Many organizations hire CISOs expecting them to be security experts who can implement controls and prevent breaches. But as Dr. Pablo Breuer learned through 22 years in Navy cyber operations and leadership roles spanning NSA red teams to Fortune 50 financial firms, the fundamental challenge isn't technical — it's that most companies don't understand what they actually need from a CISO in the first place.

"The difference between a manager and a leader is, a manager comes in every day, and they look at the to-do list," Pablo explains. "The leader is able to look out a little bit further, and really anticipate what the challenges are going to be, and communicate those not as technical challenges, but as business challenges."

The most effective CISOs don't function as organizational brakes — they operate as racing brakes, enabling companies to go as fast as safely possible. But this requires more than security expertise. It demands translating engineering requirements into business language, converting CEO vision into actionable technical architecture, and understanding that the first letter in CISO is "C" — meaning chief executive, with all the strategic leadership responsibilities that entails.

In this episode of Velocity's Edge, Pablo and host Nicko Goncharoff explore what separates security management from security leadership. They tackle essential questions: How do you build a security-minded organizational culture when the solutions are fundamentally cultural, not technical? What questions should CEOs ask when hiring their first CISO? Why do the best CISOs spend their first 90 days listening rather than implementing changes? How do you maintain political capital and avoid the common pitfalls that lead to rapid CISO turnover?

The conversation reveals why successful security programs aren't built by the most technically sophisticated leaders — they're built by those who understand that their primary client is the business itself, and their job is enabling growth while reducing risk.

Dr. Pablo Breuer is an expert in cybersecurity and information warfare, with leadership experience spanning the military, government, and private sector. He has held top roles at U.S. Special Operations Command (he served as the United States’ first Chief Information Security Officer for coalition forces in Afghanistan), the National Security Agency, and at U.S. Cyber Command. He co-founded the Cognitive Security Collaborative and co-authored the DISARM framework, used internationally to combat disinformation. Pablo is also a sought-after speaker and educator in cybersecurity strategy.

As in all our episodes, we speak in plain, executive-summary business terms, framing complex business and technology strategic challenges in context, using language that makes them more accessible and actionable.