Cyber Security Summit Visionary Leadership Award Nominations

Thank you for your interest in the Cyber Security Summit Visionary Leadership Awards! These awards provide an opportunity to showcase the people whose lives are dedicated to minimizing risk, maximizing online safety and evangelizing security.
The 2025 VLA nomination forms will go live at this site on Tuesday, February 4 and remain available for submission through Friday, March 28, 2025. A few minutes spent sharing these stories helps us put people front and center, and now is the time to start working on nominations.>
STEP ONE: Select the person(s) and/or teams you know to be the best in the business.
STEP TWO: Review the rules. The VLA committee will review all nominations and reserves the right to verify information and disqualify incomplete, inaccurate or falsified submissions.
- Prior Visionary Leadership Award honorees are not eligible for consideration. For a list of recipients, click here.
- Align your nominee to the most appropriate award category (i.e., You may nominate an individual or a team for one award only.)
- You may submit a nomination for one VLA category or all eleven award categories, with one unique nominee per submission form.
- Self-nominations are NOT permitted.
STEP THREE: Gather your information and the nominee’s name, title, organization, email and phone in addition to the core nomination content in the “Why are you nominating this person/team?” text box. Your description should convey the full extent and impact of the nominee’s work. Detailed examples and context are helpful, as are supportive observations, quotes from others, and/or references to publications, podcasts, presentations, or other related material of relevance. Lastly, review your description of the nominee’s work to confirm alignment to the award category selected.
The Eleven Visionary Leadership Award Categories are:
Visionary Academic Leader
The Visionary Academic Leader award recognizes outstanding educational contributions and program leadership related to an academic cyber security program. The award is presented to an academic leader (e.g., teacher, STEM Coach, Cyber Program Advisor, etc.) or security practitioner.
Visionary Application Security Leader
The Visionary Application Security Leader award recognizes a security practitioner or team that demonstrates innovation and outstanding oversight of an application security program. The award is presented to an individual security practitioner or a team devoted to application security.
Visionary Community Leader
The Visionary Community Leader award recognizes a person who has applied influence and leveraged credibility to bring others into the cyber security community and inspired and connected partners to the broader mission. All nominees will be considered.
Visionary Global Security Leader
The Visionary Global Security Leader award recognizes a person who has advanced the cause of cybersecurity on a global scale. The award will be presented to an academic leader or security practitioner.
Visionary Governance Champion
The Visionary Governance Champion award recognizes a C-suite leader, board member, or elected or appointed official who recognizes the strategic cyber security value proposition and serves as a cyber security champion.
Visionary Governance, Risk and Compliance Leader
The Visionary Governance, Risk and Compliance Leader award recognizes a security practitioner or team that demonstrates innovation and outstanding GRC program oversight, through risk assessment, policy and procedure, vendor assurance, or compliance efforts. This award is presented to a security practitioner or team devoted to GRC-related program elements.
Visionary IT Audit Leader
The Visionary IT Audit Leader award recognizes a technology audit practitioner or team that provides outstanding cyber security assessment services. This award is presented to a security practitioner or team that works in an audit capacity.
Visionary Security Awareness Program Leader
The Visionary Security Awareness Program Leader award recognizes a security practitioner or team that demonstrates outstanding and innovative work related to a security awareness program. This award is presented to a security practitioner or team devoted to security awareness.
Visionary Security Operations Leader
The Visionary Security Operations Leader award recognizes a security practitioner or team that demonstrates innovation and outstanding oversight for security operations program elements, such as monitoring, vulnerability management, incident response, or access control. This award is presented to a security practitioner or team devoted to security operations.
Visionary Security Program and Oversight Leader
The Visionary Security Program and Oversight Leader award recognizes a CISO or other leader who uses innovative tools and techniques to continuously improve a complex cyber security program. This award is presented to a security practitioner or governance champion.
Visionary Student
The Visionary Student award recognizes a student who has demonstrated outstanding leadership and/or contributions that exceed academic program expectations. Nominations for this award must be from a professor, academic advisory, or internship leader, and the award is presented to a current student or current year graduate.
Periodically, and at the discretion of the VLA Executive Committee, a Founder’s Award may be presented as part of the Visionary Leadership Awards to acknowledge the significant long-term contributions to the Cyber Security Summit community.
The 2025 VLA recipients will be selected from among the valid nominations by a committee composed of Cyber Security Summit principals. Honorees receive notification and must confirm acceptance prior to the public announcement. The Cyber Security Summit will announce the honorees via a press release prior to the presentation of awards and celebration at the 15th Annual Cyber Security Summit, October 21-22, 2025 at the Minneapolis Marriott Northwest.