Vendor to enterprise: Dave MacKinnon's move from N-able CSO to JetBlue CISO

Three documents, five years

N-able's press release of May 20, 2021, describes the company as formerly SolarWinds MSP and as a technology partner purpose-built for managed services providers.

The release states that Dave MacKinnon was appointed chief security officer and joined the executive leadership team at the same time as a new general counsel.

A JetBlue investor relations release dated 11/12/2026 names him to a combined title at the airline that covers both infrastructure and information security.

Between those two points, an N-able blog post dated May 30, 2024, presents him as the vendor's chief security officer in a podcast conversation about managed detection and response.

Read side by side, the three documents show what each seat covered and the words he and his employers used to describe the work.

The N-able seat: security inside a vendor

According to the 2021 release, his remit covered the information security team, including product and application security, governance, risk and compliance, and security incident response.

The release says he arrived with more than two decades of experience leading global security teams in several industries.

It names his previous post as IT security leader at AT&T/WarnerMedia, where, the release says, he ran a security program that managed complex incident response events.

In his own quoted words, his focus was to build on the existing work and fully develop a program that is secure by design.

He tied that program to the company's customers and said the aim was to keep helping partners manage, detect and respond to threats.

For anyone mapping this path, the combination is the point. In the 2021 language, the security of a vendor's own products and infrastructure is described in terms of what its partners can then do for their customers. The seat is described as an internal program and also as part of what the company offers.

The 2024 podcast: from security to resilience

The episode's title frames his subject as a move from security toward resilience.

N-able's summary says he discussed the challenges of building a Security Operations Center and stressed technology selection and effective threat detection in MDR.

The summary also says he explained how MSPs can communicate the benefits of MDR to their customers and what role resiliency plays in protecting businesses.

The page is a short summary, not a transcript. It lists the topics he covered but does not set out his specific positions on any of them. For the career question, what matters is the framing. In the vendor's own presentation of its security chief, resilience sits in the headline next to security.

The JetBlue seat: infrastructure, cybersecurity and fraud

JetBlue's release says he will lead the airline's technology infrastructure, cybersecurity and anti-fraud teams.

The release describes his focus as advancing the reliability, resilience and security of JetBlue's technology infrastructure and protecting the airline against evolving cybersecurity threats.

According to the release, he will report to the airline's Chief Digital & Technology Officer, Carol Clements.

His appointment was one of four announced together, and the release says the four filled existing leadership positions, two through internal promotion and two through outside hires.

The other outside hire, Tim O'Shea, joined as Vice President, Associate General Counsel, with a legal portfolio that includes privacy, data protection and cybersecurity.

Compared with the written scope at N-able, the airline seat differs in kind. Infrastructure and fraud sit with the security function under one leader. The role is also placed inside a named technology reporting line instead of being presented as a seat on an executive leadership team.

What carried across the move

The 2021 release counted over 20 years of leading security teams, while the 2026 release describes more than 25 years spanning technology leadership, cybersecurity and business resilience.

JetBlue's release credits his time at N-able with establishing the company's security and business continuity programs.

The airline lists earlier senior technology leadership roles at AT&T/WarnerMedia, Turner and KPMG, which is a longer list than the single prior employer the 2021 release named.

Across the three documents, the language around his work shifts. It begins with security alone and moves to security paired with resilience and continuity. The vendor material and the airline mandate describe his work in overlapping terms. At the vendor, that work was a program meant to help partners detect and respond. At the airline, it is the reliability and protection of the infrastructure the business runs on.

What the documents leave open

None of the three documents gives the date he left N-able or a start date at JetBlue other than the date of the airline's announcement. The 2021 release does not list business continuity among his duties, and no document says when that program was set up during his N-able tenure. The podcast summary predates the move and says nothing about airline or enterprise security. JetBlue's release does not give the size of the teams he leads or explain how infrastructure, cybersecurity and anti-fraud are organized beneath him. Because of these gaps, the record shows how his approach was described at each stop, not how it changed in practice.