Erik Hart
CISO
Cushman & Wakefield
Erik Hart is the CISO at Cushman & Wakefield. He oversees global information security for Cushman & Wakefield, one of the world’s largest commercial real estate services firms. Erik is a recognized thought leader with more than 20 years of experience in providing information security services to various industries and organizations.
He also serves in an advisory role for numerous companies and organizations in the information security field, including Mimecast, CrowdStrike, InfraGard Chicago Members Alliance and Western Illinois University.
Erik is an avid Peloton rider and has not missed a day working out in over one year.
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Give us a brief overview of the path that led to your current role.
My career started in consulting when I was asked to join a newly formed information security team because I knew Novell NetWare and could audit and potentially hack into it. This was the start of my journey where I learned the client relations path. From there, one of my clients hired me.
What is one of your guiding leadership principles?
I have always asked my team to try to find solutions and offer the business options where we can say yes to their ask.
What is the greatest challenge CISOs face today, and how are you addressing it?
My greatest challenge is always figuring out how I can continue to enable my team to grow. I continue to challenge them to think differently and put new solutions and ideas in front of them to assess.
What is the key to success for someone just starting out as a CISO?
The key to success is understanding what your organization's risk tolerance is and how to communicate it to leadership. Knowing this and your organization's cyber maturity are important.
How do you measure success as a leader?
I measure success as a leader by how my team performs. If they can make decisions without me being involved and I enable them to own their decisions, I am doing something right.
What is the value of being a member of the Evanta community?
I value being a member of the Evanta community because it gives me the ability to network with peers and exchange ideas in a casual format.
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