I’m Jeff Whiteside. I lead security at Chime and start companies on the side.
I started as an engineer at a small software company in suburban Chicago. Cybersecurity consulting pulled me in from there. Six years at Crowe as a risk consultant, doing everything: pentesting, vulnerability management, helping companies build programs that held up under pressure. Then Sutter Health, Credit Karma, and Chime in 2020. I’ve run security engineering, GRC, and now lead security at the senior director level. The company has grown substantially in that time and so has the scope of the work.
The security career is one track. The other is building. I’m building HARDMODE, a fitness platform for trainers and clients. meetbell is a paid iOS app for emotional honesty. I built rifts.to because Mentimeter charges for something that should be free. The same instinct drives all of it: find the real problem, build something that works, ship it.
I also serve on the board of the Financial Services AI Council.
I write here about business, technology, AI, marketing, and leadership. Not think pieces. Notes from inside the work.