Board-Level Accountability
Executive cyber leadership. Not just advice.
Most mid-market organisations do not need another consultant writing compliance reports. They need an operational executive to own the risk register, manage the board, and continuously reduce threat exposure.
Career experience spans Bapcor, Medibank, Coles, Optus, the Bureau of Meteorology and KPMG.
Figure: Full-Time vs Fractional
Indicative first-year cost, full-time hire versus the Vyfority vCISO retainer. See the full ROI table below.
The Industry Problem
Why the traditional vCISO model fails.
The market is flooded with body-shop providers selling junior consultants as security leaders. That creates a dangerous gap between activity and actual risk reduction.
01
Activity over risk reduction
Most vCISOs measure success by policies written or meetings attended. This is the Watermelon Effect: busy work that looks green on a dashboard while the actual threat surface remains red.
02
Frameworks over threats
Compliance is not security. A checklist will not stop a ransomware gang. Traditional models start with the documentation; this one starts with the specific threats actively targeting your sector's revenue.
03
Lack of executive gravity
A mid-level analyst cannot defend a budget to a sceptical CFO or partner with a CIO to align enterprise architecture. Without executive gravity, security remains an IT cost centre, not a strategic partner.
The Vyfority Difference
Continuous threat exposure management, included.
Legacy vCISOs deliver quarterly slide decks. Vyfority integrates active continuous threat exposure management (CTEM) into the retainer itself.
This is not advice from the sidelines: lightweight, non-intrusive tooling continuously maps, prioritises and reduces the external and internal attack surface year-round.
- 01
Continuous discovery
Automated mapping of unknown assets and shadow IT.
- 02
Risk prioritisation
Filtering the noise to focus on exploitable vulnerabilities.
- 03
Mobilisation
Directing the internal IT team exactly what to patch, and when.
Exposure Horizon
ActiveCTEM directive issued
High-priority patching schedule forwarded to the managed service provider for immediate execution. Board notified of mitigated risk.
Deliverables
The executive value stack
The specific operational outputs that make this a premium service, not a retainer for reassurance.
01
Senior ownership
Absolute accountability for the risk register. Cyber ceases to be an "IT problem" and becomes a managed business risk.
02
Board reporting
Executive-ready reporting that translates cyber telemetry into clear financial and operational impacts, not raw dashboards.
03
Spend optimisation
A relentless audit of licensing and shelfware, cutting redundant tools to fund the controls that actually matter.
04
Vendor oversight
MSPs, MSSPs and third-party integrators managed and held to their contractual SLAs, not left to self-report.
05
Program and compliance uplift
Structured, measured improvement of maturity over time, preparing the organisation for ISO 27001, CPS 234 or SOCI obligations.
06
Incident command
Calm, experienced executive leadership during a crisis event: coordinating the technical response, legal counsel and board communications.
Transparent pricing models
Professional-grade leadership, priced for the mid-market.
Foundation
Smaller organisations and NFPs
Indicative Investment
$2,500 / mo
1 day per month
- · Monthly leadership briefing
- · Risk register ownership, light-touch cadence
- · Incident escalation point
- · Priority access for ad hoc guidance
Standard
Active program oversight
Indicative Investment
$5,000–7,000 / mo
0.5 day per week
- · Active CTEM integration included
- · Monthly board reporting
- · Incident escalation point
- · Architecture review board
Intensive
Heavier program and transformation load
Indicative Investment
$10,000–12,000 / mo
1 day per week
- · Active CTEM integration included
- · Steering committee chair
- · Vendor and IT management
- · Policy governance and uplift
Beyond one day per week, transformation and regulated-uplift engagements are scoped individually from $15,000 per month.
Prices exclude GST. Final quote depends on organisational complexity, network size and regulatory environment.
This retainer is management-facing: it owns the risk register, runs the program and reports to the board. It is a different product to the board-facing Independent Board Advisor →, which attends the risk committee and provides an independent opinion to directors.
The ROI Equation
The cost of executive leadership
A full-time CISO is an expensive asset, often underutilised in the mid-market. This is the same strategic weight for a fraction of the operating cost.
| Cost Component | Full-Time Hire | Vyfority vCISO |
|---|---|---|
| Base salary | $250k–$350k | Included |
| Super and benefits | +$90k | $0 |
| Recruitment fees | ~$40k | $0 |
| Exit / severance risk | High | None (monthly) |
| Total 1st year cost | ~$400k–$500k+ | ~$60k–$144k |
Indicative range based on typical Australian market salaries for C-level security roles; verify against current benchmarks before quoting.