CISO Community: Top Highlights from CISO Summits in 2022

That’s a wrap on 2022 for the Evanta CISO Community! This last year, CISOs across North America dedicated their time, energy and insights to creating relevant and meaningful peer gatherings. The three themes that guided program agendas, Town Hall discussions and blogs were: Supporting Business Agility with Risk-Based Programs; Evaluating, Communicating and Responding to Evolving Threats; and Building a Culture of Security to Enable Smart, Secure Decision-Making.

Here’s an overview of our top-rated CISO content in 2022.

Highly Rated Presentations

Keynote: Setting Data Free Securely – The CISO/CDO Partnership
Speakers:

• Eddie Borrero, VP, Chief Information Security Officer, Blue Shield of California
• Zoher Karu, VP, Chief Data & Analytics Officer, Blue Shield of California

In this Keynote, Eddie and Zoher shared the power of a strong partnership between a CISO and CDO, using their strengths to empower the enterprise to protect their most valuable asset – data. They discussed how they created a trustworthy and secure governance framework and aligned incentives and initiatives across security and data teams. 
 

Keynote: Facing Adversity with Boston Strong Resilience
Speaker: 

• Adrianne Haslet, Boston Marathon Bombing Survivor 

Adrianne Haslet joined three CISO Executive Summits this year as a keynote speaker, sharing her story of resilience after the bombing of the Boston Marathon. Adrianne shared how she has faced adversity with a renewed perspective, how she is finishing the race in every corporate and personal challenge, and how she learned to face challenges with a renewed mindset.
 

Breakout: Power of Your Presence and Building Your Personal Brand
Speakers:

• Reshma Budhwani, VP, Chief Technology Security Officer, New York Life
• Lauren Dana Rosenblatt , VP, Chief Information Security Officer, International Flavors & Fragrances
• Radhika Bajpai, Senior Director, Global Head of Technology and Information Security Assurance, PayPal

In this breakout session, Reshma, Lauren and Radhika dove in beyond security expertise and shared their strategies to build and maintain a personal brand. In today’s increasingly digital world, a personal brand is no longer a nice-to-have; it’s expected. They recommended taking a personal inventory and identifying your strengths in order to elevate your security career through personal branding.
 

Breakout: The Art of Communicating Cyber Risk to the Board
Speakers:

• Damiano Tulipani, Chief Information Security Officer, Provident Bank
• Teresa Zielinski, Chief Information & Product Security Officer, GE
• Philip Beyer, Head of Security, Etsy
• JT Jacoby, Chief Information Security Officer, International Rescue Committee

In this panel discussion, a group of senior security executives at different stages of their career discussed the dynamics of what a good Board conversation should look like and include, best practices for delivering your Board cyber updates often and with confidence, and how to create trust with dialogue delivery and engage leadership with universal, non-security terms.
 

Breakout: Combating Stress and Burnout Starts with You
Speaker:

• Ravi Thatavarthy, Vice President & Chief Information Security Officer, Rite Aid

During this interactive conversation, Ravi led a group of security leaders in a spirited discussion on taking care of yourself and modeling healthy behavior to your staff. Between managing vulnerabilities, implementing new solutions, and navigating governance and company-wide risk assessments, it’s no wonder CISOs see the highest numbers of stress and burnout across the C-suite.The group shared strategies on building their employees well-being, and why trust and openness is key to their mental health.
 

Highly Rated Virtual Gatherings

Toronto CISO Town Hall: Optimizing the Workforce for Cyber Crisis Resilience 
Speakers:

• Paul Bentham, Chief Product Officer, Immersive Labs
• Jeff Stark, CISO, Fasken
• Juan Valbuena, Director Global Cybersecurity, Yamana Gold

In this interactive simulation, three speakers led the audience through an exercise to test organization wide decision-making skills using a realistic cyber crisis. The goal was to understand the business impact of technical choices, practice stakeholder management actions and see real-time data on the effects of decisions on crisis management and response.
 

Southern California Town Hall: Security Maturity – What Really Counts?
Speakers:

• Brett Cumming, Director Information Security Officer, Skechers
• Gary Hayslip, VP, Director of Information Security, SoftBank Corporation
• Todd Friedman, CISO, ResMed
• Renee Tarun, Deputy CISO/Vice President Information Security, Fortinet

In this interactive Town Hall, security leaders discussed differing measures for “maturity” in information security programs, how to communicate program maturity across the organization, and lessons from how different organizations and industries define and reach maturity. 

Here is a sample of what CISOs shared with us about their experiences at CISO Executive Summits.

Great event! Meeting with peers and having open, honest discussions about our common challenges is critical to our shared success.”

– Bob Vail
CISO/DPO, Citrine Informatics

Fantastic experience. I love the openness of the discussion, mainly due to the fact that sessions were not streamed or recorded. It allows us to be more authentic with sharing as peers.”

– Mary Faulkner
CISO, Thrivent

The value of Evanta events lies in the time to network with peers, share ideas, and build the community. No other event comes close - that doesn't come with unwanted sales pitches.”

– Ian Mouldey
CISO, PwC Canada
 

Most Popular Content

• Top 3 Goals & Challenges for CISOs in 2022. Here, we shared CISOs’ top priorities for the year, along with the goals and challenges to achieving them, based on their responses to our annual Leadership Perspective Survey.
• 2022 CISO Leadership Perspectives. This infographic displayed highlights of CISOs’ most important priorities in 2022, based on results from more than 800 CISOs.
• 3 Areas of Focus for C-Suite Leaders in 2022. With so much uncertainty throughout last year, we looked at the 3 areas C-level executives cited in our annual survey as their top priorities across the enterprise – not just in their function.
• Top 5 Reasons C-Level Leaders Value Community. One way to manage the fallout from business uncertainty is for executives to get together and collaborate with like-minded peers. These are the top 5 things C-level executives cited as the value of joining a peer community.
• The Next Big Question Podcast: How Can C-Suite Leaders Engage Policymakers on Cybersecurity? In this episode, CISO Deborah Wheeler of Delta Air Lines led a conversation about cybersecurity and how private industry can engage with government entities in the security space. She discussed the current threat landscape, the need for public-private collaboration, and the risks if these public-private conversations don’t take place.

The Evanta CISO Community will continue to provide insights and drive content based on their mission critical priorities in 2023. Next year, CISO content will be driven by three themes: Advancing the Business Value of Security; Protecting Critical Infrastructure Against Advanced Attacks; and Investing in Company Culture to Attract Talent and Empower Staff. 

Learn more about opportunities to connect and collaborate with your CISO peers by joining your local CISO community.