What CSO Awards say about a security program, per Cornerstone's announcements

What the two announcements are

Cornerstone OnDemand published two press releases about CSO Awards, dated July 22, 2024 and March 11, 2026. Read side by side, they show what the award says about a program and how a company presents it. They also show how the CISO fits into the message.

The 2026 release says Cornerstone was recognized with the 2026 Chief Security Officer (CSO) Award for excellence in cybersecurity strategy, innovation, and measurable business impact. The 2024 release says the company was named a winner of the 2024 CSO Awards from Foundry's CSO.

What the award claims to measure

The 2024 release describes the award in terms of projects. It says the annual CSO Awards recognize a select group of organizations with innovative security projects and initiatives that demonstrate outstanding business value and thought leadership.

The 2026 release uses nearly the same wording. It says the award honors top global organizations whose security initiatives demonstrate outstanding business value and thought leadership.

The unit being honored, in both releases, is an initiative and its business value. Neither release lists scoring criteria, control maturity, audit results or incident history. A reader should take the award as a statement about a project the judges found valuable. The releases do not present it as a rating of the whole program.

What the award organizer says winners show

Beth Kormanik, Content Director of the CSO awards and conference, is quoted in both releases. In 2024 she described the kinds of work honored, naming new threat detection methods, cyber analytics, AI threats, zero trust and data protection.

In 2026 her framing was about the role of security teams. She said the winners show how security teams have repositioned themselves as strategic business enablers.

She also tied the winners' work to business outcomes, saying their organizations are stronger for efforts to protect revenue continuity, improve resilience and strengthen compliance.

The organizer's language shifts between the two years. The 2024 quote lists technical themes. The 2026 quote talks about the business role of security. The shift shows up in these quotes, but the documents do not say it reflects a change in the judging.

How the company frames the award

Cornerstone's announcements connect the award to the company's own message. In 2026 the release says the recognition highlights the company's AI security initiative and reinforces its commitment to building AI innovation on a secure, compliant foundation.

It also states a premise for that message, that as organizations adopt AI to drive workforce transformation, security must be embedded at the foundation.

The 2024 release turns the award toward customers. It says the recognition reinforces customers' knowledge that they are working with a trustworthy and reliable partner.

That is the company's reading of the award. The release gives no customer data, such as retention or audit outcomes, to back it up. The award works here as a trust statement aimed at buyers, which is what the release itself says it is for.

Where the CISO appears

The CISO is quoted in both releases, but the 2024 release does not lead with that voice. In 2024 the first executive quote comes from the Chief Technology Officer, Srinivasa Ogireddy, who said security must be a core part of the company's DNA.

He also cited scale, saying more than 125 million users rely on the company to securely deliver its talent experiences.

The CISO, Apurva Dhanwantri, spoke later in that release. She framed the company's commitment as reaching beyond cyber security.

In the 2026 release the CISO is identified as SVP, Chief Information Security Officer, and gives the headline quote. She said the award underscores the company's strategy of building innovation on a secure foundation.

For anyone tracking how CISOs are positioned, this is a visible difference between the two years. The documents show the title and the quote placement. They do not explain why either choice was made.

What comes with the award

The 2024 release names an event attached to the award. It says Cornerstone would be honored alongside other 2024 winners and hall of fame inductees at the CSO Conference & Awards 2024.

The release gives the dates as October 21-23 in Fort McDowell, Ariz. It describes the event as a place where industry professionals and security technology companies come together. That makes the award part of a conference program as well as a press item.

Each release ends by pointing readers to the company's security material. The 2024 release invites readers to learn how Cornerstone helps enterprises enable a future-ready workforce built on trust. The 2026 release points to the company's Trust Center. The award is used as an entry point to the company's own documentation.

How to read an award line in a CISO announcement

Several points follow from these two releases and nothing more.

• The stated basis is an initiative with business value, not a whole-program assessment.
• The organizer's own comments stress business enablement, resilience and compliance outcomes.
• The company ties the award to a theme, such as AI security in 2026 or privacy and trust in 2024, and to customer confidence.
• Executives quoted differ by year, and the CISO's title and placement change with them.
• Both releases route readers to the company's own security pages for evidence.

A reader who wants to know what stands behind the award line should look for the initiative named and the outcomes described. The 2026 release names an AI security initiative. The 2024 release names no single project and describes security and privacy features across the company's cloud and access controls.

The releases also give scale figures for the company. The 2026 release says approximately 7,000 organizations and 140 million users in 186 countries use Cornerstone Galaxy. These describe the customer base. They are not measures of the security program that won the award.