Lyceum's Cybersecurity Series Part 1: "What You Don't Know CAN Hurt YOU"

Michael Kehs (0:10)

Welcome to The Leadership Lyceum, A CEO's Virtual Mentor.

Jorge Benitez (0:15)

Now, here's your host, Tom Linquist.

Thomas B. Linquist (0:20)

Glad to have you back in The Leadership Lyceum, where we bring you direct access to top CEOs and directors of boards in an interview format that provides insight on situational issues that confront CEOs every day. It is A CEO's Virtual Mentor.

Welcome to Episode 30, Season 9 of A CEO's Virtual Mentor. This is the first of a special series of episodes dedicated to cybersecurity. This special series aims to help boards confront cybersecurity as a governance issue. It's also the first podcast series that includes multiple members of Lyceum Circle of Leaders, reflecting the insights and concerns that those in the circle have raised. You see, over the past year, as new members have joined the Lyceum Circle of Leaders, many have expressed to us a collective interest in the topic. To be candid, we at Lyceum were surprised. We assumed NACD, the global accounting firms, and large consultancies had already covered the waterfront on cybersecurity. Yet, circle members made clear crucial board-level perspectives were still missing. As always, Lyceum was up for the challenge. And in this series, we aim to present the issue from a different angle, one that unearths deeper insights and sharpens practical understanding for board members and executives alike. I am deeply grateful to our five expert guests in the program. Their perspectives have been invaluable in helping us frame the series with that intention. My five guests include an array of board members and subject matter experts, and in many cases, they're both. Collectively, they bring boardroom, technical and crisis communications experience, to the conversation. At this stage, I'll merely introduce their relevance to the program at a high level. But as they join the program, I'll more fully introduce them. My guest sirs follows. Jorge Benitez, retired CEO of Accenture North America, and member of three boards, including two in which he chairs their technical committees that cover cyber in the purview of their committee charters. Wendy Thomas is an expert in the threat intelligence sector. She's the former CEO of Secure Works that recently sold to Sophos Company. She serves on two boards. Brook Colangelo, CIO of Waters Corporation and member of two boards. Michael Crowe, retired CIO of Colgate-Palmolive and member of two company boards. And Michael Kehs, partner at Legend Labs, a brand and reputation consulting firm for the digital age. Michael brings a public relations and crisis planning and management perspective and practice to the subject of cybersecurity. Our lead-off episode is titled What You Don't Know Can Hurt You. As Stephen Hawking warned, the greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance. It is the illusion of knowledge. That illusion is the trap boards face in cybersecurity oversight and the challenge we tackle in this conversation. The program is divided into four parts. Part 1, Why is this subject important? Part 2, Visibility. Part 3, Risk Management. And Part 4, Objectives of the Cybersecurity Series. And before we join the conversation, I want to express our thanks to the clients of Lyceum Leadership Consulting that have enabled us to bring you this podcast. If you find value in conversations like this, we invite you to join the 800 plus other directors and executives in the Lyceum Circle of Leaders, a free community dedicated to advancing leadership through shared intelligence. Join now through the Circle of Leaders page at leadershiplyceum.com. We'll join the conversation right after this.

We begin the program with the most basic of questions. Why is this subject important? Jorge Benitez is one of those Circle of Leaders members who encourage that we do this series. Mr. Benitez serves on three publicly traded company boards, including one in the financial services industry and another in energy. For both of these boards, he chairs their technical committees that cover cyber in the purview of their committee charters. And the last board is a global advertising agency. We welcome Jorge Benitez, the retired CEO of Accenture North America to the program. When did he first encounter cyber security in a professional sense?

Jorge Benitez (4:50)

I was at Accenture and we were actually defining a new practice area, a new go-to-business model that we would have around information security, which is what we called it at the time. And at the time, this would have been 2009, 2010 And certainly, cyber was around at that point, but I would venture to say that it didn't have the same perspective that it has today as it has become much more sophisticated, much more prevalent, and we've seen many more attacks be successful. This practice area that started with about 10 people and is now in several thousands, and it became pretty clear that this was something that we could, from a consulting standpoint, help many of our clients on this journey of how do they get better, how do they protect their assets and their data, and deal with these events. And if I pass forward now, obviously there's a whole evolution that's developed with the advent of a number of other components, cloud-based systems and other technologies that have really come to life that make this situation much more critical to everyone. It's no longer something just for some companies to worry about. It's something for all organizations to worry about. And it's a board-level item. On all the boards that I serve on, we have deep discussions about our current cyber frameworks and how we're doing in terms of managing this risk.