Kay Behnke (Genmab): Lessons from building three global security teams

Summary

In this episode of re:invent security, hosts Jeroen Prinse and Irfaan Santoe sit down with Kay Behnke, CISO at Genmab. Kay has built security organizations in three very different global companies: NXP, FrieslandCampina, and Genmab. Spanning tech, food, and life sciences. Drawing from more than 20 years of experience, he reflects on how building a security team has evolved over time and what’s stayed the same.

Together, they unpack what it really takes to design security functions that scale, how to balance culture and compliance across geographies, and the hard lessons learned from doing it three times.

Whether you’re starting your first security organization or rethinking a mature one, this candid conversation offers timeless insights into the craft of building teams that endure and adapt. Tune in and ask yourself: What will you do differently tomorrow?

Resources & Mentions:

CISO Mind Map - https://rafeeqrehman.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/CISO_MindMap_2025.pdf

Daniel Pink ‘Drive’ - Dan Pink is one of my favorite authors who pushes you to look into the mirror; this is a book that you wanted to read at the begin of your career

Peter Hinssen ‘The Uncertainty Principle’ - another favorite author of me; there are several keynotes on YouTube (he probably holds the world record in slides per minute) and well known by “The New Normal” this book is about the future and how we can and need to deal with uncertainty and disruption

Daniel Kahneman ‘Thinking Fast and Slow’ - for everyone who is building a security awareness campaign a MUST read

Andrej Karpathy ‘Deep Dive into LLMs like ChatGPT’ - if you have time then you should watch this video since it provides you surprising insights about how LLM models work

Graham Cluley ‘Smashing Security’ - finally s.th. about information securty; the weekly podcast for the lunch walk with your dog

Connect with Kay: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kbehnke/