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CAP Group is a specialized advisory firm, serving the unique needs of directors and officers. We provide strategic expertise in navigating the challenges and opportunities of two separate but intertwined areas:
Cybersecurity & Artificial Intelligence
Our advisors provide a unique combination of experiences gained with premier executive, military, and board roles. They have long track records of proven results and speak from firsthand experience.
We provide only advisory services, with no distracting interests from other products and services. Our team consists of only senior advisors – no junior staff – who are comfortable working directly with chairpersons, chief executives, and the extended executive team.
Directors and officers are sophisticated business leaders with world-class expertise in building and leading complex organizations. Their professional backgrounds routinely provide them with deep understanding of core domains such as enterprise strategy, finance & accounting, legal & regulatory, and operations.
Most are not technologists. Even those that are rely on trusted experts in highly complex domains.
Many leadership teams engage external counsel to provide legal expertise to the General Counsel and to the board. Similarly, outside auditors provide financial and accounting advice to the CFO and to the board.
As technology advisors, we work closely with the risk & technology leaders and the board – providing domain-specific guidance to understand the risks and potential rewards in cybersecurity and artificial intelligence.
Recent analysis has shown that cybercrime is the third largest economy in the world – behind only the U.S. and China – and is growing at 15% per year – 5x the growth rate of the U.S. economy average over the last 10 years.
The latest NACD quarterly survey demonstrates that boards continue to rank cybersecurity as the highest concern of boards.
Our own research shows that 90% of boards lack even a single director with true cybersecurity expertise. And the heavy concentration in the Fortune 100 masks more dramatic shortfalls in companies outside the F100.
These are just a few of the challenges facing boards as they continue to evolve and understand how to manage cyber risk as part of a broad portfolio of risks facing shareholders.
The 2023 NACD report on public companies found that 95% of directors believe that AI will impact their businesses, yet only 28% indicated that AI is discussed regularly in board meetings. And given the explosion of AI onto the scene in the last 2 years, less than 10% believe that management is very or extremely proficient with AI issues.
CAP Group advisors guide boards and executive leaders in understanding, prioritizing, and managing the risks and opportunities unique to the domains of cybersecurity and artificial intelligence.
While these areas are critical and fluid, they are just a subset of a broad array of equally critical areas – competitive pressures, regulatory considerations, capturing durable sources of income and return for shareholders, among myriad others.
We understand that – we have been operating executives with global remits in some of the most sophisticated organizations. It is our firsthand expertise that allows us to help boards and executive leaders in understanding and managing these areas in-context of the full enterprise.
The CAP Group’s Bridge framework is the product of decades of experience as board directors, operating executives, and advisors. Using this common lexicon, we align the board, the executive team, and extended leadership on the core concepts necessary to ensure successful execution.
Foundational to aligning the board, executives, and the rest of the enterprise is the articulation of corporate governance. Being clear at the outset on authority, decision rights, and methods for providing transparent oversight by the board must be unambiguous and widely understood.
Given clear alignment on governance and risk/value management, an operating model provides clear definition of organizational structures, core enterprise processes and enabling technologies. While core operating models for enterprise functions are often mature and well-understood, this is often a source of ambiguity for cybersecurity and artificial intelligence capabilities.
Building on the foundation of clear governance, it is important for the board to define the enterprise’s risk tolerance as well as the priorities for realizing shareholder value.
Based on a strong foundation of the other elements, it is necessary to clearly define the “what” and the “how” of the strategy for cybersecurity and AI. Here, the entire team aligns on the objectives and methods for the chosen strategy, along with the specific methods and resource requirements, and the transparent business case that will be used to assure the realization of the value that forms the premise of investment.
Plans represent the specific, measurable budgets, timelines, and accountabilities for realizing the strategy. These plans provide a shared measure of success that will allow for trust and alignment between the board and the executive leadership team.
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