Cybersecurity leadership is facing a critical inflection point. With just 7,523 CISOs in the U.S. (32,000 globally) and over 36 million businesses operating stateside, most organizations are left under-protected at the top.
Greg Sullivan, CISSP, Founding Partner of CIOSO Global and former Global CIO at Carnival Corporation, has joined Technology Partners’ executive coaching bench to help bridge this gap—not just with skills but strategic mindset and leadership development.
He’s coaching current and aspiring CIOs, CISOs, and other senior technology and cybersecurity professionals through the pressure points where cybersecurity meets business risk.
Greg Sullivan is the Founding Partner at CIOSO Global, LLC, specializing in cybersecurity and technology risk management. He advises clients on regulatory compliance and cybersecurity strategies and helps organizations design and implement risk-based cybersecurity capabilities. Greg spoke to ITSW about the shrinking pipeline for skilled CISOs and what leaders in the sector can do about it.
He also shared his opinion about the role certification programs (like ISC2) and inter-org collaboration play in regaining a healthy CISO pool. Armed with these, how do CISOs now meet the new cybersecurity requirements?
We also asked Greg what he thought was the biggest strategy CISOs can use to garner a Boardroom seat. Greg said the ability to talk about risks—how a lack of security tools and strategy could impact the dollar value of the company—should do the trick. He had no doubts that CISOs were as critical to a company as any other senior leadership role because, in the current scenario, cyber attacks could bring down a brand like any other inefficiency.
In his opinion, the CISSP and ISCA2 were critical certifications for identifying skills, during the hiring of a CISO.
Finally, he was a bit skeptical about the threat of AI being the defining factor in a CISO’s arsenal since even without AI, cyber threats have been ruthless.
But yes, he added, AI knowledge and working skills would definitely be an advantage to today’s CISO, or even a fractional CISO.
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