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Few roles in enterprise technology are as paradoxical as that of the modern CISO. Itzik Menashe, Chief Information Security Officer and Global VP of IT Productivity at Telit Cinterion, has lived that paradox for nearly two decades. \u201cHalf of my role is to secure the organization,\u201d he told me, \u201cand the other half is to make sure our people can move fast. These two goals constantly collide.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That tension\u2014between security and productivity\u2014has defined Menashe\u2019s philosophy. For him, cybersecurity is no longer about locking systems down; it\u2019s about enabling business securely<\/em>. \u201cA CISO can\u2019t be a blocker anymore,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have to be enablers. Our job is to understand what employees need to do their work and make sure they can do it safely and easily.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Over 18 years at Telit, Menashe has overseen 24 global M&As, built a unified security infrastructure across 70 countries, and led one of the world\u2019s largest IoT connectivity networks, linking hundreds of millions of devices. \u201cEach acquisition brought a new level of complexity,\u201d he explained. \u201cDifferent cultures, regulations, and technologies\u2014Germany with workers\u2019 councils, Italy, where locating specialized talent is often more challenging, the U.S. with speed expectations, and Israel where competition for skilled professionals is high. My team\u2019s mission is to make all that run securely, as one system.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n To manage that scale, Menashe built a hybrid model where his security team doubles as an IT productivity group. The same engineers who deploy collaboration tools also harden endpoints, integrate SaaS posture management, and handle data governance. \u201cIn practice, our firewall guy is also our network productivity guy,\u201d he laughed. \u201cWe built a structure where IT and security don\u2019t just coexist\u2014they\u2019re the same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n