Episode 42

Improving our Risk Management Programs with Quantification

Published on: 19th August, 2025

On this episode of The Smart IT Podcast, I welcomed Mike Woodward to the show to discuss the growing pressures on IT leaders to manage complex cyber risks with limited budgets and resources. They are facing more threats, false positives, vendor noise, and budget constraints.

We explored how Cyber Risk Quantification (CRQ) can shift cybersecurity conversations from vague threat warnings to clear, dollar-based business cases, helping organizations prioritize investments, compete for funding, and align with enterprise risk management. Our discussion covered practical ways to validate CRQ tools, avoid overreacting to improbable "maximum loss" scenarios, maintain accurate asset inventories, get a handle on shadow IT, and address legacy system vulnerabilities.

Mike emphasized that effective risk management often comes from strategic thinking and process improvements, not just buying new tools.

IT leaders who quantify, prioritize, and align risk with business goals earn greater trust and deliver stronger outcomes.

Key Takeaways:

🔹 Cyber Risk Quantification (CRQ) – Can transform the way technology leaders secure resources, prioritize investments, and align with business goals. Turns vague threats into measurable financial exposure and ROI cases.

🔹 Cost to Value – Cybersecurity is often seen as a cost center. CRQ reframes security investments in terms of measurable risk reduction and ROI.

🔹 Prioritize Strategically – Focus on high-probability, high-impact risks, not rare “maximum loss” scenarios.

🔹 Tool Validation – Test CRQ tools with known scenarios for credible results.

🔹 Process Before Purchase – Often, policy changes and operational improvements deliver more impact than the latest “shiny” tool.

🔹 Know Your Environment – Accurate, up-to-date asset inventories are critical; adversaries should never know your infrastructure better than you do. In addition, accurate inventories help address shadow IT and legacy system risks.

🔹 Boardroom Alignment – Speak the language of dollars and risk trade-offs to secure funding. CRQ aligns cybersecurity with enterprise risk management, enabling better budget justification and smarter trade-offs.

🔹 Strategic Leadership – Shift from reactive technical fixes to proactive, enterprise-level risk management.

Production: Brilliant Beam Media | Syya Yasotornrat

#SmartIT #CyberSecurity #RiskManagement #CISO #ITLeadership #RiskQuantification


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About the Podcast

The Smart IT Podcast
Where IT explores what's next...
The Smart IT Podcast, where IT professionals can assemble and hear from each other, industry leaders, thought leaders, and those in adjacent fields to collaborate and learn from each other and explore what’s next for IT.

The Smart IT Podcast explores what’s next for IT as it continues to find ways to get the important things done for our organizations.
Preparing for the next decade, we need to think differently about how we approach our work to continue to thrive into the future.

Smart IT is an approach, conceptual framework, and development model to getting the important things done by transforming the way traditional IT thinks, works, and leads. It supports the disruption of the status quo, simplifies the complex, reduces uncertainty, and improves risk mitigation.

There has never been more pressure to deliver for our organizations; but I know IT is up to the challenge.

That will require IT to lead by working smarter. Let’s do it together.

About your host

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William Reed

I am an advisor of technology for business use, have seen the possibilities, the challenges, the constraints, and the risks. I have seen firsthand the technical debt, silos, broken communication, despair of IT, and business frustrations. And, I have seen the possibilities, the hopes, and the opportunities while working in the trenches of IT.

As someone that has analyzed, designed, built, and supported technology infrastructure for many businesses over the years, and followed the technology trends and cyber threats, I see the opportunities for our organizations and for the professionals of IT as a fulfilling and thriving career.

I believe we have been blessed with great opportunities to continue to improve ourselves and organizations. If it’s possible, there is no reason enterprise IT cannot reach new heights and help our businesses thrive in age of disruption, complexity, and risk.

I have a passion is bringing a fresh perspective to the challenges in front of IT and help inspire a team to tackle and win. And to help individuals and organizations make better decisions to improve outcomes and experiences.

I advise on matters of technology use for organizational benefits. He has over 20 years’ experience in the Information Technology field. He has worked for multiple technology value added resellers, representing the major vendors and technologies in the industry. He has consulted across the major industries, including banking, health care, retail, oil & gas, education, government, finance, and legal.