Articles Tagged with ''security leaders''

Meet Miki Calero, CSO for the city of Columbus, Ohio. As the city’s top security executive, he establishes and leads the enterprise security risk management program for the 15th largest city in the nation. Calero is also one of Securitymagazine’s 2012 Most Influential Security Executives, featured in this issue. 

How did your career in security begin? Why did you decide upon this profession? It’s a question that I ask people who I mentor. In my case, the Army decided it for me. When I entered the Army at the end of Vietnam War, I moved from infantry to intelligence, and much of my duties involved security. During my 30 year career in the Army, I had many opportunities to get involved in security.

Welcome to the fifth annual Security 500 Survey, Benchmark and Trends report, recognizing both our profession’s best security leaders and their outstanding organizations as well as identifying the biggest challenges and targets for where billions of dollars will be invested to manage enterprise risk and improve security.

Coming Soon! Security Magazine’s Most Influential Report. The Most Influential will be profiled in the August 2012 issue of Security magazine and online at www.securitymagazine.com in front of more than 36,000 industry peers.

The Security 500 tracks 19 vertical markets and collects unique data where appropriate (such as patients in healthcare) and applies this data to key metrics.

Witness, if you will, 50 years of security art and science collapsed into the post 9/11 decade. When the dot com era burst, many venture dollars were looking for a place to work. 9/11, sadly, happened and was followed by many changes, including the creation of DHS and the promises to “inspect every bag at airports,” which led to the venture capital and curious question: Inspect them with what? The need rose, the money poured in. Innovation followed.

Performance metrics are “critically important” to business leaders, says Greg Niehaus, Professor of Finance and Insurance for the Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina. “In my view it’s very important for business functions to have metrics that tie back to the objectives of the organization – that measure the impact on value and value creation.” If a function fails to develop and effectively communicate performance metrics, says Niehaus, “their contributions to the organization will likely be not appreciated, which, in down times, could lead to cutting of responsibilities or jobs and hurting the value of the organization.”

For CNA, profitable growth – domestically and internationally – is among its winning strategies. This, combined with a more mobile workforce, has generated new opportunities and involvement from the global commercial insurer’s security team. Among the bigger challenges for Chief Security Officer Bill Phillips is supporting expansion initiatives while maintaining a global, yet lean organization.

Many large organizations are beginning to add the position of chief security officer (CSO) to the C-suite. This is great news as it highlights the benefits and importance of a well-designed security unit as a business function. However, some recent trends suggest that some organizations still may misunderstand the impact and role of security.