Jeroen Schipper, CISO at the Municipality of The Hague (ECSO Member), won the CISO of the Year 2024 Award on 28 May. The award was presented during the first CISODAY, an event that attracted more than 200 security professionals from large companies, governments, and non-profit organisations in the Netherlands.

Jeroen has credited this award to his holistic and inclusive approach to cybersecurity, as well as his contributions to the professionalisation of the CISO profession as an active representative of the city of The Hague. Alongside Jeroen, four other skilled CISOs were nominated to the category, from companies such as SHV, Stater, NN Group and the HEINEKEN Company. The prize was awarded to the candidate scoring the highest on performance and based on how he or she fulfils his or her role and position. The five nominees were chosen from a final shortlist of ten candidates following the first step in the process: a self-assessment on digital maturity and cybersecurity maturity in the organisation. The five best-scoring CISOs were then subjected to a number of validation interviews and a research assessment.

The CISODAY is a new network event for Dutch information security officers in various sectors, aiming to bring together cybersecurity leaders to share ideas, use cases, and best practices in an informal setting. The announcement of the first CISO of the Year award was the highlight of the evening.

“I see the CISO of the Year Award as recognition of the increasingly important role that CISOs play in organisations,” Jochem stated. “As more and more assets of organisations and society as a whole become digitalised, the threats to these, well-informed, innovative and agile professionals become crucial for business and society. That is why the award also recognises the important position that CISOs occupy – or should occupy – in organisations.”

ECSO also believes in the crucial role played by CISOs, which is why we have established the first cross-sector and cross-country European CISO Community. To know more about our initiative, click here, and do not miss out on our third Annual CISO Meet-up happening in Vienna, Austria, on 4-5 November 2024!