Top 100 Interview: Jörgen Mellberg

CISO & Head of IT, Sparbanken Syd

Jörgen Mellberg serves in a dual CISO and Head of IT role at Swedish bank Sparbanken Syd. He specializes in compliance and audit strategy, vulnerability management, risk assessment, and IT auditing. Before joining Sparbanken Syd, he held several senior IT roles including as Senior Information Security Manager for Saxo Bank. Jörgen is a CISSP, CISA, CRISC and CDPSE certified professional.

What were your greatest achievements in 2020?

Speaking to the board has been essential to articulate what kind of risks that we are facing in the realm of security. That relationship is critical to bridge the gap between cybersecurity and the business. Of course, cybersecurity has been in the media a lot in recent years, and that makes the threats easier to convey. We’re not crying wolf all the time, breaches and attacks do happen.

What should information security executives focus on in 2021 to generate business value?

The first thing is to know your business. If you understand what you’re making money on and what the key business drivers are then you are in a far stronger position to help and to be as efficient as possible. From my point of view, security should be transparent and visible. The key to success is being able to do that while enabling your business partners to do what they do the best.  

Jörgen Mellberg is featured in our Top 100 Global Leaders in Information Security Report. Click here to read the full list.