McKesson is an impact-driven, Fortune 10 company that touches virtually every aspect of healthcare. We are known for delivering insights, products, and services that make quality care more accessible and affordable. Here, we focus on the health, happiness, and well-being of you and those we serve – we care.
What you do at McKesson matters. We foster a culture where you can grow, make an impact, and are empowered to bring new ideas. Together, we thrive as we shape the future of health for patients, our communities, and our people. If you want to be part of tomorrow’s health today, we want to hear from you.
Lead Cyber Security Architect
Location: Richmond, VA, USA - 9954 Mayland Drive (on-site)
The Opportunity
The Lead Cyber Security Architect is a senior, advanced-skill role responsible for establishing and evolving MMS security architecture, patterns, and guardrails that protect the business while enabling speed and innovation. This role partners with the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), Technology Senior Leadership, audit/compliance, product and application owners, infrastructure, and security engineering/operations teams to drive consistent security outcomes across the enterprise.
This role provides expert guidance on current security issues while anticipating where threats and technology are heading to proactively shape MMS security strategy. The Lead Cyber Security Architect is expected to think like an adversary, translate business objectives into security architecture decisions, and define target-state architectures and roadmaps. As a Lead (P5), this role sets standards and raises the bar through mentoring and coaching, critical review of deliverables, and driving measurable improvements in risk reduction and control effectiveness. The architect leads through influence (often without direct people-management authority) and ensures security architecture decisions are documented, communicated, and adopted across delivery teams.
Key Responsibilities
Own and evolve MMS security architecture reference patterns and guardrails across cloud, network, identity, endpoint, application, and data protection; ensure designs are secure-by-design and compliant-by-design.
Lead architecture reviews for key initiatives (new platforms, major applications, third-party integrations, and B2B/B2C capabilities); document decisions, risks, exceptions, and required compensating controls.
Translate security policy, risk, and regulatory obligations into practical engineering requirements, reusable design standards, and implementation guidance (e.g., templates, runbooks, and secure reference implementations).
Define target-state security architecture and roadmaps; drive organizational alignment and prioritization with security, technology, and business stakeholders.
Embed security in delivery through DevSecOps: advise on CI/CD controls, infrastructure-as-code, policy-as-code, secrets management, and secure SDLC practices; partner with engineering teams to increase automation and reduce friction.
Establish measurable security architecture outcomes (e.g., coverage of guardrails, reduction in high-risk exceptions, control adoption, improved detection/response maturity) and use metrics to guide continuous improvement.
Mentor and coach architects and engineers; perform critical self-review and peer review of deliverables to ensure high quality, accuracy, and alignment to enterprise security standards.
Design and maintain cloud security architecture patterns and guardrails (e.g., IAM and privileged access, organization policies, network segmentation, encryption and key management, logging/monitoring, vulnerability management, and posture management) with clear implementation guidance for delivery teams.
Perform other duties as assigned.
Minimum Requirements
Skills and Qualifications
10+ years in cybersecurity with 5+ years in security architecture, including risk management and compliance.
Demonstrated ability to lead complex initiatives, drive alignment, and coach others while delivering measurable security outcomes.
Hands-on security architecture experience, including designing guardrails/reference architectures and driving adoption across multiple teams.
Demonstrated experience designing security controls for sensitive data (PII/PHI) and supporting audits and compliance efforts through strong documentation and evidence-based controls.
Zero Trust and IAM/PAM (workforce and customer identity) design at scale; demonstrated ability to define and implement enterprise guardrails, including policy-as-code and standardized identity/network patterns.
Proven stakeholder leadership able to lead planning and architecture discussions, incorporate reviewer feedback, and obtain alignment and approvals for secure solutions.
Experience with modern security platforms and automation (e.g., SIEM, EDR/XDR, SOAR, secrets management, and data protection) plus scripting/automation to scale controls.
Strong background in technology design, implementation, and delivery (cloud, networking, identity, endpoint, and application platforms), with the ability to translate business requirements into secure reference architectures and pragmatic implementation plans.
Deep expertise in security controls and architecture domains: IAM (including privileged access), network security, encryption/key management, secrets management, application security, vulnerability management, logging/monitoring, and security posture management across public cloud and hybrid environments.
Ability to communicate technical risk and tradeoffs in business terms, influence decisions at multiple levels, and facilitate productive outcomes across security, engineering, and business stakeholders.
Experience improving detection and response capabilities at scale (SIEM, EDR/XDR, SOAR, threat intelligence), including driving architectural remediation and hardening based on incidents and post-incident reviews.
Proven ability to define and operationalize security standards, patterns, and guardrails (including exception processes), and to ensure adoption through reviews, coaching, documentation, and automation.
Track record of acting with integrity, taking pride in work, seeking to excel, being curious and adaptable, and holding a high bar for quality through critical self-review and thoughtful peer review.
Hands-on ability to automate and enable teams through scripting and infrastructure-as-code (e.g., Bash, Python, PowerShell) and policy-as-code approaches.
Experience designing for cyber resilience (disaster recovery, business continuity, backup/restore security, and ransomware recovery considerations).
Working knowledge of common security and risk frameworks and regulations relevant to healthcare and enterprise environments (e.g., NIST, ISO 27001, HITRUST, HIPAA/HITECH, PCI DSS, SOX, GDPR, SOC 2).
Working knowledge of Windows, Linux, and container platforms (e.g., Kubernetes) and modern application patterns (API-based integrations, microservices, and serverless) sufficient to guide secure designs.
Strong strategic and tactical decision-making, including the ability to assess tradeoffs, define compensating controls, and drive decisions to closure.
Experience collaborating with offensive/defensive security teams (e.g., purple teaming) to validate controls and translate findings into architectural improvements.
Highly trustworthy; leads by example and builds credibility through consistent follow-through and high-quality deliverables.
Education Requirements
Bachelor’s degree in computer science, information security/assurance, MIS, engineering, or related field; or equivalent practical experience.
Certification Requirements
CISSP (required). Preferred: CISM, GIAC/SANS certifications, and/or relevant cloud security certifications. TDR/SecOps certifications (a plus): Google Cloud Professional Cloud Security Engineer and/or Associate Cloud Engineer, Google Professional Cloud DevOps Engineer, and/or GIAC certifications (e.g., GSEC, GCIH) depending on role focus. and/or cloud/security engineering certifications aligned to the teams platforms.
About Medical-Surgical
McKesson Medical-Surgical (MMS) is a subsidiary and publicly reported segment of the McKesson Corporation. MMS distributes medical-surgical supplies, pharmaceuticals, diagnostic equipment and supplies, along with other solutions and services to virtually every type of healthcare setting and provider outside of the traditional hospital. These markets – often referred to as Alternate Care or Non-Acute Care – include physician offices, surgery centers, long-term care providers, laboratories, home health and hospice agencies, health systems, government facilities and online marketplaces and retailers.
Alternate Care markets are growing rapidly and MMS is proud to be a leader in this space. With a team of approximately 8,000 employees, a network of 15 distribution centers and approximately 900 delivery vehicles, we partner with more than 2,200 leading manufacturers and serve over 200,000 customer accounts across the U.S. Our catalog includes more than 280,000 SKUs of branded and private-label medical-surgical products – from bandages to specialty pharmaceuticals and COVID-19 tests.
Looking Ahead : A New Chapter for MMS
McKesson has announced its intent to separate MMS into an independent company – an exciting evolution that builds on MMS’s strong foundation and proven leadership in the Alternate Care space. As a standalone company, MMS would be positioned to unlock new opportunities to innovate, grow and lead with even greater agility and focus. We will also continue to be one of the largest medical-surgical distributors in the U.S., with over $11B in annual sales. This separation would accelerate our mission and empower us to shape a future defined by customer-centricity, bold thinking and operational excellence. For job seekers, it’s a unique moment to join a team that’s already making a meaningful impact and leading the way in shaping the future of healthcare delivery in Alternate Care settings – with even greater opportunity ahead as we prepare to become an independent company.
Career Level - P5
We are proud to offer a competitive compensation package at McKesson as part of our Total Rewards. This is determined by several factors, including performance, experience and skills, equity, regular job market evaluations, and geographical markets. The pay range shown below is aligned with McKesson's pay philosophy, and pay will always be compliant with any applicable regulations. In addition to base pay, other compensation, such as an annual bonus or long-term incentive opportunities may be offered. For more information regarding benefits at McKesson,
Our Base Pay Range for this position
$143,000 - $238,400
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McKesson is an Equal Opportunity Employer
McKesson provides equal employment opportunities to applicants and employees, without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, protected veteran status, disability, age, genetic information, or any other legally protected category. For additional information on McKesson’s full Equal Employment Opportunity policies, visit our Equal Employment Opportunity page.
McKesson is committed to being an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer and offers opportunities to all job seekers including job seekers with disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation to assist with your job search or application for employment, please contact us by sending an email to (United States) [email protected] or (Canada) [email protected]. Resumes or CVs submitted to this email box will not be accepted.
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