Security Excellence Day, 20-June-2007, Milan, Italy
On 20-June-2007, I participated as a keynote speaker at the Security Excellence Day Conference in Milan, Italy at the invitation of SanDisk (www.sandisk.com) and NSEC Srl (www.nsec.it).
The invitation only event for C-level executives in Europe was co-sponsored by IBM, Microsoft, SanDisk, Applied Identity, and NSEC Srl. The focus of the conference was to discuss the future direction and trends for information security. Speakers included:
- Chris Stakutis, CTO of Tivoli CDP – IBM
- Feliciano Intini, Chief Security Advisor to Microsoft Italia (blog)
- Mark Ashida, Partner at OVP Ventures
- Jaime Chanaga, CEO of The CSO Board
My presentation entitled “Leadership Principles for Security Excellence” focused on the key “soft” skills top security executives often overlook which can help enhance their leadership performance. Here is a brief summary of the presentation and the accompanying slide deck.
Leadership Principles for SecurityExcellence
1. Think differently
Don’t be afraid of challenging the status-quo. True excellence as a security executive and leader demands you are willing to think differently. Dare to think big and differently!
2. Learn from failure
Failure is a roadmap to success. Learn from your failures in security management and from the mistakes of others. Don’t be afraid of taking risks, failing, and then learning from failure. Thomas Edison never gave up, even after 10,000 failures when trying to invent the incandescent light bulb. Have you failed 10,000 times in your security management leadership? If not, then don’t give up! Learn from failure!
3. Be innovative
Innovation in security management is critical to achieving excellence. Don’t be afraid to try new ways to protect your IT assets and organizations. Those people determined to break your information security are using innovation and creativity to find new ways to breach your information security defenses. Don’t be afraid to innovate and be creative in protecting your information assets and organizations.
4. Value people
Too often security executives fail in their leadership fail to forget that building relationships and trust with people are the secret to long term success. Learn to build relationships based on trust with your subordinates, peers, and partners to enhance your leadership performance.
5. Lead with integrity
Personal and professional integrity should be at the core of a security leader’s beliefs and actions. In today’s business climate, unfortunately corporate scandals show some executives sacrificing their personal and professional ethics. True excellence and leadership demands executives hold strong personal and professional ethical standards.
6. Change the world
A result of adopting some or all of these Leadership Principles for SecurityExcellence will allow you to change the world around you. As a leader you will have a noticeable positive impact on your subordinates, peers, partners, your organization, and your industry—your world.
I'd like to extend my sincere thanks to SanDisk and NSEC for inviting me to share at this event. I welcome comments from you my blog reader on this presentation.
Pictures of the event
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nsec/sets/72157600464937201/
NSEC Press Release
Download PR_NSEC-Security_Ecellence_Day.pdf
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