Slava Slobodianyk 

ABOUT ME

Currently, I serve as CISO at Boosta, where I lead security strategy across a holding of 31 business units, and I am completing a Master of Business Informatics at ICL Graduate Business School in Auckland, New Zealand.

My career has taken me from information security compliance in Ukrainian banking (Raiffeisen Bank, BNP Paribas) through building and leading SOC teams in Denmark (Keepit), to architecting security for US financial institutions (TransPecos Bank). This international trajectory has given me a practitioner's understanding of how cybersecurity challenges differ across regulatory environments, organisational cultures, and threat landscapes.

Career Aspirations

My long-term goal is to operate at the intersection of cybersecurity leadership and business strategy - a space where technical expertise meets executive decision-making. The MBI programme at ICL is a deliberate step in this direction: it strengthens my ability to communicate security risk in business terms, manage stakeholders effectively, and lead digital transformation initiatives with security built in from the start.

In the medium term, I aim to continue growing as a CISO in a complex, multi-entity environment, with a focus on building scalable security programmes that balance regulatory compliance with business agility. Ultimately, I aspire to contribute to shaping cybersecurity governance standards at an industry or advisory level.

Self-Evaluation 

Strengths. My strongest management competency is the ability to build functional systems from zero - whether that means standing up a SOC team, deploying a SIEM platform, or creating a security policy framework where none existed. I am comfortable operating under pressure, as demonstrated by maintaining banking security operations during active wartime cyberattacks in Ukraine. I also possess strong analytical and diagnostic skills, which I apply to risk assessments, incident investigations, and audit processes daily.

Areas for development. Through the self-assessment exercises in Developing Management Skills, I have identified two key areas for growth. First, interpersonal influence in non-technical settings - while I communicate effectively with engineering and security teams, I am working on refining how I present complex risk scenarios to boards and non-technical stakeholders. Second, delegation and empowerment - my instinct to build things personally (as evidenced by single-handedly deploying the entire security stack at Boosta) is a strength in early-stage environments, but I recognise that sustainable leadership requires developing others to carry that work forward.