Page 187 - Cyber Defense eMagazine April 2023

Closing The Cyber Marketing Gap with

Investors

Positioning security as a stakeholder value proposition

By Patrick Kehoe, Chief Marketing Officer at Coalfire

With breaches and shutdowns making daily headlines, no one wants to do business anymore with
companies that can’t assure buyers that they’re on top of their security programs from supply chain to
point of sale. As a result, cyber risk exposure has become a dominant factor in customer purchasing
decisions. And now, with COVID and the cloud, enterprise risk posture has become a critical factor for
investors.

For equity shareholders, venture firms, acquirers, and merger candidates – and a growing constituency
of external stakeholders and internal employee stock option programs – a company’s security and
compliance credentials are becoming just as important as its financial statements.

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