EXECUTIVE BIOGRAPHY
Aaron Lewter is a former Chief Information Security Officer and current Principal Architect at Availity, with more than 25 years across cybersecurity, enterprise architecture, cloud and infrastructure engineering, and technology leadership. He has briefed a board on cyber risk, built a security program from its first dedicated team, and returned to hands-on engineering to lead the modernization of critical healthcare infrastructure. That pairing of governance experience and current technical depth lets him turn complex technology and risk issues into clear decisions for boards and executives.
At Availity, the nation’s largest real-time health information network, Aaron progressed from Manager to Director, Senior Director, and CISO. He transformed a firewall managed-security-service oversight function into the company’s first dedicated security team and set a five-year, capability- and maturity-focused cybersecurity roadmap. As CISO, he led an eight-figure annual security program spanning staff and tooling, briefed Availity’s Board of Managers quarterly, and guided the organization through continued HITRUST CSF Certification and SOC 2 examinations covering all five Trust Services Criteria.
Aaron then made a deliberate lateral move to an equivalent-level Principal Architect role within Software Engineering, returning to hands-on architecture while keeping an executive’s view of strategy, risk, and governance. He set the architectural vision for, and led the multi-year design and engineering of, a multi-region, serverless AWS file-transfer platform that now carries the majority of the company’s transaction volume, replacing a legacy platform that had been in service for nearly two decades. He also advised on architecture and security during Availity’s migration to AWS and the retirement of its data centers, and now leads post-migration optimization and technical-debt reduction.
Aaron brings practical experience in responsible AI adoption. He designed two production AI agent systems used across engineering, security, and product teams, built around human review and controls that keep consequential production actions under human authority. His approach treats AI as a way to amplify individual capability rather than replace human judgment, a perspective increasingly relevant to boards weighing AI opportunity against operational and security risk. He also mentors junior engineers and advises teams across cloud, security, networking, and operations.
Earlier at Availity, Aaron built the infrastructure architecture program within Enterprise Architecture and later oversaw network and security operations, leading the move into colocation facilities and private cloud infrastructure that he helped retire during the 2025 AWS migration.
Before Availity, Aaron built a continuous career at Merrill Lynch and, following the acquisition, Bank of America, advancing through Assistant Vice President and Vice President roles. He led End User Core Services for approximately 98,000 devices and created an application-hosting Center of Excellence that helped shape a North American platform supporting roughly 1,500 applications.
His technology-leadership roots extend to 1998, when he helped transform a small-business technology-services firm into the startup web-hosting business EkoVista and served as its Chief Technology Officer while also working as a web designer, hostmaster, and consultant. That early mix of customer engagement, technical execution, and operating responsibility set a lasting pattern: understand the need, build the system, and remain accountable for how it works.
Outside his corporate work, Aaron serves as a Board Member and Officer of BSidesJAX, a 501(c)(3) cybersecurity community organization, where he works across governance, sponsorship, event planning, and technology operations. He coordinates the annual Capture the Flag competition and creates its challenges and supporting software. His involvement began as a competitor: he won the BSidesJAX competition and its Black Badge in 2019, then joined the organizing team in 2023 and the Board in 2025.
Aaron holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from Florida Atlantic University and the CISSP, AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate, GCIH, GPEN, and GWAPT credentials. He is well suited to audit, risk, and technology committees in regulated and technology-dependent organizations, where he offers independent judgment on cyber risk, technology investment, AI adoption, and operational resilience. His mission is to help people and organizations become more capable and confident, and to leave them stronger than he found them.
Character: Aaron leads with integrity, curiosity, and service. He is a hands-on, accountable leader who values human agency and earns trust by staying close to the work.
Knowledge: He brings current depth in cybersecurity governance, enterprise architecture, AWS modernization, operational resilience, and responsible AI adoption, grounded in more than 25 years of practice in healthcare and financial services.
Strategic: Aaron connects long-range vision to executable roadmaps, weighing innovation against risk, technical debt, and organizational capability while keeping business outcomes in view.
Communication: He translates complex technical and risk issues into clear choices for boards, executives, and engineers, and coaches individuals toward greater confidence and capability.
