CISOs Connect Top 100 Chief Information Security Officers

Results from CISOs Top 100 Chief Information Security Officers have been published, honoring the top leaders in the cybersecurity industry. The winners for the inaugural season come from diverse backgrounds and professional settings ranging from private to academic institutions. According to CISO, the C100 will honor these proven top leaders for their continued contributions to the cybersecurity industry in order to secure & protect organizations around the world.

What is CISOs Connect?

CISOs Connect is an exclusive invitation-only interactive community of trusted cyber peers and subject matter experts. Connected by common interests, this membership community allows cyber experts to share knowledge and expertise through proprietary content, research, and analysis while exchanging information, ideas and collaborating with trusted colleagues to make informed business and technology decisions.

What degrees do they hold?

Given that these are highly recognized individuals in our industry, I thought it would be interesting to see what the educational backgrounds, as a whole, looked like amongst the winners. Here is what I found:

41 of the honorees had a Bachelors

47 of the honorees had a Masters

12 of the honorees had a Doctorate

Worth noting is Dr. Dennis Leber. He holds dual PhD's. Impressive, to say the least.

What's your point?

We can deduce a few things from this superficial look at the winners educational backgrounds. To be clear, the assumption is that their LinkedIn accounts are up-to-date & accurate.

•Firstly, every single winner held at least a Bachelors. This demonstrates quite clearly the emphasis on education that is needed if you ever aspire to be at the CISO level. Now, I know you will say, "But I know a CISO who doesn't have a degree!" and that is just fine & believable. I am not speaking in absolutes. Rather, I am merely just making observations from the results.

•Secondly, more winners held a Masters degree than those who held just a Bachelors (41% versus 47%). I firmly believe that the sweet spot in regards to higher education in our industry is a Masters degree.

•Thirdly, and quite surprisingly, 12 winners held a PhD. I guess I am a bit surprised that there were this many Doctorates in the list. We all have our reasons for this long & lonely Doctoral journey, and to be fair, I did not explore their LinkedIn accounts beyond seeing their education, but it was personally refreshing to see this many listed.

To surmise, if you ever aspire to reach the level of CISO, odds are that you will need some sort of higher education. Something to ponder, I guess.