Boards don’t want to get caught in a crisis, let alone one in which they were warned but caught unprepared. Boards need to challenge the paradigms by which they think of security, increase their knowledge of security as a business strategy, and respond with concerted management, strengthened posture and preparation.

The CEO needs a CIO who knows how to read context. It improves their effectiveness as a team leader, as a decision-maker, and as a communicator. To help them do so, make sure that they have a coach, a learning community and more context-conversations than content-conversations.

The CIO and board of directors must implement a new dashboard that indicates secure risk management, business alignment and incident responses are in place and functional.

The CIO is here to stay. They are the bridge for customer experience, business priority and technology solution. Most of all, they teach everyone how to think differently, not just to know more.

Decisions are never meant to be made in a void, and information alone isn’t education. Wisdom is the pool in which information and context swim together. Very few board members have technology experience. Less than 10% have technology subcommittees from which to draw. What is a board to do?