Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Business Information Security Officer (BISO)

🎯 Role Definition

The Business Information Security Officer (BISO) is a strategic security leader who partners directly with business unit executives to translate enterprise information security strategy into practical, risk-aligned controls and programs. The BISO acts as the primary security liaison for a line of business — driving secure product and service delivery, advising on regulatory and compliance obligations, conducting risk-based decision support, and enabling secure adoption of cloud, SaaS, and digital transformation initiatives. This role requires a blend of technical security expertise, governance and compliance knowledge, and strong stakeholder management to influence business priorities while reducing information risk.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Senior Information Security Analyst or Security Engineer with business-facing experience
IT Risk Manager or GRC (Governance, Risk & Compliance) Specialist
Security Architect or Cloud Security Engineer embedded with a product or business unit

Advancement To:

Head of Business Information Security / Senior BISO Lead
Chief Information Security Officer (CISO)
VP of Information Security / Global Head of Security Governance

Lateral Moves:

Risk & Compliance Director
Third-Party Risk / Vendor Risk Manager
Security Program or Product Security Manager

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Serve as the principal security advisor and single point of contact for assigned business units, partnering with business leaders to align information security strategy with business objectives and to prioritize security initiatives that reduce risk while enabling growth.
Lead, design, and operationalize a tailored security roadmap for the business unit that maps to enterprise security strategy, regulatory requirements, and measurable risk reduction targets.
Conduct, own and present periodic business-facing risk assessments (including threat modeling, data classification, and control effectiveness reviews) and provide actionable, prioritized risk treatment plans and acceptance recommendations to business stakeholders.
Translate enterprise security policies and standards into pragmatic, business-specific controls and operational procedures; tailor and socialize exception requests and risk compensating controls with senior management.
Drive secure architecture and design reviews for new digital initiatives, cloud migrations (AWS, Azure, GCP), SaaS onboarding, and major application changes, ensuring security-by-design principles are applied and documented.
Oversee identity and access governance for the business unit including least privilege access models, role-based access reviews, privileged access management coordination, and access provisioning/ deprovisioning controls.
Lead third-party and vendor risk management for business-specific suppliers: conduct vendor security assessments, manage remediation roadmaps, and coordinate contractual security requirements and SLAs.
Own business-aligned incident response coordination: act as the business liaison during security incidents, lead post-incident reviews, ensure business continuity implications are understood, and drive remediation and communications with stakeholders.
Partner with legal, privacy, and compliance teams to interpret and operationalize regulatory requirements (GDPR, HIPAA, SOX, PCI-DSS, regional privacy laws) within the business unit and ensure audit readiness.
Develop and run targeted security awareness and training programs tailored to the business unit's risk profile — including phishing simulations, secure development practices for product teams, and data handling training for customer-facing staff.
Oversee vulnerability and configuration management for business-owned assets, coordinate patching priorities with IT and engineering teams, and ensure timely remediation of critical vulnerabilities affecting business operations.
Collaborate with product, engineering, and DevOps teams to embed secure SDLC practices, perform code and architecture reviews, and implement application security testing (SAST/DAST/IAST) across pipelines.
Serve as a security champion program leader within the business unit: recruit, mentor, and enable security advocates in product and engineering teams to accelerate secure development and faster risk mitigation.
Translate security metrics into business-relevant KPIs and dashboards; report security posture, trends, and risk reduction progress to business leaders and executive risk committees.
Drive continuous improvement by capturing lessons learned from incidents, audits, and control testing; update business security processes and policies accordingly to close recurring gaps.
Lead and participate in cross-functional initiatives such as mergers & acquisitions, product launches, and major platform changes to ensure security due diligence and integration of controls.
Manage and recommend risk acceptance and remediation investments by balancing business impact, cost, and residual risk; document decisions and maintain risk registers for the business unit.
Coordinate penetration testing, red-team engagements, and security assessments for the business and ensure remediation plans are tracked and verified to closure.
Act as the escalation point for security exceptions, decisions, and negotiations with internal stakeholders and external auditors; defend and explain security residual risk to senior leadership in plain business language.
Support procurement and contracting teams to ensure security clauses and minimum assurance requirements are included in vendor contracts and statements of work for business-critical suppliers.
Foster a culture of security and compliance across the business unit by embedding security into operational processes, performance objectives, and project governance gates.
Identify and prioritize security automation opportunities (e.g., IaC scanning, automated IAM lifecycle, CI/CD checks) to reduce manual effort and accelerate secure delivery.

Secondary Functions

Provide ad-hoc security and risk advisory to cross-functional teams including marketing, sales, HR, and operations for campaigns, third-party integrations, and personnel changes.
Support internal and external audit requests by preparing business-specific evidence packages, control narratives, and remediation status updates.
Contribute to enterprise-level security working groups, standards committees, and incident response exercises to ensure business perspective and readiness.
Assist in vendor due diligence during procurement and renewal cycles, including technical security questionnaire reviews and remediation tracking.
Mentor junior security staff and business unit security champions; contribute to hiring, onboarding, and capability building within the security community of practice.
Help shape business-unit-specific data classification, retention, and data protection guidance and support data privacy assessments when business initiatives involve sensitive personal data.
Collaborate with finance and procurement to quantify security investments and cost/benefit analysis for proposed control implementations.
Support continuous monitoring by reviewing alerts relevant to the business unit and coordinating with SOC/engineering teams to tune detection rules and reduce noise.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Deep knowledge of information security frameworks and standards: NIST CSF, NIST 800-53, ISO/IEC 27001, COBIT, and ability to map controls to business processes.
Risk management and assessment expertise including quantitative and qualitative risk analysis, risk registers, and control selection/treatment strategies.
Cloud security architecture and controls across AWS, Azure, GCP — including cloud-native IAM, network segmentation, encryption at rest/in transit, and secure configuration (CIS benchmarks).
Application and product security experience: secure SDLC, threat modeling, secure coding practices, SAST/DAST/IaC scanning, and vulnerability remediation workflows.
Identity & Access Management (IAM) skills, including RBAC/ABAC design, privileged access management, single sign-on, MFA, and access review processes.
Incident response and digital forensics coordination skills; experience working with SOC, managing playbooks, and leading tabletop exercises.
Third-party risk and vendor security assessment proficiency, including use of SIG, CAIQ, or custom assessment questionnaires and remediation tracking.
Regulatory compliance knowledge: GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, PCI-DSS, SOX, and experience preparing for audits and regulatory inquiries.
Security monitoring & detection familiarity: SIEM, EDR/XDR concepts, log management, and the ability to articulate detection gaps to engineering teams.
Secure network design, encryption technologies, TLS, VPNs, and network segmentation practices relevant to business infrastructure.
Penetration testing and remediation workflows: commissioning assessments, reviewing findings, and driving cross-functional remediation.
Security architecture and controls implementation experience for SaaS, microservices, APIs, and containerized platforms (Kubernetes, Docker).

Soft Skills

Exceptional stakeholder management and executive communication — able to translate complex security risk into concise business impact and recommended actions.
Strong influencing and negotiation skills to gain alignment and funding from business leaders without direct authority.
Strategic thinking and business acumen: ability to prioritize security activities that deliver measurable business value and risk reduction.
Leadership and team development: mentoring, coaching, and building security champions across product and engineering teams.
Problem solving and analytical thinking with a bias for action and pragmatic solutions to complex security challenges.
Collaboration and cross-functional facilitation: works effectively with product, engineering, legal, compliance, and operations teams.
Effective written communication for policy, control narratives, risk reports, and audit evidence.
Change management skills to drive adoption of new security practices and behaviors across diverse business stakeholders.
Resilience and composure under pressure when coordinating response to incidents and high-priority risks.
Project & program management aptitude to run security programs, track milestones, and report progress to stakeholders.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Security, Information Systems, Cybersecurity, Engineering, or related technical/business field.

Preferred Education:

Master’s degree in Information Assurance, Cybersecurity, Business Administration (MBA), or equivalent advanced degree.
Professional certifications such as CISSP, CISM, CRISC, CCSP, or relevant cloud security certifications (AWS Certified Security, Azure Security Engineer).

Relevant Fields of Study:

Information Security / Cybersecurity
Computer Science / Software Engineering
Information Systems / IT Management
Risk Management / Business Administration

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 7–12+ years of progressive experience in information security, risk, or compliance roles with demonstrated business unit partnership and program delivery.

Preferred:

10+ years with hands-on experience in a BISO, senior security consultant, IT risk manager, security architect, or product security lead role.
Proven track record of embedding security into product teams, managing vendor risk for complex suppliers, and presenting to executive leadership and audit committees.