Sam Gabbai
CISO EMEA
PayPal
Sam Gabbai, is presently the Chief Information Security Officer for Europe, Middle-East, and Africa at PayPal. He oversees all aspects of security, providing strategic leadership and advisory. Sam has built and led multiple large company information security programs for over 20 years across multiple industries around the world. He pays particular attention to continuous improvement by keeping his skills and knowledge current. Sam is CISSP, CISA, CISM, CRISC, CGEIT, CDPSE, CCISO, CEH, ISO27000, PMP, and ITIL certified.
Learn more about the Benelux CISO community here.
Give us a brief overview of the path that led to your current role.
I embraced the early beginning of the Internet and became passionate about internetworking and digital communications where I moved naturally to the protection of systems, infrastructures, applications, and data. I grew up in seniority throughout different security professional roles until I took on the complete information security function for large multinational companies.
What is one of your guiding leadership principles?
There are, of course, plenty of principles and values to live by as a successful and inspirational CISO. My overarching principle to drive my vision, and my mission remains, “Be a Customer Champion” in all possible situations. Serving, protecting, and enabling our business and customers should be at the core of all we do, all the time.
What is the greatest challenge CISOs face today, and how are you addressing it?
The greatest challenge resides in the fast-paced evolution of the CISO mission and the responsibilities' complexity, navigating internal and external pressures, tackling sophisticated cyber threats, constantly more demanding regulated environments, and still keeping market performance and business objectives in mind. It is critical to remain focused and self-driven, as well as risk-minded.
What is the key to success for someone just starting out as a CISO?
The greatest success factor for someone starting in a C-level role should be the ability to master decisiveness as part of your professional brand. Making decisions effectively, formulating an opinion concisely, taking up positions and making decisions, influencing and inspiring around you, building and executing effective plans, and ultimately achieving goals are key to a successful C-level career.
How do you measure success as a leader?
Leadership success can be measured in many different ways. Outside quantifiable deliverables, strategic metrics, and other OKRs, my success criteria gravitate around fostering strong values, inspiring and creating opportunities, and most importantly listening actively to the “Voice of the Customer.”
What is the value of being a member of the Evanta community?
My aspiration resides principally in the opportunity to join forces by sharing experience and expertise with this community-driven by CISOs, for CISOs.
Evanta Governing Body members share their insights and leadership perspectives to shape the agendas and topics that address the top priorities impacting business leaders today.
by CISOs, for CISOs
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