The CISO Role Has Always Been Brutal. Here Is What Makes Some Survive It
SC Media, Tuesday, April 21st, 2026
A CISO explains how to succeed by presenting risk-informed options to leadership rather than trying to eliminate all risk.
Peter Liebert, a CISO at Clari + Salesloft, argues that the CISO role should focus on illuminating relevant cyber risks and presenting business-aligned options to leadership rather than attempting the impossible task of eliminating every risk.
Using an analogy of a restaurant chef at "Cafe al la Risk," he explains that success is measured by offering viable risk treatment options at different cost levels, not by forcing executives to choose specific mitigations. The key to CISO survival is understanding your organization's leadership preferences, building credible options backed by realistic data, and knowing when organizational decisions cross ethical lines.
Liebert notes that executive understanding of cybersecurity's impact on revenue and customer trust has improved over the past decade, making the CISO role somewhat less brutal than it once was.