Stanbic Bank Zambia

This was an event-packed week. Monday: Passed my National/MD real estate exams: I am licensed to sell property along with the business. Tuesday: Board meeting at Genesee Valley Outdoor Learning Center to welcome our new Director of Development Kevin Maroney. Wednesday AM: ProVisors Baltimore 5 home group meeting in Columbia. Wednesday PM: Baltimore Business Journal family owned business awards event at Citron in the Quarry. Thursday AM: Accelerent - Baltimore breakfast with over 300 attendees at the Renaissance on Fleet St. Friday AM: XPX - Exit Planning Exchange XPX Maryland chapter gathering on the state of Maryland’s Business Climate. So many familiar faces, a lot of new faces, and about a half dozen seller meetings and two valuation presentations woven in the cracks. The goal is to be the go-to person (and firm) in Baltimore and Maryland for deals that sit between Main Street and Wall Street. Finally, Rob Flack is going to be a featured speaker at a BBJ event on M&A in the area next week. Hopefully I’ll see you there! (See comments)

I was frantically flipping through my notepad and came across an unexpected message Things are heating up -- both with my calendar and with opportunities. It's a good problem to have, but there is a lot of context switching going on throughout the day and it's easy to let something slip by. So, I use one of my tried and true methods: a pen and pad. Reviewing my notes from the previous day, I spotted something I hadn't noticed. It certainly wasn't there when I wrote the notes. My daughter left me a little Easter egg 🪺 The best message a dad could find.

A CISO Worth Their Salt... In today’s volatile digital landscape, the role of the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) has evolved into a delicate act of equilibrium, much like a seesaw suspended between two equally critical forces. On one side sits the board and executive leadership, focused on growth, regulatory posture, and strategic outcomes. On the other rests the IT technical team, immersed in the realities of vulnerabilities, threats, and operational resilience. A CISO worth their salt does not lean too far in either direction; instead, they stabilize both, ensuring neither strategic ambition nor technical truth is compromised. At the heart of this balancing act lies the ability to translate context. The modern CISO is not merely a defender of systems, but an interpreter of intent and risk. This is where the COBIT goals cascade model becomes indispensable. It provides a structured mechanism to translate enterprise goals into actionable IT-related objectives, and ultimately into enablers that technical teams can execute against. In essence, it ensures that what the board envisions is meaningfully interpreted, implemented, and measured within the technology function. However, the cascade is not a one-way flow. A competent CISO ensures that technical realities including emerging threats, system limitations, and operational risks, cascade upward just as effectively. Through this bidirectional flow, technical risks are reframed into business risks, enabling executive leadership to make informed, risk-adjusted decisions. This is the true pivot point of the seesaw: context. A competent CISO views information security including cybersecurity not only as a technical function but a critical and strategic business enabler that ensures development of stakeholder trust, compliance to regulation and enablement of sustainable digital transformation. The strength of a CISO lies in mastering three continuous motions: cascading strategic intent downward, translating technical insight upward, and maintaining continuity between the two. Without this balance, organizations either overinvest in misaligned controls or underappreciate critical vulnerabilities. Ultimately, a CISO worth their salt is neither purely technical nor purely strategic. They are the fulcrum, grounded in governance, fluent in risk, and decisive in execution, ensuring that the organization moves forward securely, with clarity and cohesion. #GRC , #Cybersecurity #CISO