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The Executive Edge in Technology

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Why communication, not just technical depth, is the new leadership requirement for CIOs and CISOs

JOYCE BROCAGLIA, CEO & FOUNDER, EWF

LAVONNE MOON, MANAGING DIRECTOR AND PRACTICE LEADER,
TECHNOLOGY, AI, & CYBERSECURITY

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The Shift Nobody Planned For

For most of the last two decades, technology leadership was measured primarily by technical expertise. CIOs, CISOs, and their teams were hired and promoted based on their expertise in infrastructure, security architecture, or systems design. Effective communication was a nice-to-have, something a leader picked up along the way if they were lucky, or delegated if they weren’t.

That model is changing. Today, CIOs and CISOs are expected to influence enterprise strategy, communicate with boards, guide business decisions, and build alignment across the organization. Technology leaders now sit closer to the board and more centrally on the leadership team than ever before, and the expectations have shifted along with the seat. Boards, executive teams, and regulators want a leader who can translate technical risk and opportunity into terms that inform business decisions. Leaders who came up purely through technical tracks often weren’t given the chance to build that muscle early, and it shows.

The Data Behind the Gap

FTI Consulting’s 2024 “CISO Redefined” study found 62% of C-suite executives say their CISO’s direct communication skills do not exceed expectations. CISOs in question are, by most measures, technically capable. What they are missing is the ability to align across functions and communicate clearly enough to build trust with people outside the technical roles.

The stakes are only rising. Boards have increased their visibility into, and scrutiny of, CIOs and CISOs over the past several years, and AI has widened the scope of what technology executives are expected to own. AI has also accelerated the challenge, requiring technology leaders to explain complex risks, governance considerations, and business opportunities to stakeholders with widely different levels of technical understanding. The leaders who came up through cybersecurity a decade ago were often selected for being the most technically capable people in the organization. Increasingly, the leaders who succeed are the ones who can hold their own in a room full of technology experts and then walk into a board meeting and explain the issues or opportunities in a completely different register.

Why This Skill Can’t Be Bolted On Later

Communication and cross-functional fluency aren’t skills a leader can pick up in a single course or a leadership offsite once they’ve reached the executive level. These skills are best built early and reinforced continuously throughout a career.

For example, a leader who spends the first fifteen years of their career narrowly focused on one technical discipline may arrive at the executive level highly credentialed, but poorly equipped to do the part of the job that increasingly matters most: aligning teams, managing up, and communicating with people who don’t share their technical background. Organizations that want to build their own bench of high-impact technology leaders need to create exposure to cross-functional work, C-suite and board-level communication, and external partnerships well before someone is up for the top job, not after.

What Translation Actually Looks Like

High-impact technology leaders are rarely defined by technical expertise alone. What distinguishes them is the ability to challenge the technical team, make decisions, connect those decisions to business outcomes, and communicate them to every room they walk into in a way each audience understands.

That means naming the mission plainly enough that no one has to guess. It means being explicit about day-to-day priorities, decision rights, trade-offs, and who owns what, so ambiguity doesn’t quietly stall the work. And it means saying the hard thing out loud, even when half the room won’t agree with it.

That ability comes from practice: years of translating complexity into something a room full of different stakeholders can act on. Technical depth earns a leader a seat at the table. This is what keeps them there.

What This Means for Boards and Executive Teams

This shift changes what a strong technology leadership search should screen for. Technical depth remains table stakes, but it’s no longer the differentiator. The more useful diagnostic questions are about a candidate’s track record as a communicator, and they should be answered with specific examples:

• When has this person led through ambiguity and explained a hard trade-off to a non-technical audience, and what did that audience decide as a result?
• How have they built trust with regulators, boards, or external partners, and who would vouch for it?
• Do their executive peers see them as a business partner, or only as the technical expert in the room?
• How have they developed communication and cross-functional skills in their own team and successors?

This also argues for broader career paths, not narrower ones, when developing internal succession candidates. A technology leader who has only ever managed technology will have a harder time clearing this bar than one who has had exposure to the business, to senior leadership, to the board, and to external partners along the way. In practice, the strongest organizations give emerging technology leaders opportunities to present to executive stakeholders, join cross-functional initiatives, and build influence outside of IT long before they are considered for senior roles.

It matters for retention, too. Long-term success is often driven not only by technical capability, but by a leader’s ability to build trust and influence across the enterprise.

The Path Ahead

AI and rising board scrutiny are pushing technology leadership further into the center of enterprise strategy. That’s an opportunity for leaders who can communicate as well as they can build. It’s a risk for organizations that keep evaluating and developing technology leaders on technical merit alone. The organizations that get ahead of this will be the ones that start treating communication and cross-functional fluency as core leadership requirements, not soft add-ons, starting well before a leader reaches the executive level.

How DSG Global Can Help

Whether you are replacing a CIO or CISO, building out a new team, or planning succession, DSG Global can help. Our Technology, AI & Cybersecurity practice partners with organizations to find, assess, and develop leaders. Contact us to talk through your next search.

To build communication and cross-functional skills in your current leaders, explore the EWF, powered by DSG Global. The Forum brings leaders in cybersecurity, risk management, and privacy together through an Annual Conference, a leadership community, and Leadership Academy programs.

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OCTOBER 15, 2026

Joyce Brocaglia is a visionary entrepreneur who created both the first executive search firm specializing in cybersecurity and a ground-breaking membership organization that builds women leaders in cybersecurity, risk, and privacy.

Lavonne Moon leads DSG Global’s Technology, AI and Cybersecurity practice. Over 25 years, she has completed more than 3,000 searches at the CISO, CTO, and VP Security level across industries.