Cynthia Hayward
IT Risk & CISO
Head
Cynthia Hayward is Director of IT Risk (CISO) at Enova International where she is responsible for Cyber Security, Information Security, and Data Security as well as security awareness training, and annual PCI, SOX, and SOC2 audits. Prior to joining Enova she held various roles in risk, security, fraud, internal investigations and marketing at Citibank, Bank One (Chase), and Discover Financial. She holds a BA in English from Otterbein College, an MBA from Thunderbird School of Global Management and an MS in Computer Forensics from Champlain College as well as CISSP certification. In her spare time, Cynthia is an active volunteer in several local Schaumburg community initiatives focused on reducing housing and food insecurity.
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Give us a brief overview of the path that led to your current role.
My path has been unconventional. I wanted to be a journalist my entire childhood and first three years of my career I worked for local newspapers. Unfortunately, my timing was off because in the early 1990s newspapers were going under. I took a year off to teach English in China before enrolling in an MBA program. After a marketing internship with Citibank; I spent 10 years developing and marketing online banking products for three global banks.
Then, fraud losses started to significantly increase as online banking became more popular. I asked to assist the security with several investigations because their experience with digital information was limited. I loved the investigations. It brought me back to my journalism days and 18 years ago accepted a newly created digital investigations role on the security team. They taught me the basics of fraud investigations.
Then, I completed a Master of Science in Digital Forensics while taking on increasingly higher-level roles investigating all types of bank fraud and internal employee investigations. Eventually, I moved from investigating and managing response to incidents to using that knowledge to develop prevention strategies, awareness training, control development and risk mitigation.
What is one of your guiding leadership principles?
My guiding principles are to create an environment where learning, critical thinking, and data from multiple perspectives go into our decisions so the focus stays on getting it right over being right.
What is the key to success for someone just starting out as a CISO?
Security knowledge is a foundation, but this is a role that ultimately is judged on your ability to create assurance and trust. That is created by being authentic and living your values, acknowledging tough situations to allow important conversations, and learning from your mistakes to build resiliency.
How do you measure success as a leader?
I measure success through indicators of a culture of security like seeing folks make decisions that incorporate security impacts and reaching out with questions before finalizing implementation plans.
What is the value of being a member of Gartner C-level Communities?
Gartner C-level Communities is a community of others facing similar challenges. I value the wide range of perspectives and being able to ask questions and share my thoughts as well.
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