CYBER SECURITY Speaks Up

Speaking the language of both security and business isn't always easy or possible for CISOS. Terry O'Daniel, CISO and Cybersecurity Advisor, is changing that, and it's a very good thing.

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Cybersecurity is big business.

It's also young as disciplines go. The first cybersec class may have been taught in the '90s, but in those days, it was viewed as an engineering or IT function. As with most youngsters, Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) are struggling to find their place in the world. Their place is changing rapidly and will continue to evolve as novel technologies emerge and mature. The place that CISOs are headed? The boardroom. And that requires new ways to communicate with business leaders.

"I spent five years at Yahoo as a director of production engineering. That's where I realized that we can do a lot of amazing technical work, but it misses the mark of what the business really cares about." That voice of experience is Terry O'Daniel, one of the most in demand cybersecurity consultants in the game. "I realized that my strong suit was really providing a translation layer between the business and technology, helping them translate a revenue recognition risk from our finance team into strong security controls," he told us.

O'Daniel grew up loving (and Frankensteining) computers. After graduating from UC-Davis with a Music specialization during the dot com boom, he worked for scrappy startups in San Francisco. "I planned to become a musician like my parents, but the opportunity to work in emerging tech was just too exciting to pass up,” he says. “Fortunately, I still get to work with amazing companies like Mixtape that are using tech to bring personalized music playlists to amaze and delight listeners.” As his reputation as a security leader grew, he went on to consult with some of the most influential companies in business.

Working at a series of very small, very scrappy startups gave him the opportunity to hone his risk and compliance skills. “I never wanted to be a feature developer. I focused instead on all of the things that developers don’t like to do, like infrastructure, security, operations, and IT.