Joe Giannetti

Joe Giannetti is Chief Information Officer and Chief Information Security Officer of Lexitas, appointed in June 2026.

Career path

Giannetti joined Lexitas, a provider of technology-enabled litigation support services, as CIO and CISO in June 2026, bringing more than 25 years of technology and security leadership experience. In the role he leads the company's enterprise technology operations, infrastructure, business systems, and information security programs, with a focus on scaling internal platforms and strengthening cybersecurity. Before Lexitas, he served as Vice President over IT & Security at Employ, a private equity-backed HR Tech SaaS and services company, where he led the post-merger consolidation of four operating companies into a unified enterprise platform while rebuilding the security organization. Prior to Employ, Giannetti led the IT organization at Applied Systems, a private equity-backed SaaS and services company in the InsureTech space, during a period of significant growth and scaling. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the University of Illinois College of Engineering. Lexitas's own leadership page lists him as Chief Information Officer and Chief Information Security Officer.

Remit at Lexitas

At Lexitas, Giannetti currently serves as both the company's CIO and CISO, with most of the company's growth coming from acquiring other firms. He has described the challenge of supporting a security program that can absorb a newly acquired company's environment, including its own history and gaps, without creating a moment where confidential data is exposed during the transition. Giannetti has also pointed to AI vendor risk review as a distinct challenge at Lexitas compared with typical software procurement, saying his team requires a clear answer from vendors on data retention and model training before any AI tool touches client-related work. He has pushed back on the assumption that legal services carry lower security stakes than sectors like banking or healthcare. "We handle some of the same categories of sensitive data, financial records, health information [and] PII," Giannetti said. He has also said CISOs entering the legal industry must recognize that much of the data flowing through firm systems belongs to plaintiffs, witnesses and opposing parties who never signed a contract directly with the firm, adding that the firm owes them the same diligence as a direct client.