ISMA Members Gather at Kellogg to Expand Their Business Skills

In our June story Feather Your Nest CSOs expressed the hope that academia would eventually serve the needs of the chief security officer. It’s happening. During the week of May 17th, senior security executives from global companies such as 3M, Boise Cascade, DuPont and Procter & Gamble came together at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.

The International Security Management Association (ISMA) started talking with professors at Kellogg two years ago in the wake of 9/11. At that time, CSOs expressed discomfort with the new positions and roles they had been placed in, says David Saenz, ISMA member and vice president for worldwide security at Levi Strauss & Co. Saenz worked with Kellogg to create the Senior Executive Leadership Program, an education series that would teach CSOs how to motivate organizations and be effective in the boardroom.

The event was aimed to help CSOs “optimally interact on a daily level with their constituents,” says Daniel Diermeier, a professor at Kellogg. The structured exercises featured a three-hour crisis simulation during which participants had to handle a press conference, manage the security issue at hand, and deal with customer service and brand reputation factors.

The event was limited to 32 participants, but Kellogg will offer it again in April 2005 for ISMA members. If you’re not an ISMA member, Diermeier suggests checking out another Kellogg program, Leading in Turbulent Times, which will be held Nov. 14-17, 2004, for CSOs and other executives.