About the Cybersecurity Strategist of the Year category
Who this award is for
This award is for people whose main contribution is security strategy: the analysis, the choices and the plan an organization follows.
The strategy itself, if it is documented, can be entered as a program in Best Cybersecurity Strategy, so one nomination covers the person and the other the strategy. A strategist who is also the top security leader can enter Chief Information Security Officer of the Year (CISO) as well.
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 — who acts on the nominee's strategy: the executives, boards or clients they advise, and the decisions that followed.
- Innovation — a new way of framing the problem, such as tying security spend to business risk, planning for AI adoption or sequencing a multi-year transformation.
- Impact — what the strategy changed: budgets approved, programs started, risks retired, regulations met. A before-and-after comparison makes that easy for the jury to see.
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.
