Evolving the Modern CISO: The Educational Path to Trust Product Leadership

During the past two months of keynote speaking at cybersecurity events and conferences, one question consistently arises: "How do I become a CISO?" This query underscores a significant gap in professional development paths for C-level executives. Unlike the well-defined routes to becoming a CFO, CIO, CMO, or CRO, the pathway to becoming a CISO remains ambiguous and multifaceted.

Historically, CISOs have ascended from technical individual contributor roles in IT, Audit, Engineering, and Cybersecurity. These roles require a high degree of technical proficiency but often lack the educational framework to contextualize and communicate the business value of their skills. This education gap hinders leaders from recognizing, contextualizing, and conveying their impact on organizational value, thereby impeding their progression to executive-level leadership roles.

The Path to Become a Trust-Focused CISO 

What if we could start from scratch and design an educational path that leads to the modern, trust-focused business CISO archetype? What would such an education look like? Recognizing that the traditional paths for CISOs are predominantly technical—and that the answer is not always to "hey, get an MBA"—we need an integrated program that balances the technical expertise required to execute cybersecurity work with the business and trust-building skills essential for running a trust product business. Significantly, unlike many other leaders, a CISO benefits tremendously from understanding how work is done at the granular level. This insight is crucial when recognizing how often modern cybersecurity issues boil down to operational failures. Knowing the 'how' of all roles in the data flow informs a CISO's trust product strategy more than countless MBA-style business books could.

This vision took root a couple of years ago when I hired a fresh college graduate with top honors in computer science and cybersecurity from a prestigious New York university. Despite their academic achievements, this employee was unprepared for the practical day-to-day demands of a modern cybersecurity environment. This experience illuminated a significant disconnect: universities, which position themselves as temples of higher learning, are failing to prepare graduates for real-world applications. While universities argue that they are not trade schools, their marketing often suggests that degrees will lead to better job prospects, implicitly acknowledging their role in vocational education. 

Having owned and operated a technical school as Director of Education & Curriculum gave me the confidence to engage this topic pedagogically and consider what it would take to guide an adult learner to success as a modern-day CISO. To bridge this gap, I began developing a concept I’ve coined “Trust University,” which delivers a single degree: the MBA-CISO. This hypothetical degree program is meticulously structured to balance cybersecurity, business acumen, and trust-building principles. It aims to cultivate a new generation of CISOs who are strategic, innovative, and adept at fostering trust throughout their organizations. 

The Missing CISO Framework

Modern cybersecurity leaders face significant challenges and have largely been left to navigate independently. While private organizations offer networking and learning opportunities, there is a conspicuous absence of the kind of continuing institutional support available to CEOs, CFOs, CROs, and CIOs. This results from CISOs not being equipped with the tools, methods, language, or strategies necessary to convey their strategic value to their organizations. Lacking this framework, CISOs struggle to align themselves with business objectives and are often unsure of how to begin this alignment.

The Trust Product Practice strategy serves as the bridge that CISOs need to cross to become strategic executive leaders. This transformation relies on an educational program designed with the end in mind: building a CISO capable of running a global trust product practice in competitive markets, in service of shareholder value and customer satisfaction. By mastering the technical and non-technical aspects of cybersecurity and trust, CISOs can become pivotal figures in driving their organizations toward a future where trust and security are integral to their success.

Note: Trust University and the MBA-CISO do not actually exist; however, you’re welcome to build it with me. Below is a topical summary of the curriculum proposal, which serves the purpose of defining and positioning the market need to have this conversation and start building the next generation of data protection leaders, today.

Data Value Defense Fundamentals include areas such as cybersecurity, software carpentry, cloud operations, IT infrastructure, and resilience. In cybersecurity, future CISOs learn offensive and defensive strategies, application security, corporate security, product security, and incident management. This comprehensive training equips them to design robust defenses and respond effectively to threats, thereby protecting organizational assets and stakeholders.

Courses in software carpentry cover essential programming languages like Python, Java, JavaScript, and C++, as well as scripting, version control, and working within a Software Development Life Cycle. This foundation ensures CISOs understand the work of building software to properly engage software vulnerabilities and integrate security throughout the development process. In cloud operations, training on secure cloud stack deployment, cloud security best practices, and governance prepares CISOs to manage modern, cloud-based infrastructures securely—a critical skill as more organizations migrate to the cloud.

IT infrastructure training includes identity management, database administration, communication systems, system integration, helpdesk support, hardware management, and data center operations. These courses prepare CISOs to oversee comprehensive IT environments. Resilience training emphasizes incident response, breach response, disaster recovery, business continuity planning, and human safety, equipping future CISOs to maintain operational continuity and safeguard human capital during crises.

Understanding regulatory compliance and the intricacies of cyber-insurance is essential for mitigating risks and ensuring regulatory alignment, which is covered in IT governance, compliance, and cyber-insurance modules. Third-party security covers securing the digital supply chain through third-party security and vendor risk management, reflecting the interconnected nature of business ecosystems. Training in anomaly detection, mitigation, and remediation, including network monitoring, configuration management, endpoint security, dataflow analysis, code review, identity access management (IAM), and threat hunting, equips CISOs with the knowledge to plan and deploy proactive security measures.

Business Leadership spans legal review and contract analysis, business leadership, people management, economics and behavioral economics, marketing and communications, finance operations and budgeting, project management, and force multipliers. Courses in legal obligations and regulatory impacts on security ensure legal considerations are integrated into strategic security planning. Business leadership modules cover leadership theories, ethical decision-making, and strategic management, preparing CISOs to inspire and guide their teams effectively.

Training in talent development, team dynamics, and conflict resolution fosters high-functioning teams, essential for cybersecurity effectiveness. Insights into market analysis and behavioral drivers align security strategies with broader business objectives, covered in economics and behavioral economics courses. Marketing and communications courses emphasize the role of transparent communication and effective stakeholder engagement, vital for building and maintaining trust. Financial planning and resource allocation skills empower CISOs to manage security budgets strategically, while project management skills covering the project lifecycle and resource allocation are critical for executing complex cybersecurity initiatives. Understanding the effectiveness of force multipliers teach CISOs to leverage tools and techniques for increased efficiency and impact.

Humanistic and Interdisciplinary Studies include philosophy, practical theater and public speaking, sociology, political science, human behavior, world history, and writing in various forms (business, legal, technical, and creative). Philosophy courses delve into ethics and morality in business, fostering principled leadership. Practical theater and public speaking modules enhance effective communication necessary for conveying complex security concepts to diverse audiences.

Understanding social dynamics and socio-political context is essential for navigating the global cybersecurity landscape, covered in courses on sociology, political science, and human behavior. Historical perspectives on governance and trust, provided by world history courses, enrich strategic outlooks. Training in the four forms of English ensures effective communication across contexts. Courses in business writing, which cover crafting audit reports, policy documentation, and change management communications, maintain transparency and accuracy.

—

If you’re thinking to yourself, “I had no idea the work of a trust-building CISO was so expansive,” then you’re not alone. This perception gap between the actual value Trust Leaders deliver and how that value is perceived was the original driver behind establishing the Trust Product Practice ten years ago. One thing I have observed is that few CISOs just ‘figure it out’; the lack of institutional support for the leadership role has resulted in entire industries unsure as to the Why, When, and What of a CISO for their organizations. Adopting this enriched educational framework fosters strategic leaders who are capable of driving innovation, resilience, and long-term growth. By ensuring that trust becomes a core attribute of their organization’s market identity and operational excellence, future CISOs will be well-equipped to navigate and lead in today’s complex business landscape. Trust Product is the future of business cybersecurity, and Trust University can teach, build, and support those leaders as they go forth to defend their slice of the world.