identity and coordinating a rapid, policy-based takedown with platform stakeholders.

Member

Chief Architect Network

Mar 2026 – Present(2 mos)

A global community of chief architect executive thought leaders, with 500+ members from Fortune 500-scale companies, advancing the discipline and practice through egoless collaboration and shared learning. A 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with no-cost, vendor-neutral membership. Mission: Maximizing the value of Architecture practices through our network that widens our perspectives, shares best practices, grows us as leaders and develops our talent to drive outcomes. Services include: • In-person and virtual events. • Peer-led calls on our practice’s top priorities. • 13 local communities in the US and Europe. • Matching, Mentoring and Coaching leadership development. • LIVE broadcast events.

Leaderhip Board Member - Minneapolis Chapter

CyberRisk Collaborative · Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul Area

Mar 2025 – Present(1 yr 2 mos)

The Twin Cities Leadership Board is a group of local leaders committed to the idea that national security and critical infrastructure resiliency is strengthened through peer-to-peer knowledge sharing, diversity, and leadership development. Serve on the Twin Cities Leadership Board, supporting peer-to-peer knowledge sharing and leadership development focused on critical infrastructure resilience and cybersecurity readiness. ◆ Delivered a speaker engagement on building “Strong Ground” trust with the Executive Leadership Team (ELT) and the board, and on translating security metrics into business metrics that drive clear decisions. ◆ Facilitated and contributed to peer discussions, sharing practical patterns for governance, risk ◆ Facilitated and contributed to multiple peer discussions, sharing field experience to help members compare approaches, lessons learned, and emerging risks. ◆ Provided board-level input on chapter priorities, programming topics, and community engagement to strengthen value for members. ◆ Supported planning for future events and speaker programming to broaden participation and increase relevance.

Cybersecurity Executive | Chief Architect | Deputy CISO scope

INTEGRIS Health · Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States

Apr 2024 – Mar 2026(2 yrs)

Recruited by the CISO — with CTO endorsement — to rebuild and modernize security for Oklahoma's largest healthcare system ($3.3B revenue, 15K caregivers, 20 hospitals, 184 clinics) following a significant breach. Brought a proven program-building playbook refined across multiple healthcare systems and applied it to a 24-month enterprise-wide transformation spanning governance, engineering, SOC, IAM, TVM, awareness, and resilience. Redesigned the operating model into dedicated security functions, insourced 38 roles, and hired senior engineering and operations leaders — increasing project delivery 132% and reducing MTTR 67%. Partnered with ELT and board committees to translate risk into financial clarity, formalized shared accountability, and unified HIPAA, NIST, and ISO 27001 under a single governance framework. Built automated Power BI dashboards providing board-level clarity across risk, performance, and investment. Cleared a backlog of 100K+ CVEs in seven months, rescued a failed SailPoint deployment reducing onboarding incidents 78%, and evolved the SOC into an integrated Cyber Fusion Center combining threat hunting, intelligence, and response. Established an enterprise AI governance framework — defining policy, risk controls, and oversight structure to enable responsible AI adoption aligned with regulatory and ethical standards. Developed a three-year Zero Trust roadmap sequencing identity, least privilege, network segmentation, and cloud adoption into a durable modernization path. Recognized as DC100 Top 100 Deputy CISO (2025). The INTEGRIS security program was named to Becker's Hospital Review "53 CISOs & CPOs to Know" (2025) — one year after a significant breach.

Director & Chief Architect, IT, Cloud & Security (vCIO / vCISO)

Optum · Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul Area

Oct 2017 – Apr 2024(6 yrs 7 mos)

Founding leader of Optum Connect, Optum's managed services line of business — scaling from a five-person team into the foundation of a multi-billion dollar enterprise that expanded well beyond technology into revenue cycle management, business operations, and clinical services as other functions recognized the model and scaled it horizontally. Carried dual responsibility for enterprise transformation across six health systems and product delivery of Optum Connect's managed services platform. Served as virtual CIO and CISO across six healthcare systems simultaneously — partnering directly with CIOs, CISOs, and executive leadership to design enterprise roadmaps, embed compliance by default, and deliver shared platforms that reduced IT spend, improved service quality, and accelerated modernization without disrupting local operating models or culture. Health systems served: Triple-S of Puerto Rico, John Muir Health, Bassett Health, Northern Light Health, Owensboro Health, and Allina Health. Led Product Delivery for Optum Connect, owning two flagship offerings that formed the technical backbone of the business: ◆ Fully Managed Cloud-as-a-Service — conceived and built a policy-as-code cloud guardrail system on Azure and AWS, reducing provisioning and compliance cycles from months to days with security enforced by default through CI/CD automation and integrated SAST/DAST testing. Served as the cross-vendor bridge between Epic and Microsoft Azure when enterprise healthcare cloud architecture was still being defined — work that later influenced Microsoft's formalized guidance for the space. ◆ SOC-as-a-Service — designed and delivered a shared detection and response capability extending security operations into customer environments through a scalable, standardized operating model. Built high-performing teams through psychological safety, clear decision rights, and a coaching culture — developing leaders who carried standards and ownership forward through change.

Principal Enterprise IT Security Architect, Director

Optum · Eden Prairie, MN

Jan 2015 – Oct 2017(2 yrs 10 mos)

Brought to Optum with a proven track record in Privileged Access Management, having led enterprise PAM architecture at Target. Designed and deployed the largest CyberArk implementation in the world at the time — establishing the privileged access foundation for Optum's enterprise and commercial client environments. Conceived and designed the centralized shared services model for delivering IT and security capabilities to Optum's commercial healthcare clients — the architectural idea that became the foundation for Optum Connect, generating billions of dollars in revenue through decade-long contracts.

Lead Security Engineer - Security Technology Operations

Target · Minneapolis, MN

Sep 2012 – Jan 2015(2 yrs 5 mos)

Led engineering and operations for 22 enterprise security platforms supporting retail and corporate environments for one of the world's largest retailers — in a post-breach environment demanding the highest standard of platform stability and resilience. Scaled the team from 8 to 25 engineers in under a year. ◆ Identified recurring SSL certificate outages caused by manual renewal processes — proposed and was denied budget for an enterprise solution, then built a homegrown certificate lifecycle management system from scratch with automated tracking, alerting, and renewal workflows. Prevented millions in potential lost revenue on Target.com and eliminated the need for future third-party tooling. ◆ Led the overhaul of Target's Root Cause Analysis and problem management program, delivering $500K+ in documented savings. ◆ Developed and deployed automation services streamlining platform operations, achieving $200K in additional savings. ◆ Led the enterprise PAM architecture — a CyberArk deployment that later became the foundation for the largest CyberArk implementation in the world at Optum.

Software, Infrastructure, & Security Engineer

Boston Scientific · Arden Hills, MN

May 2007 – Aug 2012(5 yrs 4 mos)

Production and platform engineer for LATITUDE, a medical device-classified global patient monitoring system operating across the United States and Ireland — built and maintained under HIPAA and FDA governance where platform failures carried direct patient safety implications. ◆ Architected the first-generation LATITUDE NXT platform, defining the secure and resilient global architecture and engineering durable software mitigations to sustain compliant patient-care operations through FDA validation cycles. ◆ Owned Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery for LATITUDE — leading annual tabletop exercises and coordinating cross-functional recovery planning across two continents. ◆ Designed automation and diagnostic tooling (Linux, Bash) to improve repeatability of log analysis and reduce time to resolution — an early expression of a career-long instinct to automate what humans forget or mishandle. ◆ Expanded into network security engineering and infrastructure hardening (firewalls, load balancing, segmentation), improving availability, fault tolerance, and scalability.

Software Engineer

Evolve Systems

2005 – 2007(2 yrs)

Developed custom web and e-commerce applications for small business clients, designing secure, database-driven systems to support online transactions and customer-facing workflows. ◆ Built bespoke shopping cart and e-commerce platforms on the Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP (LAMP) stack. ◆ Designed back-end services and database integrations to improve performance, reliability, and transaction integrity. ◆ Integrated credit card payment gateways and implemented secure development practices for authentication, input validation, and protection of sensitive transaction data.

Operations Manager & Software / Infrastructure Engineer

Murphy McGinnis Internet / Superior Broadband

2001 – 2005(4 yrs)

Began career providing technical support for dial-up, Digital Subscriber Line (DSL), and point-to-point wireless broadband services. Advanced into service operations leadership and later expanded into software development and Linux infrastructure engineering, contributing to custom applications and systems supporting rural broadband delivery across northern Minnesota. ◆ Led service operations and customer experience improvements. ◆ Designed and built custom web applications on the Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP (LAMP) stack. ◆ Developed reservation and scheduling systems for regional hospitality clients. ◆ Built and maintained Linux server infrastructure supporting wireless broadband reliability.