NCE Cyber Leadership Studies and Research

Areas of Research

I research differential behaviors, mindsets, and approaches of successful cybersecurity leaders and the key elements of successful moments in cybersecurity leaders' careers. I interview approximately 100 executives each year.


I do not look at products, deployed technology, or technical trends. Nor do I evaluate programs, organizational structure, capital investments, or similar topics. If you are looking for this, and don't know where to start, feel free to contact me.

Current and Prior Research

Past research has focused on cyber executive-specific job challenges, and included additional outside-in '360' input from product and business leaders, CIOs and IT executives, HR executives and recruiting professionals, and project/portfolio management leaders, among others.


The 2022 NCE Leadership Survey focused on elements of starting a new role and is complete. Current, full-time, executives working in industry can apply to participate in a rolling study of cyber executive success differentiators here. In H1 2023, the focus is on women executives in cyber leadership. More information can be found here. At this time I am not interviewing those in sales, consulting, or vCISOs.