Passion for the job is the secret of a successful career.
Russ Kirby has been CISO at Ping Identity since the summer of 2023. Before then he was CISO at Creditsafe, and then CISO at ForgeRock. Prior to that he had been global head and director of enterprise services information security directorate at Hewlett Packard.
A natural born CISO
Asked why he chose cybersecurity as a profession, Kirby answers, “It just feels natural for me.” Asked to expand, he replies, “Turns out I’m Type One on the Enneagram.”
The Enneagram is a framework that describes nine core personality patterns. It is largely self-diagnostic, but the result is fairly accurate. A Type One personality is fundamentally a principled, improvement‑driven person whose core motivation is to be good, responsible, and morally upright.
