Selling Information Security to the Board

CHAPTER 7: DEVELOP AN ALLY

‘Sales’ is a transaction: on one side is a seller (you) and on the other is a buyer (the board). The board, however, is not an individual – it is a collection of individuals and, in order to sell to a group, you have to understand something about how groups make decisions, and, in particular, how your board works.

Unless you are already a member of the board, or of the senior management group, you’re unlikely to have much of an insight as to how decision making works. You need to know, for instance, if your board’s decision making is centralised on one individual (usually either the chairman or the chief executive), or whether it is a more inclusive, considered process; otherwise, you could find yourself, for instance, ...