“Can you send us your security policy?”
Senior technology + security leadership, without a full-time hire
You don’t have to hire a CIO to have one.
I’m the person you call when something technical lands on your desk and there’s nobody here who knows the answer.
You get that senior person without adding another full-time executive—and I stay involved enough to know your organization.
Not sure what to call the problem? That’s fine. Tell me what happened.
Who I work with
Mission-driven organizations doing serious work without a giant technology department.
Nonprofits, healthcare organizations, and the people carrying technology decisions on top of the job they were actually hired to do.
Where the risk lives
What it looks like when nobody owns this
“I signed up for an AI scribe. Do we know where the recordings go?”
“I don’t think our IT vendor is delivering what we approved. Who is managing that relationship?”
“The board is wondering if we’re falling behind on technology. Did we ever do an IT strategic plan?”
“The client files are locked. Is there someone we’re supposed to call?”
None of these are technology failures. They’re decisions nobody was assigned to make.
“Send it to ByrdTail. Dani will tell us what matters and what to do next.”
I’m not your IT company. I’m not trying to replace them.
They keep the systems running. I own the layer above: what you sign, what you allow, what you tell your board, and where you’re exposed. I don’t install or resell, so my advice isn’t tied to selling you anything.
Why a specialist
You don’t need a generalist. You need someone who only does this.
If you’re a nonprofit
Explaining IT to your board is hard. You don’t have to carry it alone. I turn funder, vendor, insurer, and staff-tool questions into decisions your leadership team can make.
Fractional leadership for nonprofits →If you’re HIPAA-regulated
Security governance, AI scribes, vendors, business associates, risk analysis, and executive reporting need an owner—not another checklist.
Technology leadership for healthcare →A fair question
“Can’t AI do this?”
Some of it, genuinely. I use it myself, and I’d rather you did too.
But a model can’t hold organizational context, sit with your board, coordinate the humans when something goes wrong, or put its name behind a decision. The useful question is how to use AI well without handing it something it shouldn’t have. That’s part of the work now.
Why ByrdTail
You get the senior person. Every time.
Dani Byrd, CISSP, CISA · Principal
No handoff after the sale. No account manager relaying questions to someone technical. I know the environment and I stay in the work.
- CISSP · CISA
- CISSP means I’ve been independently tested on protecting information. CISA means the same for whether those protections work. Funders, auditors, and insurance carriers recognize both.
- Works with your team
- I set priorities, manage the vendor relationship, and translate risk. Your IT team runs the systems. I don’t bypass them.
- Continuity built in
- Critical contacts, decisions, and next steps are documented. The work never lives only in my head.
Who I am
I’m Dani. I’ve lived in Tulsa my whole life.
Most of the last fifteen years I spent protecting information for heavily regulated financial institutions, where the audits are constant and the tolerance for a mistake is zero. That’s where I learned what actually goes wrong.
The organizations closest to me are the ones doing harder work with less. I’ve served on the boards of Tulsa CARES, Oklahomans for Equality, and Mental Health Association Oklahoma. I sat on the IT steering committee there and mentored their IT director.
I’ve been in your seat. I’ve watched a board ask whether we’re protected and watched everyone in the room look at each other. That question deserves a real answer. That’s why this exists.
Citizen of the Cherokee Nation. Built here, for organizations here.
See the workAssessments your board can actually use.Open two examples →
What you get
All of it. All year.
A senior security and technology person who already knows your environment, working alongside your outside IT company and your team.
When you need me
- Reach me directly.Phone, email, or text. No queue and no ticket number.
- Vendor management and contracts.I manage the relationship, translate the work, and make sure what was promised is actually happening—before and after you sign.
- AI tools.Before they touch your data or quietly become policy.
- Board, funder, and incident questions.I write the answer or sit in the meeting and give it.
Even when you don’t
- Monthly.A standing call so context never goes stale.
- Quarterly.A short written review and an updated AI and vendor register.
- Ongoing.Your assessment kept current and changes flagged when they matter to you.
- Annually.A board-ready summary you can hand over without rewriting.
A practical place to start
Nobody decided to start using AI. It just started.
Your staff has been pasting client information into chatbots for months. Your medical director wants a scribe. A funder is about to ask what your policy is, and there isn’t one.
This isn’t about catching people doing it wrong. AI needs someone to decide what’s allowed, write it down clearly, and give staff a safe way to use tools that help.
It’s also about what comes next. We’ll look at where your organization is today, find the work AI could genuinely improve, and choose a practical next step—without chasing every new tool.
Talk through your AI questions →AI is a leadership decision that got handed to whoever was standing closest to it.
Ways to start
You don’t need to choose the right service before you call.
Bring me what landed on your desk. We’ll decide together whether you need one answer, a wider look, a plan, or someone to keep owning it.
01Bring me one decision.View details
A contract, an AI product, a vendor concern, or a board question nobody feels comfortable answering yet. I’ll help you understand what matters and what to do next.
Examples: “Should we approve this AI scribe?” · “Is our MSP delivering what we bought?” · “What should I tell the board?”
Talk through the decision →02See the whole picture.View details
If the questions keep multiplying, we’ll look at your technology, security, AI use, vendors, and organizational priorities together. You leave with clear priorities—not another checklist.
Useful when leadership needs to know where things stand, what is exposed, and what should happen in the next 90 days.
Start with an assessment →03Plan what comes next.View details
Technology should help the organization move forward, not merely keep the lights on. I work with leadership, your IT provider, and your board to turn the current environment into a practical technology and AI direction.
Annual planning, board-ready priorities, responsible AI opportunities, vendor direction, and a roadmap the organization can actually follow.
Talk about strategic planning →04Add ongoing leadership.View details
When you need someone to keep owning these decisions, ByrdTail can stay involved as your advisory, fractional, or embedded technology and security leader.
I work above—not instead of—your outside IT company or internal IT team: technology decisions, security and AI rules, vendor oversight, board communication, and organizational risk.
Explore ongoing leadership →How pricing worksView details
Clear scope before the work begins. Fixed-scope projects are quoted after a short conversation. Ongoing nonprofit pricing is tailored to organizational size, complexity, and how much support you need.
You’ll know what is included, what it costs, and where the boundaries are before we start. If you only need one conversation—not an engagement—I’ll tell you.
Tell me what landed on your desk
Twenty minutes tells you whether you need me at all.
Bring the messy version. You don’t have to know the right words. If you don’t need me monthly, I’ll say so.