From Stagnation to Innovation: How One CISO Transformed ING's Global Cybersecurity Landscape
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Complete interview transcript & analysis below
Enhanced transcript with interviewer insights
INTERVIEWER
I'm curious about a time where, where you were just unsatisfied. With the status quo in in your role or just within your company or whatever, but like. Things were humming along, but you weren't happy. You wanted to agitate for change for the better, hopefully. Um, what, what was the situation?
CANDIDATE
Uh, at ING, I, um, I, I was a CISO for real estate investments. And um, I, my responsibility was to, uh, handle, uh, the risk management program for the Americas. Um, but, uh, I, I saw that position pretty, being pretty stagnant. Um, I was more of, you know, checking the dots, uh, type of guy in terms of my responsibilities, and, um, I, I really wanted to get integrated not only into the business, but, uh, you know, expand, um, Where I think the entire real estate, uh, investment, uh, group should be at from a risk management perspective. So I, I actually, um, built some relationships, uh, in, in Europe and, uh, what I did was I created, um, in conjunction with some partners, I created an information security and cybersecurity program, uh, globally. Um, which that gave me much more exposure, um, to, you know, maturing our cybersecurity pro program within ING, and, uh, I, I got more eyes on me to build out the entire program globally.
Interviewer Insight
The lack of clarity here makes it hard to know why this Infosec program was an improvement on current processes.
INTERVIEWER
So what was specifically bothering you that caused you to take that on?
CANDIDATE
It's basically, um, you know, responding to audits. Um, what else? Uh, making sure that, you know, my application management team members are following, um, you know, cybersecurity checklists, making sure that the vendors are doing what they're saying that they're doing. Um, so, uh, from my perspective, it was, you know, a little stagnant, you know, I, I wasn't moving anywhere. It was the same thing every day. Um, and I saw opportunity where You know, we could, you know, create overall a, a much maturer program, uh, globally with the real estate division. Um, so, I basically, you know, I, uh, moved forward and, uh, you know, created, you know, partnerships globally to, uh, you know, help me create that program. And so I like building stuff. I like building stuff. I, I like, you know. I, when, when I, I don't like to do any type of mundane tasks. Um, I, I like to see, you know, where I could grow, you know, the business, grow myself, uh, grow my team members.
Interviewer Insight
this is still a very vague answer without specifics. This presents as more dissatisfaction with current job than with improving something for customers or for the company. While the former is fine, the latter are more suitable for an interview because they are not self-focused.
INTERVIEWER
Spell that. All right, um. Were you successful? And if so, how do you define that?
CANDIDATE
Uh, so they actually, uh, pushed out my entire, um, ING, ING, yeah, my, my program globally, and, uh, I was able to create a, um, information risk management, um, uh, steering committee, uh, globally, um, to mature even the smaller countries, their, their, uh, risk programs.
INTERVIEWER
Like with subsidiaries of ING, like country level subs.
CANDIDATE
Yeah, yeah, so it could be a Red within Spain, for instance, that is, you know, owned by ING Real Estate Investments.
INTERVIEWER
OK. Um, I'm moving a question up.
Expert Assessment
Interviewer assessment - would be used in a hiring meeting
Candidate did not demonstrate that they Insist on High Standards. There exists the possibility that the question was misunderstood, but short of demonstrating that the candidate rolled out a new program, it was unclear why it was needed, what the net benefit to the company was, or why this was something worth pursuing outside of the candidate being dissatisfied with their own job. Given the potential scope of what the candidate discussed there is a distinct possibility that there was simply an answer packaging problem here but as presented the candidate did not meet expectations.