North Avenue - Cyber Risk Advisors
Let's address your cyber risk
From governance, risk, compliance, and vCISO services for executives and the board, to security program maturity and technical consulting for technical teams, North Avenue partners with every level of your organization to address its unique cyber risk.
vCISO services & board advisory
Ongoing, fractional executive security leadership: a standing point of contact for the board and leadership team, with direct briefings and advisory support translating cyber risk into business language.
Governance program design
Building the structures, policies, and decision rights that let a business manage security risk deliberately, rather than reactively.
Regulatory compliance guidance
Guidance through the compliance landscape relevant to the business, treated as a byproduct of good governance, not the goal itself.
Cyber risk assessment
Identifying and prioritizing the risks that actually matter to the business, in terms an executive team can act on.
AI risk oversight
Extending existing security and risk discipline to cover AI: data access, model risk, non-human identity, and accountability for AI-driven decisions.
Security program maturity
Assessing where an existing security program stands and building a deliberate path forward, rather than starting over or bolting on point solutions.
Technical security consulting
Hands-on technical work when an engagement calls for it, including tool configuration and deployment, security architecture, and PoC (proof-of-concept) trials, delivered with the same business-first lens as the advisory work. Depending on the specifics, North Avenue can bring in specialist partners to cover what falls outside that scope, so the business gets the right specialist without losing a single point of accountability.
Commonly asked questions
Who does North Avenue work with?
North Avenue is built for global, regulated, and private equity-backed organizations, including decentralized portfolios where a single security function needs to scale across dozens of businesses at once.
Does a vCISO replace a full-time hire?
No. The two aren't a straight swap. A full-time hire means running an executive search, often months long, then carrying a full-time salary for a role many organizations don't need at full capacity yet. A vCISO brings that same caliber of judgment (setting security priorities, reporting to the board, evaluating vendors and tooling, shaping the roadmap) on a fraction of the time and cost, and can start immediately instead of after a search. Day-to-day accountability still sits inside the organization, but the engagement is built to flex: it can carry that leadership now and shift to supporting an internal hire once one's in place.
How do you know if North Avenue is a good fit for your organization?
North Avenue is a good fit for leadership that wants a partner: someone to lay out what's actually true, what it costs to change it, and work through the tradeoffs together before a decision gets made. It's not a fit for an organization looking to name an outside advisor as the accountable party for its security in place of an internal role. That accountability has to sit with someone who owns the posture day to day, inside the organization; North Avenue can advise, recommend, and be held to a high standard, but it can't substitute for that seat.
How are engagements typically structured?
Engagements are structured as an ongoing monthly advisory relationship. Project-based engagements, such as a single risk assessment or a compliance readiness review, are also available.
Which frameworks does North Avenue work with?
Common ones include NIST SP 800-53 (Revision 5) and the NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF 2.0), along with ISO/IEC 27001, SOC 2, HIPAA, and PCI DSS (v4.0). For AI-specific risk, North Avenue also works with NIST's AI Risk Management Framework and ISO/IEC 42001, tailored to whichever framework is actually relevant to the business rather than applied as a generic checklist.
Is hands-on technical work available, or just advisory?
Both. The primary offering is governance and vCISO advisory, backed by the technical depth to execute hands-on work directly when an engagement calls for it.
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