Pros
• Pleasant people in the team and a non-hierarchical structure – if you need to speak to someone, you could approach most of them directly and not go ‘up the chain’, which takes time and is far too onerous.
Cons
• 80% contractors in the team so absolutely no possibility for career progression. Whenever a role was needed, another contractor was hired. • Exceptionally poor (non-existent) leadership – Perception from team was that CISO would gladly throw you under the bus or stab you in the back in Senior Management meetings if he was questioned about lack of deliverables • No trust between CISO and rest of team – Contractors were fired on the spot, promises weren’t kept, meetings scheduled in were never kept and any Senior support you thought you would have on a call or in a meeting was never given, leaving you to answer questions that were way above your pay grade / day rate • Unsavoury reporting practices – statistics and updates given by team members were altered before being reported to Executives and even regulatory bodies to reflect a far more positive position that potentially existed. • Your diary is filled with 99% meetings of which only 10% are actually useful. ‘Leadership team’ meetings were mostly utterly pointless and became a running joke as to how poorly they were run – no agenda and no real point to them.