Building strong relationships with stakeholders will help you secure ongoing resources, budget, and buy-in for your security initiatives. And these relationships are built on communication. Plan to share updates at a regular cadence to keep security initiatives — and particularly results and ROI — top of mind with leadership and foster trust between teams.
Of course, there may be times when you have to share bad news, but forging strong relationships with stakeholders early on can help to soften those blows. With an established history of communication, collaboration, and transparency, they’ll trust that setbacks will only strengthen your security strategy for the long term.
To maintain a transparent and collaborative relationship with stakeholders at Mars, Pecorelli’s team holds quarterly check-ins with the audit committee and two check-ins per year with the company’s board. “We present comprehensive updates to ensure that our security program is aligned with the organization’s overall risk profile and that stakeholders are effectively engaged in its oversight,” he says.
