About the Cybersecurity Entrepreneur of the Year category
Who this award is for
This award is for the person who started the company. Recent nominees include the founders of an on-demand security consulting firm and a data privacy and cybersecurity consultancy, and a repeat founder leading a startup that builds AI-driven digital employees for security teams.
The jury looks at how the founder built the company, from seeing the opening to winning customers. A founder who still runs the company as chief executive can also enter Chief Executive Officer of the Year (CEO), and the company itself can be entered in Best Cybersecurity Startup or Best Cybersecurity Company.
Related categories to enter
Each category is judged separately, so you can enter a nominee in every category that fits their work, with a separate nomination for each. Tailor each nomination to that category's focus. Entering several related categories gives the work more than one chance to be recognized.
How entries are judged
An independent jury of security practitioners, analysts and CISOs scores each nomination on leadership, innovation and impact. Each nomination competes in its category against peers in a similar setting and region. Your entry package, any sponsorship and public votes do not affect the jury's scores.
Strong entries in this category show:
- Leadership — how the founder got the company going: the team they recruited, the funding they raised or chose to do without, and the first customers they won.
- Innovation — the gap the founder saw and how the company's approach differs from what was available before.
- Impact — proof the business works: customers, revenue or funding milestones, headcount growth, and what customers can now do that they could not before. Milestones with figures tell the jury more than a vision statement.
The jury awards Gold, Silver or Bronze, or a Finalist badge, and results are published on this site and announced to the 600,000+ member Cybersecurity Insiders community. Every approved nomination also enters the separate Community Choice award, decided by public votes.
How to enter
Anyone can submit a nomination: the nominee, a colleague or manager, the organization, or an agency entering a client. The nomination form has a confidential field for detail that is shared with the judges and not published, such as internal figures, customer names or incident details. Deadlines, pricing and entry steps are on the How it Works page.
