Not a course catalog — a pipeline. The Academy takes a practitioner from their first 90 days as a deputy through board-level leadership, on the same career arc the C100, A100, and Deputy C100 programs recognize. Taught by the working CISOs who already author the CISOs Investigate research. Free for CISOs Connect™ members.
The Academy isn't a side product — it's the training arm of the same career arc CISOs Connect™ recognizes through C100, A100, and Deputy C100. Each learning path is built for practitioners at a specific point on that arc.
Working CISOs running active programs — the operating depth the A100 looks for in an emerging leader.
Senior CISOs with board exposure — governance and communication at C100 caliber.
Topic depth at any career stage — the emerging-area expertise that keeps a program current.
Bite-sized when you need a CPE-credit-eligible answer this afternoon. Cohort-based when peer discussion is the actual learning. Masterclass when you want to hear it from a named practitioner. Roundtable when you want to convene with peers on the topic.
1–2 hour focused courses on a specific topic. Video, readings, knowledge checks, certificate, and CPE on completion. The bulk of the catalog.
4–6 week programs with weekly 90-min live sessions, capstone projects, and a peer cohort of ~25 working CISOs. Foundational and leadership topics.
Monthly 90-minute live sessions taught by named CISOs from the C100 / A100 / D100 cohorts. Q&A live; recording archived for members.
Members-only working-group sessions on a topic. Chatham House Rule, professionally moderated. Now CPE-eligible as of 2026.
Four tracks, mapped to where you are in your security-leadership career. Take individual courses, or earn a full Path Certificate.
For Deputy C100-eligible practitioners and security leaders in their first two years as CISO. Sample courses: "The First 90 Days as CISO" · "Building Your First Security Program" · "Reporting Up: Your First Board Brief" · "Hiring Your Deputy".
Domain-specific deep dives on the issues that define a working security program. Sample courses: "Cloud Security at Three Clouds" · "Identity in the Agentic-AI Era" · "Vendor Evaluation: A CISO's Playbook" · "The SBOM Compliance Reality".
Governance, board reporting, crisis communications, and the regulatory regime. Sample courses: "The Board's Cyber Posture" · "SEC Disclosure One Year In" · "Materiality and the 8-K" · "Leading Through a Breach".
Emerging-area specialization across any career stage. Sample courses: "Agentic AI Security" · "Quantum Risk for the 2028 Horizon" · "Operating Model for AI-Native Security Teams".
The Phase 1 catalog draws directly from the CISOs Investigate: AI — Risk, Resilience & Reinvention research report — chapters peer-reviewed by CISOs Connect™ members and converted into structured courseware. More courses ship monthly from there.
A working risk-taxonomy framework for AI/ML systems — the four governance archetypes practitioners are converging on, with operational examples and a self-assessment template. From CISOs Investigate: AI, Chapters 1–2.
How to brief your board on AI risk in 15 minutes without losing the room. Board archetypes, the specific questions you'll get asked, and the deck pattern that lands.
Machine identities, agent identities, and the operating-model implications. The control updates required before agentic deployment at scale.
Practical model-risk and lifecycle controls for production AI systems. The controls that survive contact with a real engineering org versus the controls that get bypassed.
The vendor-question battery for AI/ML capabilities, plus how to read marketing claims against engineering reality. Built from CISOs Connect™ member experience evaluating ~40 AI-security vendors.
For new and aspiring CISOs taking on a security program at an organization where AI is already in production. What to inventory, who to meet, and what to defer.
Faculty for the Academy is recruited from the CISOs Connect™ membership — predominantly from the C100, A100, and D100 cohorts. Every course is peer-reviewed by three additional working CISOs before publication. Faculty names appear on every course they author.
Bob chairs the Academy's curriculum advisory board and runs the peer-review process — the same editorial discipline that governs the CISOs Investigate research series applies to Academy courseware.
A standing board drawn from C100/A100/D100 alumni reviews community signal monthly and approves the next 2–3 topics for production. The board is the connective tissue between what the community is asking about in the forum and what ships as courseware.
Each course names its faculty — working practitioners who teach what they're doing right now. Phase 1 faculty includes contributors to the CISOs Investigate: AI report; Phase 2 expands to the broader C100 / A100 cohort. Full faculty page ships alongside the Phase 1 launch.
Every Academy course publishes its CPE allocation upfront. ISC2 CISSP holders need 120 CPE over three years (40/yr minimum). ISACA CISM holders need 120 over three years (20/yr minimum). GIAC and other certification bodies have similar requirements. The Academy's CPE strategy is built so members accumulate credits without friction.
CISOs Connect™ becomes an approved ISC2 CPE Submitter at launch, which lets the Academy submit CPE credits to ISC2 on behalf of members who opt in. One click on the certificate page; the credit posts to your ISC2 record within ~48 hours.
The Academy will pursue ISACA ATO status in Phase 3, which lets us issue ISACA CPE credits directly — same trust level as SANS, ISACA-affiliated providers, and the major certification training organizations. ATO status will apply retroactively to all eligible courses.
Most CPE-eligible courses elsewhere require you to manually submit certificates to ISC2 / ISACA / GIAC. The Academy auto-submits on opt-in. Members tell us this is the single largest UX improvement over the alternative platforms — once you've used it, the manual process feels broken.
Full Academy access is included with CISOs Connect™ membership. All courses, all paths, all live masterclasses, all roundtable CPE — at no additional cost. Sign in with the same identity as the members area.
Per-course and per-learning-path access for CISOs and security leaders who aren't community members but want the courseware. Practitioner-taught at a fraction of what executive-ed programs charge.
Tiered per-seat licensing for organizations that want their CISO + deputies + directors on the Academy. Develop your security leadership bench with content authored by working CISOs at peer companies.
The Academy itself lives at academy.cisosconnect.com with Cloudflare Access SSO. Same sign-in as the members area. Phase 1 launches Q3 2026 with the six microcredentials above.
The Academy is launched in phases. Each phase delivers value standalone; if priorities shift, we can pause cleanly between any two.
/academy/, LMS at academy.cisosconnect.com. Free for members.Membership is by introduction. A CISOs Connect™ member of the curation team follows up within five business days.