State cyber leaders name salesmanship, listening as keys to success
State cyber leaders name salesmanship, listening as keys to success
https://statescoop.com/state-cyber-leaders-nascio-2026-keys-success/
Publish Date: 2026-04-27 19:08:00
Source Domain: statescoop.com
When it’s time to choose a new security feature to roll out inside the Michigan state government, Rex Menold, the state’s chief security officer, isn’t the one who decides. It’s not because he’s new to the role (he started in January), and it doesn’t seem to matter that he’s been with the state since the late 1990s. The way it works, he told a conference audience in Philadelphia on Monday, is that the agencies decide.
The system, Menold said, derives from a self-awareness by the state’s technology bureau that it doesn’t have all the answers: “A lot of times we think we can make decisions for the agencies about priorities when we don’t necessarily really understand their business,” he said. Sometimes, he continued, even after all his years with the state, he’ll pitch an idea that he thinks an agency head will love and get a response like: “That interests us zero percent.”
His description of the democratic process used to prioritize security upgrades was a response to a prompt by organizers of a session at the National Association of State Chief Information Officers’ midyear conference. The topic was “the business of cybersecurity.” And the business of cybersecurity, according to those who practice it, is less a matter of technical details than saying the right things to the right people.
When talking to state legislators, Menold said, it helps to frame cybersecurity funding in practical terms: “If you explain how does that impact their town, how does that impact their email system… a lot of legislators would love to say they cut $10 million. Almost none of them want to say that we cut these three projects that make it more risky for you to log in and get services.”
Michael Watson, who was Virginia’s chief information security officer until he was this month named the state’s CIO, said there’s a piece of universal business wisdom he’s long employed: “understanding how to hit that one thing…
