Thomas Stig Jacobsen
CISO
Danske Commodities
I come from a small windy city in northern Jutland in Denmark, and today, I live in a city close to Aarhus in Denmark with my wife. I’ve worked with IT professionally since I was a teenager, and it is a passion I have never been able to let go of.
A fun fact about me is that I was a dancer for about 15 years before switching to crossfit, which I am still doing quite a bit. I love being active and doing sports as opposed to sitting by the laptop all day long.
Learn more about the Nordic CISO community here.
Give us a brief overview of the path that led to your current role.
Besides just doing IT, I also loved to find vulnerabilities in websites during my youth, which led me to a job at the Danish IT security company CSIS.
Still being in love with IT, I decided to study Computer Science at university. Straight after that, I started at Lunar (today a Danish neobank) as employee number 1, doing anything and everything as you do in a small startup.
Nine years in at Lunar, I was the Head of IT security and even though I love(d) Lunar, I was also excited to join Danske Commodities as CISO when I got the chance in 2024. Danske Commodities is another amazing company started in Aarhus, which today is a key player in the energy sector across Europe and other markets where we are active.
What is one of your guiding leadership principles?
Many qualities or principles are important as a CISO today, maybe the most obvious but also important is open and frequent communication with key stakeholders. Since the CISO is a cross organizational function that aims to enable and empower, it is important to have great open communication and collaboration with key stakeholders across the business.
Even though the CISO often defines governance on security across the organisation, it is still important to establish and maintain great relationships to ensure that the governance level is actually implemented and with room for discussions on improvements.
What is the greatest challenge CISOs face today, and how are you addressing it?
Implementing a functioning security culture is a huge challenge across businesses.
As the external security requirements and legislation build up for a lot of businesses these years, it is vital to begin fostering a security culture such that you have a vehicle for implementing the many measures required by legislators. Without it, you will end up with an ISMS that is a paper tiger and an increasingly frustrated business that does not understand why the CISO suddenly starts saying no or is becoming a bottleneck.
What is the key to success for someone just starting out as a CISO?
This is linked to the question above regarding the greatest challenge to CISO’s today. To be able to implement a functioning security culture it is important that the CISO is able to act as a communicator and translator between the many different stakeholders; non-technical parts of the business, the Board of Directors, legislators, technical teams etc. Taking on this role and being efficient in communicating requirements, risks, concerns, mitigating measures and KPIs across the different stakeholders is key for a smoothly functioning business operating securely.
How do you measure success as a leader?
It is a hard question to answer. I think that if you are able to communicate your vision and strategy effectively and create followership both among technical and non-technical colleagues you are pretty much on the way. If you then at the same time are able to attract talented people to your organisation, challenge and develop them so that they want to stay you are even closer.
What is the value of being a member of Gartner C-level Communities?
Network and community! When things get tough and you need external support and inspiration a strong network and community is key - that is what the Gartner C-level community is providing me with.
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