
Last Thursday, RANT opened its doors to a group of 100 senior managers in cyber security, in a pub location in central London.
Sponsored by Optiv, the panel brought together Andrzej Kawalec, Director of Strategy and Technology at Optiv, Ben de la Salle, Virtual CISO and Howard Pinto, ex CISO from Vodafone and QBE insurance.
What ensued was a lively debate on how to attain, and maintain the board’s interest and buy in regarding cyber security. By promoting an intentionally tongue in cheek opportunity for self-reflection from the audience, the panel posed the question;
With many a security team mentioning the same bugbear of existing as an isolated, ignored and under-invested silo within the business; where does the responsibility lie in making sure business security needs are met?
For those looking for management to sign off on new tech, the focus should be on determining the ROI to the business. Tailoring a cyber security product list for your organisation based on actual and forecasted need can be challenging, ensuring a constant state of security whilst navigating evolving external and internal threats is certainly complicated.
The issue with this of course, is that it is hard to resonate with a non-technical audience if what you are describing is continuously changing and becoming evermore technical as the business scales.
The trick, Optiv’s Andrzej Kawalec iterates, is in successfully articulating what we are planning to do when it comes to effective security management.
Being able to succinctly address what the single defining function of the security team is to the organisation is a powerful tool. By concentrating the processes and planning into a single message the goal is easier to digest, and action. When trying to guarantee investment, addressing business value as well as risk mitigation processes is the optimal managerial approach.
As the panelists tussled between insightful commentary from personal managerial experiences and questions on best practice from the audience of peers it was certain that the question of how to promote inclusivity between boards and security teams needs longer discussion. If that sounds of interest, you can sign up to the RANT network to debate similar topics here.
If you’re interested in learning more about Optiv’s recent expansion into EMEA, and are interested in applying for a London role view the latest vacancies here.
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