With a severe shortage of cybersecurity professionals to safeguard our ever-expanding internet ecosystem, limitless opportunities exist for expanding the cyber workforce. IT Governance & Cybersecurity Institute (ITGCSI) has made a powerful impact in developing the cybersecurity workforce by inspiring and engaging individuals from different backgrounds to consider careers in cybersecurity. Working with youth groups and women’s organizations, college-aged students and the military, ITGCSI has shaped skills and prepared individuals of all ages to help close the cyber workforce gap.
The Annual Cybersecurity Excellency Award and the Annual Cybersecurity Leadership and Innovation Awards program, underwritten by ITGCSI in collaboration with industry captains recognizes the cybersecurity-related contributions of state and local government, education, manufacturing, retail, HITECH, healthcare organizations and leaders/innovators in cybersecurity technology services. Winners are evaluated on creativity and leadership, the utilization of technology to achieve results, and the impact of those efforts on state and local government, education and industry.
Cybersecurity threats are on the rise, and as stewards of some of both the private and public’s most important and sensitive data, it’s more critical than ever that we recognize the government and industry organizations that are raising the bar when it comes to the best ways to protect that information. The winners will have demonstrated commitment and dedication to ensure their organization’s systems are available, reliable and trustworthy.
Awards are announced in the following categories: provincial, city, education and leadership. Top honors are awarded to entrants who have developed effective programs to safeguard systems and data.
CISO of the Year
This award, available only to Information Security Executives (VP, CISO, etc.), recognizes an individual’s outstanding work in information security. We will be honoring one executive who has contributed to the information security industry, shown tremendous professional growth and achievement, and has promoted strong, innovative security practices.
CCISO of the Year
This award recognizes an individual’s outstanding work in information security. We will be honoring one C|CISO who has contributed to the information security industry, shown tremendous professional growth and achievement, and has promoted strong, innovative security practices.
Presidential Award
The Presidential Award is given to a CISO who has contributed to the industry in a meaningful way as chosen by ITGCSI President. The award is intended to spotlight special achievements that may be overlooked in other categories.
Annual CISO
The Annual CISO Excellence Award Program Committee, wish all of you and your families health and well-being during this crisis. In view of the disruptions and risks associated with COVID-19, we debated at length whether or not to postpone, but we felt we should lead by example to demonstrate resilience and adaptability – key traits any CISO should personify – by proceeding with the program. We will also follow all international (WHO), local pandemic guidelines and so not want any program participant to feel unsafe. Furthermore, we will not dictate any program requirement that might cause a program participant to take an unsafe action in order to participate fully. The 2020 program will be run online remotely. We will be eliminating all of the face to face events this year until it is safe to do otherwise. Perhaps very late in the year we can reconvene our mixers and will continue to adapt the program as conditions change. There will also be some changes this year regarding nominations and judging, such as the need for perform interviews and evaluations online. Finally, we will be deferring a new award for Virtual CISOs, SMB CISOs or Deputy CISOs to the 2021 program.
The most IMPORTANT thing our program does is to recognize and reward the best of the best in information security leadership! To do that we need everyone to start thinking about who you’d like to nominate and to nominate early and often (the nomination window is open – please feel free to nominate more than one person)! In view of the reduced role of sponsors this year, we will call on our partners and the Chicago CISO community to step up and nominate deserving members and peers for this award.
The way we decide the best of the best is by putting nominees through a rigorous and comprehensive judging process. The process this year is online so we will be doubling the number of judges for each nominee and perform a more comprehensive and vigorous review. Spoiler Alert: we expect that part of the evaluation criteria for this year will specifically relate to nominees’ response to COVID-19.