Celebrating cybersecurity: 100 Global CISOs for 2020

Security leaders are the heroes behind seamless transformations and protected workforces as we pivot to remote working. It's time we celebrated their work.

It has never been more important to develop and implement a strong cybersecurity strategy, nor to showcase their creators.

At the start of 2020, the industry looked back on a decade where creative innovation flourished even amid the ever-increasing sophistication of cybersecurity attacks. This required careful and iterative improvements peppered with startlingly agile change programs within digital transformations, possibly the business term that will come to define the last decade. Yet 2020 brought about another challenge - one far more complex and far-reaching in scale that this generation has yet to experience: Covid-19. Its effects on business were sudden and vast. Most of the global economy shifted to remote working in a matter of days along with their privacy and identity, and their organisation’s security. Any business still operating today after such hurdles should thank its security team.

The security function can lay claim to protecting a business, its teams and resources, while also directly driving growth. As an industry we have seen that first hand over the last six months, if not over the last decade. Few other functions can boast such acumen, which is why HotTopics.ht and Forcepoint are determined to seek out and celebrate 100 Global CISOs for 2020.

These CISOs, or heads of security equivalent, have gone above and beyond to help drive business success. The paradox of keeping a business secure while fuelling its growth is the essence of why cybersecurity is a vital function worth celebrating, but in particular, we’re looking for individuals who are:

1. Implementing radical change under a digital transformation or as society pivots to remote working;
2. Building a security strategy that mitigates risk and maximises business performance;
3. Championing of educational programs and/or technological change internally, from Board to base;
4. Representing their companies on current and future state cybersecurity topics.

Over the coming weeks we will be accepting nominations for those Security Heroes you believe deserve recognition for their work. We can’t wait to announce this list where each of whom are one of the central figures behind their business’ futures.

Building on our success in 2017 by creating then the first ever global CISO 100 list, the 100 Global CISOs 2020 is not just a bellwether campaign highlighting some of the best security individuals and strategies happening in the world today, it is a celebration of one of the rising stars of any successful business.

The list will go live on Tuesday, 15 September 2020, thanks to our judging panel: Anoop Chopra, Global CISO, Bupa, Karissa Breen, CEO, KBI, Carlos Travagini, CISO, FIEMG, and George Eapen, CISO, Petrofac.