“There are some options,” Pendrick says. “There are solyoprainures that provide VCISO consultation services to a small group of customers. They load their customer, which they need to cover the bills. People of theres who work for a consulting organization – for better or worse – and they are like utility players.
Any of those paths can transform or change to one VCISO because their customers have changed and new opportunities harvest. But one of the subjects prevalent among all the VCISOs we spoke, which keeps them inherent in this path, is the opportunity of diverse and interesting work that continuously flexes their skills.
“What happens when you work for an outfit. You begin to stabilize after building a program,” says Petraglia. “For me, working as a Vciso is very exciting because there is always something new to work. You have a new industry, you have a new company, you have a new culture, you have new and different challenges.”
What is more, as a vciso you control your fate, and you have a lot of control over the working conditions and the environment you work on a day and day basis. This can be particularly refreshed as a woman in the male-dominated world of security, says Demornville, who states that out of the organization chart, as a VCISO, she is a buffer from politics and if she runs into issues of poisonous culture, it is quite easy to remove herself. “Working internally is externally more difficult because as a consultant you can leave,” she says. “It is very difficult to leave it when you work internally.”
