ISACA CEO Matt Loeb: Reflections on 2015

As 2015 draws to a close, I want to share with you some reflections on what has been a busy and engaging first full year for me as your CEO. I am inspired by what I have observed, the conversations I have had and, most importantly, the warm welcome from the many of you whom I have been fortunate enough to meet.

I have traveled extensively this year to meet with ISACA members, certification holders, volunteers, chapter leaders, and business and government leaders from around the globe. No matter where I was—from the European Parliament and the White House Summit on Cybersecurity, to meetings with government leaders in Africa, India, Israel and elsewhere—one theme was constant: ISACA has growing visibility, influence and impact, and is increasingly being recognized for the role we play as a professional community in supporting and enabling global economic prosperity.

With insights obtained from these meetings, as well as our investment in environmental scanning and market research, the ISACA Board of Directors, under the leadership of International President Christos Dimitriadis, is placing its finishing touches on a refined strategy that will be shared with our chapter leaders at the Global Leadership Summit in April 2016. This strategy will focus on increasing ISACA’s reach, relevance and advocacy to make us a stronger voice for our professions. We will develop new robust products and services for all of our core technical areas—assurance, cybersecurity, risk, governance and more. There will be further investment in extending our global reach by engaging with you locally in more areas of the world than ever before (for example, the first Africa CACS will take place in 2016).

As business enablers, your roles are being shaped by changes in technology. With technology now the lynchpin of innovation and economic value, ISACA professionals have both the opportunity and the responsibility to use your technology-based knowledge and expertise to help transform your organizations. This includes playing a leadership role in keeping your organizations and its people safe from the increasing pressures of cyberattacks. Cybersecurity continues to grow as a matter of global economic security and a public safety issue. To support your efforts, we continue the build-out of ISACA’s Cybersecurity Nexus (CSX), having launched our inaugural CSX conference and our first performance-based CSX Practitioner certification during the second half of 2015.

You are an important part of ISACA’s global community of over 140,000 professionals. As we transition into the new year, I encourage you to leverage both ISACA’s products/services and the power of our community on a local, national and global level to reinforce the value that you deliver to your organization. May 2016 be your most successful year yet!

On behalf of the ISACA Board of Directors and its employees, it has been a privilege to serve you this past year. We all wish you a very happy, healthy, prosperous and safe new year.

Warm regards,
Matt Loeb, CGEIT, CAE
ISACA CEO

[ISACA Now Blog]