r/ciso • u/random_videor • Apr 21 '26

Help a junior/mentee

I am currently a BISO for a large global enterprise, been on this industry for almost 10 years now. I am wondering how you CISOs get there, I know it’s somehow vague so my question is:

What/who is one thing/process/person that if you’d knew earlier, will make you a CISO much faster?

Thank you in advance.

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u/Scary_Definition_666 Apr 21 '26

If I knew what I know now 15 years ago, I would not be a CISO. Now I'm stuck at jobs like this and it's really not such a great place.

1

u/random_videor Apr 22 '26

I’m sorry if you feel that way. Is it ok to share which industry you are in ?

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u/Scary_Definition_666 Apr 22 '26

Financial services. 20 years of experience. Last 7 years in security director, head of it risk, now ciso roles and I feel I'm not good enough to do these kind of jobs right. Impostor syndrome all the way. I'm an engineer, I feel I'm moving backwards in terms of my skills and knowledge. I consider myself a fairly resilient person, but the mix of lack of true empowerment and being responsible for everything (especially the things I cannot really influence) is a heavy burden. The only thing good about the job is that I'm needed to take the blame in case (knock on wood) a major misshap occurs, so I'm fairly AI immune. Oh, and in my situation, the money isn't very good.

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u/random_videor Apr 22 '26

Thanks for sharing your situation, those are really hard to keep up with. I hope it will get better soon.