CISO Tradecraft: Your First 90 Days as a CISO (with Mark Egan)

This special episode features Mark Egan (Former CIO of Symantec as well as VMWare).  Mark discusses what he looks for during interviews with CISOs, what executives need to demonstrate during their first 90 days to be successful, and how he helps the next generation of cyber professionals at Merritt College.

Three Questions to ask during any interview:

What do you like best about this role?

What are the most challenging pieces of this role?

What does success look like for this role one year into the future?

Five Step Plan for New CISOs:

Start with an assessment of the current “As-Is” IT architecture

Perform Business Requirements Analysis (What are the strategic objectives, tactical issues, and business environment).

Design of the Future “To Be” IT architecture (application architecture, organization architecture, network architecture, infrastructure architecture)

Gap Analysis = (Future - Present).  This is the most important step as you need to determine a good list of alternatives for management.  Talk to consultants and peers in other companies to see how you can come up with a wide range of solutions.

Options to Bridge the Gaps = (Cost, Time, & Business Environment).  Present management with alternative approaches for transforming the organization.  Remember speak in business terms and specify ways that align with business objectives.  In terms of cyber it might be Ensuring Financially Significant Applications don’t have operational disruption, ensuring revenue and brand protection by securing internet facing applications, meeting compliance and regulatory concerns, etc.

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Mark Egan LinkedIn Profile Link