S6E4 - Joseph Lewis - A Year in the Seat - a CISO's Retrospective

Resilient Cyber

- First off, tell us about your journey to the role of the CISO. What did that look like, what steps did you take, what helped prepare you and so on?
- To many, the CISO is considered the pinnacle of the cyber career field. How did it feel when you landed the role and looking back a year now, what are some thoughts that come to mind?
- We know as you become more of a senior leader, you get less into the nuance and details of the technical activities and more focused on strategy, vision, organizational objectives and so on. Can you speak about balancing the technical expertise and experience with learning to better engage your business peers and fellow leaders across the organizations?
- A key part of being a CISO is building and empowering the team around you to ensure security is successful. How do you approach building and leading a team as a CISO?
- Something worth calling out is you aren't the CISO of a SMB of commercial product company, you're the CISO if a Federal agency. That comes with its own unique challenges, demands and complexity, from resources, requirements, compliance rigor and more. Can you speak a bit about the unique aspects of being a Federal CISO and how you've navigated those so far?
- What are some of your biggest lessons learned, challenges and recommendations around being an effective leader?
- For those aspiring to become a CISO, what resources and steps do you recommend?
- Let's talk a bit about your current role and organization, many of course are interested to hear about that. What are some key strategic objectives you're focused on at CDC, to the extent you're able to speak about them publicly?