Insider risk and the CISO: what an Insider Risk Excellence Award and CISO commentary show

What the two sources cover

The question asks how security leaders approach insider risk and what an industry insider-risk award recognizes. The two documents behind this page do not use the phrase insider risk. One is a Cornerstone OnDemand press release dated March 11, 2026, about a CSO Award for cybersecurity. The other is an undated Synechron article on vulnerability detection, written by its Chief Information Security Officer and a senior architect.

Neither document describes an insider-risk program or an insider-risk award. What they do show is how two security leaders describe the programs they run, and how an industry award body describes what it rewards. This page reports those statements and keeps them to what the documents say.

What the CSO Award announcement says

Cornerstone's announcement says the company was recognized with the 2026 Chief Security Officer (CSO) Award. The criteria named there are strategy, innovation and measurable business impact.

The announcement says the recognition highlights the company's AI security initiative. The award is therefore tied to a specific initiative rather than to a general security posture.

The announcement also describes the award itself. It says the CSO Award is part of the Foundry network. It says the award honors global organizations whose security initiatives show outstanding business value and thought leadership.

What the award body says it rewards

Beth Kormanik, Content Director of the CSO Cybersecurity Awards & Conference, is quoted in the announcement. She says award winners show how security teams have repositioned themselves as strategic business enablers.

She says winners tackle business challenges by leveraging new technology, delivering detailed planning and strong execution. She adds that their organizations are stronger for efforts to protect revenue continuity, improve resilience, and strengthen compliance.

Read together, the award body's stated measures are business outcomes: revenue continuity, resilience and compliance. The quote does not name any particular threat category, so it gives no basis for saying how insider risk would be scored.

How the Cornerstone CISO frames the work

Apurva Dhanwantri, SVP and Chief Information Security Officer at Cornerstone, is quoted in the announcement. She says the award underscores a strategy of building innovation on a secure foundation.

She describes the focus as delivering innovation that enables growth without compromising security, governance, or compliance. The announcement adds that Cornerstone is an early adopter in AI and agentic workflows and upholds standards for security, governance, and compliance at scale.

The framing is security as a condition for business growth. The announcement connects the CISO's work to the company's AI products, and it presents the award as evidence of that link.

A second CISO voice: Synechron on AI and vulnerabilities

Synechron's article is by Aaron Momin, the company's Chief Information Security Officer. His biography says he oversees the execution of Synechron's worldwide information security strategy and information security program.

The article opens with a cost argument. It says a hacker needs access to only one small vulnerability in your software applications, and the company will be out millions of dollars.

The article's main subject is AI in vulnerability detection. It says AI-powered tools can analyze vast amounts of data and code much faster than traditional methods, with fewer false positives and more precise scoring.

The article also names a downside. It says that as AI becomes embedded in digital infrastructure, it also introduces new risks and vulnerabilities.

Among the capabilities the article expects as AI technologies advance is behavioral anomaly detection. It describes this as advanced behavioral anomaly detection to prevent breaches before they occur. The article does not say whom that detection would watch, and it does not connect the point to insiders.

The career paths in these profiles

The Synechron biography gives a career path. It says Momin has nearly three decades of experience in cyber risk, IT risk, information security, and business continuity planning.

It lists earlier roles at consulting firms. He was a Managing Director at PwC and held managerial roles in security at both Ernst & Young and Accenture. The biography also says he served as Chief Information Security Officer at Certinia.

The Cornerstone announcement gives a title and no career history: Dhanwantri is listed as SVP, Chief Information Security Officer. That is all the document says about her path.

What the sources leave open

The sources support a few points about how these leaders and an award body talk about security programs:

• The Cornerstone award is presented as recognition for strategy, innovation and measurable business impact.
• The award body describes winners as strategic business enablers who protect revenue continuity, improve resilience and strengthen compliance.
• Both CISOs tie their programs to the business and to AI, one through secure AI innovation and the other through AI-assisted vulnerability management.

The sources say nothing on how security leaders handle insider risk, such as employee monitoring, access controls, or the role of HR and legal teams. They do not describe an insider-risk award, its criteria, or any winner. Answering the original question would need documents that address insider risk directly, such as an award announcement or a CISO interview on that topic.