Jon Zeolla

Jon builds governance-first software factories. As the founder of Zenable, he leads the team in developing self-improving verifiers that maintain alignment between coding agents and evolving company requirements.

Jon got his start with AI and machine learning at Carnegie Mellon, applying large-scale data analysis to improve security automations. That work led him to contribute to dozens of open source projects and initiatives, and he now serves as an Agentic AI Foundation (AAIF) Ambassador, helping engineers understand and adopt open protocols for agentic systems, including MCP and A2A, via anything from talks and hands-on workshops to running strategy sessions to help navigate tradeoffs. He’s particularly interested in using data and feedback to improve systems and automate repetitive work.

Feel free to connect on LinkedIn.

Check out Jon’s presentations and trainings.

Awards

• 2023 Best Places to Work - Seiso

• 2023 Cybersecurity Innovator Finalist - Seiso

• 2022 Best Places to Work - Seiso

• 2021 Start-Up Innovator of the Year - Seiso

• 2017 NTHS Honorary Member

Community Building

• AAIF (Agentic AI Foundation) Ambassador, inaugural cohort since 2026

• CNCF - Cloud Native Security Pittsburgh (YouTube channel) founder since 2023

• Steel City InfoSec (aka DC412) founder since 2012; see prior events here

• BSides Pittsburgh organizer since 2014

• PittSec founder since 2018

• CNCF TAG-Security and Ambassador

• CNCF TAG Contributor Strategy’s Deaf & Hard of Hearing Working Group and best practices

• AWS Community Builder

Volunteer Work

• Cloud Native Security Con 2024 - Program Committee Member

• KubeCon/CloudNativeCon North America 2023 - Cybersecurity Program Committee Member

• CNCF TAG-Security Member since 2020

  • 2024-25 Automated Governance Maturity Model (announcement blog)

  • 2023 Pixie security review (Pixie)

  • 2022 Cloud Native Security Controls Catalog (issue 635, blog)

  • 2021 Serverless Security White Paper (issue 546)

• Kubernetes SIG-Security Policy Working Group Member since 2022 (sporadic)

  • 2023 Kubernetes Governance, Risk, and Compliance White Paper

• FBI Citizens Academy 2016 graduate

• Apache Software Foundation Committer since 2017

• NSF Grant #2000902 Advisory Board Member in 2022

• DataWorks Summit, CyberSecurity Track Chair in 2018

• CAMLIS Organizer in 2018

• CIS Apple iOS 7 Benchmark in 2013

• Forbes Road CTC Occupational Advisory Committee since 2012

• Pittsburgh Technology College advisory board 2011-2024

Open Source Software

• ai-guardrails

• ai-native-python

• cookiecutter-python

• easy_infra

• goat

• zeek-kafka

• easy_sast (Archived)

• Apache Metron (Archived)

Current Work

• Founder and CEO at Zenable

• Agentic AI Foundation (AAIF) Ambassador

• Instructor at SANS

• Faculty member at IANS

Previously

• Co-founder and CTO at Seiso, 2017 to 2026

• Principal Information Security Engineer at Carnegie Mellon University, 2014 to 2020

• Senior Security Engineer at American Eagle Outfitters and PNC Bank, 2009 to 2014

Hobbies

• Weightlifting (>400 Wilks Coefficient, >1250lb combined at 180lb bw)

• Mountain Biking

• Chess

• Certifications and badges.