Ben Smith
SVP, Chief Information Security Officer
Altice USA
Ben Smith is the Chief Information Security Officer at Nuvance Health and Governing Body Member of the New York CISO Community.
Learn more about the New York CISO community here.
Give us a brief overview of the path that led to your current role.
Over the course of my career, I have had the opportunity to lead Information Security and IT Risk Management programs in Healthcare organizations across the US, often from scratch. My transition to Nuvance was a new opportunity to join an organization that just completed a large merger, and to build a program that combined the two teams from each of the merged organizations, something new for me. On a personal note, it was also an opportunity to move back to the east coast and be closer to family.
What is one of your guiding leadership principles?
Build relationships and create a culture of trust in your team and with others. To build effective teams, trust must be present amongst the members of those teams.
With disruption being a key theme of recent years, where do you see the CISO role going in the next 1-2 years?
The CISO role must become an extension of the business. It cannot be the role of “no” anymore. The role must drive value for the organization and help steer decision making towards the risk tolerance of the business.
What advice would you give to someone just starting out as a CISO?
Learn how to be comfortable with risk and to effectively communicate it. The path is different for everyone, but the only way to survive being a CISO for the long term is to be “okay” knowing that there is technology risk all around you. The only way you get to reduce some of those risks is by communicating them to the right people in a way they can understand.
Tell us 3 fun facts about yourself.
- I am lucky enough to be a new(ish) father. He keeps me busy and grounded.
- During the pandemic, I led the technology build of COVID Testing Sites and Field Hospitals for the Health System.
- I am an avid golfer and have played over 150 different golf courses.
What is the value of joining an Evanta community?
Simply put, Evanta brings peers together in a way that allows us to share ideas and build our networks. After my move to NYC, I immediately reached out to Evanta as a way to begin building my local network.
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