CISO Redefined: Secure Your Seat
Limiting Risk & Closing the Cybersecurity Communications Gap
Up against a rapidly evolving risk landscape, new regulatory requirements and prominent stakeholder scrutiny, C-suite executives increasingly look to CISOs to communicate and translate cyber risks into business risks. While the increased focus on cybersecurity presents new opportunities for CISOs, including raising their profiles within their organizations and externally, it also challenges CISOs to effectively communicate with their Boards and executive leadership – a task that FTI Consulting’s Cybersecurity & Data Privacy Communications practice has researched globally and across industries to uncover actionable communications insights to minimize organizational risk.
To better understand the state of communication between CISOs and C-suites, FTI Consulting’s Cybersecurity & Data Privacy Communications practice launched CISO Redefined, a multi-part survey series that explores the communications challenges facing CISOs as well as C-suite perceptions and expectations of CISOs. The CISO Redefined: Navigating C-Suite Perceptions & Expectations, study summarizes findings from a survey of C-suite executives spanning seven sectors and nine countries. The study builds upon FTI Consulting’s first installment of the CISO Redefined series, released in 2022, which took the inverse approach and surveyed CISOs, and found mounting leadership expectations and associated communications challenges.
Secure Your Seat:
Research Driven Communications & Board Readiness Training Program for CISOs
Key findings from the “CISO Redefined” series confirm a communications gap amongst C-suite executives and CISOs:
- A notable 66% of CISOs felt senior leadership struggles to fully understand their role within the organization, whereas 31% of C-suite executives expressed difficulty understanding the tangible return on cybersecurity investment.
- While 82% of CISOs felt a need to make things sound better to the Board, 31% of C-suite executives believe their CISOs paint a brighter picture than the reality – and 30% felt CISOs are hesitant to raise concerns about their organization’s vulnerabilities.
- As far as organizational alignment, 58% of CISOs confirmed they struggle to translate technical language to senior leadership in a meaningful way. Meanwhile, 28% of C-suite executives believed their CISOs have a hard time translating technical terms into business terms, and 30% reported this difficulty when it comes to CISOs expressing cybersecurity risk in financial and material terms.
- While the research points toward a lack of trust and understanding, it also suggests significant leadership buy-in on solutions to help bridge the gap. In fact, 98% of those surveyed supported more funding for CISO communications and presentation training, with nearly half characterizing this need as immediate.
Our Research
CISO: Communications Redefined – Navigating the Journey from Control Room to Board Room
As companies face increasing stakeholder scrutiny of their oversight and management of cyber risk, the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) is swiftly cementing its role as a key leader within the organization.
Against this backdrop, FTI Consulting conducted a survey of over 100 CISOs at large companies with global operations, representing a sum aggregate revenue of $4.4 trillion and more than 528,000 employees in the U.S. to understand both the opportunities and challenges facing CISOs as they navigate this transition and heightened exposure.
CISO Redefined: Navigating C-Suite Perceptions & Expectations
The risk posed by cybersecurity vulnerabilities has never been greater. As senior executives face greater accountability for cybersecurity risk from regulators, investors, and other stakeholders, FTI Consulting set out to build upon our inaugural CISO barometer – which surveyed CISOs and information security leaders on rising pressures on their roles, leadership, and operations – to better understand C-suite executives’ perceptions and expectations of their CISOs. While the initial survey uncovered a communications gap between CISOs and executives, these new findings indicate the perceived gap feels even greater to the C-suite.
To help CISOs sharpen skills for effectively engaging with Board and C-suite leaders to limit risk, close their cybersecurity communications gap, and protect the bottom line, FTI leveraged expertise across executive positioning, corporate governance, and cybersecurity incident response to create Secure Your Seat (SYS), a research-driven communications and board readiness training program for CISOs. SYS prepares information security professionals to meet the challenge of today’s organizational risks.
The six-week SYS program guides CISOs through weekly training sessions with prominent Board members, lawyers, fellow CISOs, and leaders in the cybersecurity industry, addressing core communications skills CISOs need to engage in productive conversations with the entire C-suite.
Participants can expect the following from FTI’s Secure Your Seat—
- Survey to Identify Areas of for Improvement
- Goal-Setting
- Brand Analysis
- Public Speaking
- Message Refinement and Presentation Delivery Workshop
- Quarterly/Annual Cyber Board Deck Enhancement
- Board-Ready CV Development
- Mock Board Presentation & Feedback Session with Secure Your Seat Advisory Council
Contact Us
