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The road to the phish bowl: who will
win the ultimate deep sea fishing trip?

CISO Fantasy Football League

Thought leadership on all things cybersecurity and fantasy football

Meet the managers
What security lessons does fantasy football offer?

Leadership, communication, culture, practice & training, incident response, team building, strategy... it's all in play!

weekly security insights



Webinars. Podcasts. Blog posts. Memes. History's first gathering of CISOs in a fantasy league is a bonanza of expert thought leadership.

The real goal? Awareness!


Are our eyes on the grand prize: a deep sea fishing trip? Sure. But you get the real prize. Can't-miss cybersecurity awareness content every week!

LEAGUE managers

Meet the CISOs behind
the teams

Gary hayslip  |  Christina Shannon  |  Dan Lohrmann  |  Lisa Kubicki  |  Dutch Schwartz  |  Larry Whiteside, Jr  |  George Finney  |  Bill Bonney  |  Jerich Beason  |  Shawn Bowen  |  Katie Arrington  |  eliot baker

Gary Hayslip

CISO, softbank
Favorite team: Raiders
Favourite player: Marcus Allen
If you could hire one football player or coach for one cybersecurity position, it would be _ because:

"Christiano Ronaldo because of his great teamwork."

Christina Shannon

ciso, sps commerce
Favorite team: Cincinnati Bengals
Favourite player: Chad "Ochocinco" Johnson
If you could hire one football player or coach for one cybersecurity position, it would be _ because _:

"Aaron Rodgers, SOC team, as he is already suspicious of systems and rules. Perfect fit! (joking by the way)!"

Dan Lohrmann

ciso at presidio
Favorite team: Baltimore Ravens
Favourite player: Drew Brees
If you could hire one football player or coach for one cybersecurity position, it would be _ because:

"Tim Tebow for his passion, how he motivates others and gives back on/off the field."

Lisa Kubicki

Director Trust & Security Awareness & training, docusign
Favorite team: Seattle Seahawks (they need all the support they can get this year!)
Favourite player: Jerry Rice
If you could hire one football player or coach for one cybersecurity position, it would be _ because:

"My first thought was Peyton Manning because he's good with people and seems like such an authentic person. But Andrew Luck left the NFL early and he's a very, very bright human so maybe he's a good one to grab since he's so young and trying to figure out his life.."

Dutch Schwarz

principal security specialist, aws
Favorite team: Green Bay Packers
Favourite player: Donald Driver
If you could hire one football player or coach for one cybersecurity position, it would be _ because:

"Let's go with someone who is classy, a great communicator, and proved he could win with more than one team: Tony Dungy."

Larry Whiteside Jr.

CSO Women’s care, Co-Founder - President Cyversity
Favorite team: Dallas Cowboys
Favourite player: Jerry Rice
If you could hire one football player or coach for one cybersecurity position, it would be _ because:

"I would hire Jimmy Johnson. He would be my Chief of Staff. Nuff said!!!"

George Finney

ciso, smu & author of well aware
Favorite team: Dallas Cowboys
Favourite player: Emmitt Smith
If you could hire one football player or coach for one cybersecurity position, it would be _ because:

"Barry Sanders – great vision, could see any cyber-attack coming."

Bill Bonney

co-founder & President, CISO DRG LLc., co-author
Favorite team: Dallas Cowboys
Favourite player: Emmitt Smith
If you could hire one football player or coach for one cybersecurity position, it would be _ because _:

"Ronnie Lott, because he hit so hard it acted as a determent from attackers coming into his zone."

Jerich Beason

CISO Capital One Commercial, Podcast Host
Favorite team: LA Rams
Favourite player: USC version of Reggie Bush
If you could hire one football player or coach for one cybersecurity position, it would be _ because _:

"Bill Belichick. Though cheating is frowned upon in the NFL, all is fair in love and war and we are at battle with adversaries that don't play fair.  I'm sure he would figure out how to hack back and gain an advantage and the leverage we're all after."

Shawn Bowen

CISO World Fuel Services
Favorite team: The Other Team
Favourite player: Uncle Rico
If you could hire one football player or coach for one cybersecurity position, it would be _ because _:

"Terry Tate, Director of GRC. No human error ever again."

Katie Arrington

CISO of the US Department of Defense
Favorite team: Pittsburg Steelers
Favourite player: Barry Sanders
If you could hire one football player or coach for one cybersecurity position, it would be _ because:

"Jimmy Johnson led the team of the 90’s with class.  He knew his players for their strengths and weaknesses and he believed in his team, owner and mission and this was his ethos as a great college coach as well.  He knew how to orchestrate his team to get the best from them. He had communication skills but moreover he had strategy and the skill set to encourage his players to be the best that they could be.  He brought a team back from nowhere to being America’s team for an entire decade.

Eliot Baker

Phish Bowl League Commissioner, Director of Content Marketing at Hoxhunt
Favorite team: Seattle Seahawks
Favourite player: Russell Wilson (sniffles, wipes tear)
If you could hire one football player or coach for one cybersecurity position, it would be _ because:

"Walter Jones, Chief Security Architect and Awareness Director, because the greatest Left Tackle in (Seattle) history created a nearly impenetrable human firewall."

current ranking

Phish Bowl Standings

Everyone is in first place to start the year. But losses, like cyber attacks, are a matter of when, not if. It's about having the resilience to recover, adapt, and come back stronger!

Phish Bowl Week in Review
Moneyballing the security budget, with Katie Arrington and Larry Whiteside, Jr

Two top leaders from the CISO community, Larry Whiteside, Jr. and Katie Arrington, got together to discuss lessons learned from the CISO Fantasy Phish Bowl on cybersecurity. This was a fun and, as appropriate for the Halloween season, kind of freaky conversation on how CISOs must lead their organizations through business growth in a time of extreme cyber danger. Below is just a small sample of what we're certain you'll find to be a highly worthwhile conversation!

Jerich Beason on cybersecurity leadership and inspirational football quotes

What cybersecurity leadership lessons has Jerich Beason, CISO of Capital One Commerical Bank, learned from the wisdom of great coaches? An illuminating deep dive into the finer points of strategy, management, and mindset. A well-respected keynote speaker and thought leader, Jerich is a LinkedIn Learning instructor. His course, Cybersecurity careers: Getting started as a CISO, is available here: https://www.linkedin.com/learning/cybersecurity-careers-getting-started-as-a-ciso

Automation, awareness, and design thinking for improved cybersecurity (and fantasy football rosters)

In the CISO Phish Bowl, 12 highly capable human beings had to choose whether to draft a fantasy football team on their own, let a draft robot do it for them, or opt for a combination of both. Each week, the same 12 humans must choose which players to start and which to bench; we can do that ourselves, or defer to the robot and its player performance projections. There have been mixed results for each approach, but Manager of the Week, Bill Bonney just smoked League Commissioner, Eliot Baker in a triumph of machine over man-powered decision-making. So how do you know when to hand the clipboard over to the robots? This got Bill Bonney to thinking about cybersecurity. How do you get the most out of automation and AI to stay secure? Where and when do you start? What’s the sweet spot of the human-machine collaboration?

George Finney on cybersecurity and fantasy football

After a dominating 194 point performance in Week 2 of the Fantasy Football Season, the CISO Phish Bowl Manager of the Week goes to George Finney, the CSO for SMU in Dallas, Texas. George is the author of the upcoming Project Zero Trust, a novel--yes, a novel--on the concept of zero trust. His previous book, Well Aware: Master the Nine Cybersecurity Habits to Protect Your Future is one of the best books I've read in popular science and technology. We are thrilled that to have George in the Phish Bowl Thought Leadership Series, and he delivers some great insights in this article. George is a CSO that believes that people are the key to solving our cybersecurity challenges. As a part of his passion for education, George has taught cybersecurity at Southern Methodist University and is the author of several cybersecurity books. Finney is an attorney and is a Certified Information Privacy Professional as well as a Certified Information Security Systems Professional and has spoken on Cybersecurity topics across the country.

Winning in sports as in business

Christina Shannon, CISO of SPS Commerce, is a devout Cincinnati Bengals fan and a force to be reckoned with in the Phish Bowl CISO Fantasy Football League, as she demonstrated with a dominating Week 1 win. Christina is great at communicating the value of cybersecurity through the prism of sports analogies. And she's a good sport, too. Attending the first game of the Bengals season in person, she joked that the Steelers fans she went with were "insider threats." And she might have been right, because there was clearly some kind of virus that infected the long snapper, which resulted in some botched kicks that directly affected the outcome of the game. But it was a good lesson: In football as in cybersecurity, always have a backup! If you don't, the results can be disastrous. In this week's CISO Phish Bowl Thought Leadership Series, Christina shares her expert insight into the nature of winning, and how it transcends sports to propel business outcomes as well. Enjoy! Thanks for contributing Shannon!

CISO Phish Bowl Week Zero: Draft Results

So what does constructing a fantasy football roster--and managing it through football injury and uncertainty to fantasy fame and glory--actually have to do with cybersecurity? Let’s start at zero and look at the draft results of 11 world-class CISOs participating in the CISO Phish Bowl, cybersecurity’s first CISO Fantasy Football League, presented by Hoxhunt. Here we’ll see beyond who won or stumbled in the draft to find the philosophical parallels between fantasy football and cybersecurity.

Introducing the CISO Phish Bowl, presented by Hoxhunt!

The NFL season kicks off on Thursday, September 8! But Monday, September 5 will go down in history as draft day for the world’s first public-facing CISO fantasy football league: the Phish Bowl, presented by Hoxhunt. Participating CISOs include: Gary Hayslip, CISO of Softbank | Christina Shannon, CISO of SPS Commerce |Jerich Beason, CISO Capital One Commercial | Shawn Bowen, CISO of World Fuel Services | Dutch Schwartz, Principal Security Specialist at AWS | Dan Lohrmann, CISO at Presidio and author of Cyber Mayday | Lisa Kubicki, Director of Trust & Security Awareness & Training at DocuSign | Larry Whiteside, Jr., CSO of Women’s Care and co-Founder – Present of Cyversity |George Finney, CISO of SMU and author of Well Aware | Bill Bonney, co-Fonder and President of CISO DRG Publishing.

Fantasy Football: Derrick Henry, Human Brute Force Attack

Fantasy Football: Seamless Security Tools Integration and QB

Phish bowl thought leadership series

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