Nick Vigier
CISO
Oscar Health Insurance
Nick Vigier is the CISO for Oscar Health, a publicly traded Affordable Care Act insurer with a mission of helping people live healthier lives. He has been in the security industry for over 20 years in a variety of security leadership roles, such as an advisor as well as a CIO.
He also has a taste for danger as the father of two tween girls and a passion for diving with sharks.
Learn more about the New York CISO community here.
Give us a brief overview of the path that led to your current role.
I started my career as a network engineer for the NYSE three months before September 11, where I gained an appreciation for business continuity, and spent several years convincing others that the network wasn't to blame for their application issues.
My real appreciation for security came at Liquidnet, where I experienced everything from bug sweeping to risk management. My career then took me through Sony Corporation of America and Palantir before I landed as the first security hire and CISO at DigitalOcean, a cloud hosting provider.
By that time I had become curious about why CISOs and CIOs don't get along so I decided to take the CIO role at Gemini Trust Company, a cryptocurrency exchange. The last few years I have been an advisor at Coalfire, the first CISO at ID.me, and then CISO at Talend which was acquired by Qlik.
I am now the CISO at Oscar Health, where Oscar's mission of helping people lead healthier lives is quite similar to where I think security is going: helping organizations be healthier and more secure.
What is one of your guiding leadership principles?
I always start from a position of seeking to understand "why,” which puts us in a position to then help find the best solution and also challenge prior decision making.
What is the greatest challenge CISOs face today, and how are you addressing it?
We are rethinking many aspects of how security is being approached by being partners instead of adversaries to the business. Many around us find it hard to believe that we can be working with them to find a path to yes instead of just saying no, but we are on a solid path to proving it is possible.
What is the key to success for someone just starting out as a CISO?
Providing psychological safety to those around you to always ask questions is the key to success because it acts as a force multiplier for positive change.
How do you measure success as a leader?
I measure success by evaluating the delta between us seeking people out versus people seeking us out for help. I look at this as the organization's Net Promoter Score (NPS).
What is the value of being a member of the Evanta community?
I have been a member of the Evanta community for many years, and I always value the communal gatherings to share ideas openly in a rapidly evolving industry.
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