Non-Executive Director — Cyber Product Assurance

Areas for independent challenge

Review the process for approving material claims about protection, detection or resilience. Ask what threat assumptions, deployment conditions and customer actions are necessary for those claims to hold. The board should be able to distinguish a demonstrated result from an extrapolation or a commercial aspiration.

Examine vulnerability handling, product maintenance and support obligations. A security product creates continuing responsibilities after sale, and the investment case should reflect them. Challenge whether the organisation has sufficient capability to respond to new information without relying on the original development team indefinitely.

Candidate qualifications

Candidates should have senior cybersecurity product, engineering or board experience with direct responsibility for assurance and customer outcomes. They need technical depth, commercial judgement and a clear understanding of the director's role. A reputation for thought leadership alone is insufficient without evidence of decisions in operating settings.

Oversight through the product lifecycle

Scrutinise the governance of major releases and changes in product scope. Management should explain when additional assurance is needed and how it is obtained. If evidence contradicts a previous assumption, the director should support a prompt and proportionate response, including the review of customer communications through authorised channels.

The director will bring assurance concerns into product strategy and board approvals, using committee work where the board assigns it. Product certification, testing and incident response remain with the executives and qualified specialists responsible for those activities. The seat adds independent scrutiny of their evidence and the decisions made from it.

Expected contribution includes clearer assurance decisions, realistic commitments and board visibility of material product risk. Candidates must disclose vendor, investor and advisory relationships. They should demonstrate the ability to challenge unsupported certainty while also recognising where a proportionate evidence base supports a commercially sensible decision under unavoidable uncertainty.