Mark Weatherford, chief strategy officer for the National Cybersecurity Center, is the cybersecurity columnist for Governing and a senior fellow at the Center for Digital Government, both of which are divisions of e.Republic. Among his previous appointments, he served as the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's deputy undersecretary for cybersecurity and, before that, as the chief information security officer for the state of California. In the private sector, Weatherford served in senior roles at the North American Electric Reliability Corp., vArmour, Booking Holdings and Aspen Chartered, in addition to advisory roles with a number of technology startups.
In looking for a new chief information security officer, it's tempting to generate a long list of professional qualifications. But these days, technical expertise isn't what the job is really about.
The challenge for government's information security executives is to integrate risk-mitigating technology into core services and processes — and to play the long game.