Why aren't CISO's being elevated to a true C-suite position at the majority of public companies today? What specific challenges exist that are preventing this action from occurring?
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Business acumen. The CISO is seen as coming up from the IT side thus redundant as the CIO likely already has a seat at the table.. You need to learn the business and be able to be a contributor and bring perspective to boardroom.
I use to work in the financial industry. In this type of industry Risk management nor Compliance were just positioned to a C-suite position quite recently but you won't see CISO at this position simply because in the organization they are seen as belonging to risk management. Not sure it's the same in all public company.
Typically it comes down to the perception of security at the company level (or Board level to be more precise) and communication. We've traditional spoken to our collective Boards in the language of security, and we have to speak to them about security using the language of business. While many CISOs are making progress doing this, until we hit a tipping point as an industry this role won't be seen as a 'C' level position at most companies.
There are many reasons for this:
1.Traditional Organizational Structure.
2.Limited Awareness: Businesses still do not fully understand the critical role that cybersecurity plays in modern business.
3.Reporting Structure: When information delegation is not as it should be.
In my opinion, to boost CISOs into the C-suite, it's critical to clearly show their strategic value to the business, refine their communication to resonate with top-level leadership, educate executives on cybersecurity's strategic role, and position CISOs as key decision-makers in corporate strategy, not just emergency response.