CISO Series Podcast
Hosted by David Spark & Andy Ellis & Mike Johnson
Weekly CISO roundtable built on community posts, quick verdicts and a running joke in every title.
- Level
- Practitioner, assumes you work in or study security
- Status
- Active, last episode
- Who's behind it
- Media outlet, CISO Series sourceSponsor-supported; sponsored guests are labeled in show notes.
- Last verified
Listed underCISO and leadership
Editorial take
The flagship of David Spark's CISO Series network and the best weekly show for hearing how working CISOs argue. Spark hosts with a rotating co-host, most often Andy Ellis, formerly CSO of Akamai, or Mike Johnson, CISO of Rivian, plus one guest CISO. Episodes run about 40 minutes and move fast: the hosts react to LinkedIn and Reddit posts from the security community across a set of recurring segments, so you get several opinions on hiring, board reporting, vendor pitches and AI in a single episode. Be aware that roughly a third of 2026 episodes feature a sponsored guest from a vendor, labeled as such in the show notes. The quick-take format also means few topics go beyond ten minutes.
Last hand-checked 2026-09-30.
Listen if you …
- are a security leader or aspire to be one and want to hear peers disagree
- like brisk, funny panel shows more than long single-guest interviews
- sell to or work with CISOs and want to understand how they think
Skip if you …
- you want technical depth, segments rarely run longer than ten minutes
- you object to sponsored guests, about a third of 2026 episodes have one
Start with these 3 episodes
- 01
Back in My Day, You Could Get a Cybersecurity Job at the Corner Store
· 40 min · Beginner
A good first listen for career switchers: hiring, entry-level paths and what CISOs actually screen for.
- 02
We Gave the CISO Risk and Liability, and Now They Want Authority. The Nerve.
· 42 min · Practitioner
The show at its best: CISOs arguing about accountability without authority, one of the role's defining tensions.
- 03
Remember, Every Underappreciated Risk Is Just a Crisis Waiting to Be Discovered
· 43 min · Practitioner
Expedia's CISO on which risks get ignored and what makes a vendor worth a CISO's time.
About the show
The CISO Series Podcast is produced by CISO Series, the media company founded by David Spark. It launched in June 2018 and has published over 400 episodes. Each weekly episode has Spark, a co-host CISO and a guest CISO or sponsored guest working through community-sourced discussion topics.
Some episodes are recorded live in front of audiences in cities such as New York, Boston and San Francisco. Show notes and images live on cisoseries.com.
Notable guests
- Sam Curry
- David Cross
- Hilik Kotler
- Pavi Ramamurthy
- Tammy Klotz
- Nada Noaman
- Sara Madden
Pairs with
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