# Glenn Chisholm

> Glenn Chisholm is an operating partner at SYN Ventures and a co-founder and board member of Obsidian Security. Previously its CEO, chairman and chief product officer, he earlier led technology at Cylance and served as Telstra’s first CISO. His public work spans security operations, machine learning research, product development and cybersecurity investing.

- **Role:** Operating Partner at SYN Ventures; Co-Founder and Board Member at Obsidian Security
- **Organizations:** SYN Ventures, Obsidian Security, Cylance, Telstra, Cisco, San Diego Supercomputer Center, Delphos Labs, Icite, Miggo, Hexadite, Vulcan Cyber
- **Education:** Computer Science, Curtin University, Postgraduate Diploma in Management, Melbourne Business School, MBA, Melbourne Business School
- **Known for:** Co-founded Obsidian Security in 2017., Led product, engineering and research teams at Cylance., Served as Telstra’s first chief information security officer.

## Career timeline

- **1998–2000** — Research associate at the San Diego Supercomputer Center.
- **2000–2008** — Worked in service provider software engineering at Cisco.
- **2008–2012** — CISO and Director of Security Operations at Telstra; identified by Greylock as its first CISO.
- **2012–2017** — Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Cylance.
- **2016** — Joined the board of Hexadite; co-authored research published at IEEE DSAA on dimensionality reduction for large datasets.
- **2017** — Co-founded Obsidian Security with Ben Johnson and Matt Wolff and became CEO; $9.5 million Series A announced in June.
- **2021** — Moved from CEO to chairman and chief product officer as Hasan Imam became CEO.
- **2025** — Became an operating partner at SYN Ventures; remained an Obsidian co-founder and board member.

## Achievements

- Co-founded Obsidian Security in 2017.
- Led product, engineering and research teams at Cylance.
- Served as Telstra’s first chief information security officer.
- Co-authored the 2016 IEEE DSAA paper Projecting “better than randomly” on dimensionality reduction.
- Holds multiple patents in security and data science, according to his SYN Ventures biography.
- Served on the boards of Hexadite and Vulcan Cyber before their respective acquisitions by Microsoft and Tenable.

## Latest updates

- **2026-08** — Obsidian, which Chisholm co-founded and continues to serve as a board member, announced an $85 million Series D at a $1.1 billion valuation, focused on AI agent security.
- **2025-04** — Obsidian announced Khanh Tran as its new chief product officer on April 10; current company and SYN pages identify Chisholm as a board member and SYN operating partner.

## Links

- Website: https://www.synventures.com/team/glenn-chisholm/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/glennchisholm/

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/glenn-chisholm
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-10-26