Preface

Imagine that you are at the bottom of a mountain and making your way up the path. There is snow at the top of it and, along the way, many pointy rocks to navigate. Your destination is the summit, and there are many approaches that you can take to climb.

This book is intended to be your guide to reaching the summit of your career aspirations. I hope this book inspires the aspiring CIO and CISO to reach their career objectives. You can choose to walk up the mountain or take the gondola lift. The journey on the gondola lift will still have bumps, but you are able to traverse the distance safer and faster.

Being a CIO or CISO is an incredibly rewarding career journey. You will experience much personal growth and learning and face a new challenge to tackle every day. For many of you, that will be the key motivation for taking on this role, not the status, prestige, or rewards that may come from this position. It might be considered a personal test to see how much you can develop yourself.

There are many tricks and traps along the way in the career of a CIO and CISO. How can you prepare yourself for this journey? I recommend that you reflect on where you are and what you need to transform to make this a reality. I used the word transform on purpose as each leader will need to stretch into this new form.