MBA Takeaways

Five lessons from three CSOs who went the MBA route

By Diann Daniel

December 01, 2006 — CSO —

In general, an MBA pays off: Business school graduates this year could expect a $92,000 base

salary (up 4 percent from 2005), according to the Graduate Management Admission Council. IT

executives with an MBA see an 8 percent salary boost, the University of Michigan has found.

But that education doesn't come cheap. A master's in business administration can cost anywhere from

$59,000 (Ohio State) to $115,700 (Duke). There are also costs in time and to your personal life. So,

should you go for it? It depends on your goals, your industry, your life. Here are five takeaways from

three CSOs who went the MBA route:

1. Business savvy = opportunity. Timothy Gladura, president of the research and

investigative divisions of the Carco Group, says learning business management can be done on the job.

But those three letters, "M-B-A," confer business cachet. "You may be the best person in the world, but

having that stamp tells others a lot about what's in your tool bag," he says. Specifically, it means you

understand corporate goals for profitability and growth. Gladura armed himself with an MBA when he

decided to move beyond the military service. The West Point graduate, computer specialist and Army

officer prepped himself for the business world with a nighttime accelerated MBA program at Oklahoma

City University in 1985 and finished his studies the following year. Subsequently, Gladura held posts in

the FBI and the White House, including as director for counterintelligence and security programs for

then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice. He later became CSO at Cardinal Health, where he

developed core programs that included intrusion detection and vulnerability assessments. He credits

his MBA for nudging open the door at Cardinal: "There was nothing more important that contributed to

being a success than business acumen," he says.

2. Broad risk management expertise. Ann Garrett, State CISO with the North

Carolina Office of Information Technology Services, says an MBA program teaches you to survey

operations and talk about risk in business terms. It was about 15 years ago when Garrett, then working

as a software project line manager at Infocel, decided she needed deeper business skills. She packed

her business school studies at Meredith College in Raleigh, N.C., into a life that also included her job,

her husband and elementary school–age son.

Developing risk management skills to use in a business operations environment is particularly

important for CSOs, Garrett says, and business school has helped her "have a cool head and a

methodical approach" to security challenges.

Mary Ann Davidson, CSO of Oracle and a 1984 Wharton School of Business graduate, agrees. Davidson

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