Vrinik  ·  Fractional CISO Advisory

The companies that get security right don’t have fewer threats. They have better leadership.

Senior security leadership for businesses building something worth protecting.

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Zero
Critical Audit Findings
Across every certification and regulatory review — no material findings, no re-audits.
100%
First-Time Pass Rate
SOC 2, ISO 27001, PCI DSS — certified first time, every time.
20
Years Experience
In regulated IT and financial environments — reporting directly to boards on cyber risk.
30
Programmes Led
End-to-end security programmes across FinTech, SaaS, and regulated industries.
The reality
A leadership gap
dressed as a
technology problem.
What's already in place — and what usually isn't
Security tools
Written policies
Compliance frameworks
Someone accountable for the outcome

The security tools exist. The policies can be purchased. The frameworks are thoroughly documented. What most growing businesses are missing is not the controls — it is the person accountable for whether those controls are working, whether they reflect actual risk, and whether the board's understanding of security matches reality.

That is a leadership problem. And it does not appear in any audit finding, any questionnaire response, or any board paper until it is too late to address quietly.

If you are reading this because your board just asked a security question you could not fully answer — that is the gap. Not a tool gap. Not a policy gap. A leadership one.

The verdict

A Fractional CISO is not a consultant who reviews documents. It is a security leader who owns the programme — and is accountable for the outcome.

When security is led

The right security leadership changes what your board hears, what your auditors find, and what enterprise customers decide to trust.

The difference is not what your security programme contains. It is who is accountable for making it work — and who walks into that board meeting prepared to answer every question.

The board
Stops asking if you are secure.
Starts asking what else needs funding.
The auditors
Findings stop being discoveries.
They become formalities.
The enterprise customer
The procurement questionnaire is a delay.
It becomes a differentiator.
The disciplines

Every discipline your enterprise
customers will ask about.

Ten disciplines across advisory, assessment, compliance, and resilience — structured around what your business actually needs, not what a framework requires.

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Core discipline · 01

Advisory

The CISO function — senior security leadership available to your business without the overhead of a full-time hire.

Fractional CISO Virtual CISO
02
Assessment

Understanding your real security posture — across risk, architecture, and technical vulnerability — before the next audit or incident finds it.

Cyber Risk Assessment Security Architecture Penetration Testing
03
Compliance & Governance

The documentation, frameworks, and oversight that enterprise customers, regulators, and auditors require — built to hold up, not to be filed.

Compliance Readiness Policy & Governance Data Protection & DPDP
04
Resilience

The capability your business needs before it needs it — response plans that have been tested, and recovery targets that reflect reality.

Incident Response Business Continuity & DR
Results

Not case studies.
Evidence.

FinTech — Payments
Six months of selling. One security review. Gone.

“The CTO was answering CISO-level questions. Slowly. Incorrectly. At the cost of everything else that needed him.”

A Series B payments platform kept watching enterprise contracts collapse at the final security review — not on price, not on product. The security programme existed. Nobody with the authority or the knowledge to defend it was in the room.

What changed
Security ownership moved off the CTO’s desk. Permanently. Every questionnaire, every review, every board question — owned.
The result
The next enterprise contract closed the same week the security review was submitted. The CTO has not touched a security questionnaire since.
Fractional CISOSOC 2Enterprise sales
SaaS — B2B Technology
The controls existed. The evidence didn’t.

“To a buyer’s security team, a programme you cannot prove is a programme that does not exist.”

A SaaS business entering acquisition due diligence had a working security programme and nothing to show for it. No audit trail, no documented ownership, no evidence connecting controls to the business. The buyer’s CISO raised a red flag in week one. The deal nearly failed — not because of what was missing, but because of what could not be proved.

What changed
Eight weeks. Evidence-first rebuild. Every control documented, owned, and traceable to a business outcome — not just a framework checkbox.
The result
Acquisition completed. The buyer’s CISO signed off without conditions. The red flag was removed from the deal memo entirely.
ISO 27001Due diligencevCISO
Financial Services — Investment
Four years of budget approvals. Zero accountability.

“When the regulator asked who was accountable for cyber risk, three board members looked at their phones.”

A regulated investment firm had done everything correctly on paper — approved budgets, signed minutes, noted cyber risk in the register. What the FCA found was that no one at board level could articulate what the controls were, who owned them, or what the residual exposure looked like. The regulator said so, in writing.

What changed
A board-level security reporting framework built around what regulators actually interrogate — not what looks credible in a quarterly pack.
The result
FCA review passed. The board chair now runs the quarterly security briefing without notes.
Board reportingFractional CISOFCA
Sandeep Makol — Founder, Vrinik Advisory
The Founder
Founder & Fractional CISO, Vrinik
About the founder

I have run security where the function was a title with no team, and in enterprises where every department touched it and nobody owned it. Different scale. The same gap.

That gap never closes through frameworks or delegated checklists. It closes when someone who has lived every layer of the problem is accountable for it.

I have. System Engineer to Chief Architect to CTO to CISO.

Vrinik was built for founders and growing businesses who need exactly that — advisory, implementation, and ongoing compliance, end to end. So the business gets their full attention. Security gets ours.

Certified CISSP ISO 27001:2022 Lead Auditor
The decision

The gap between knowing you need security leadership and actually having it — that is where the damage happens.

Most businesses fill that gap with good intentions. A part-time IT manager. A consultant on retainer who owns nothing. A CISO search that takes six months and still leaves the programme exposed for nine.

9Months

From deciding you need a CISO to having one that is fully effective. Nine months of exposure. Every enterprise deal, every audit, every board question — without the right person in the room.

or
OneWeek

When Vrinik is in the room. Programme running. Board questions answered. The gap does not exist.

The full-time hire
When you have six months to wait and £150,000 before the role is even effective.
£150,000–£200,000 base salary + bonus, NI, pension — before they have written a single policy.
Nine months before the programme runs
Three to hire. Three months notice. Three months onboarding. Your business is exposed for every one of them.
Insight from one company
One sector. One set of auditors. One way of doing things. What they haven’t seen is exactly what will surprise you.
Same cost in a quiet quarter as a crisis
Fixed overhead whether there is a compliance sprint, a board question, or nothing happening at all.
Half their time is not security
Headcount decisions, budget cycles, management meetings, internal politics. Strategy competes with administration.
Vrinik Fractional CISO
Senior security leadership. In the room on day one. Cost that reflects the work, not a headcount line.
A fraction of the cost. Engagement-based. Active from week one — not month nine.
In the room on day one
No recruitment. No notice period. No six-week onboarding. Senior security leadership from the first conversation.
Pattern recognition across 30 programmes
What your next auditor will ask before they ask it. What your enterprise prospect needs before they send the questionnaire.
Cost that scales with the work
A compliance sprint costs differently than steady-state advisory. You pay for outcomes — not a salary during the quiet months.
Every hour on security outcomes
No org chart. No internal politics. No time spent managing up. Just the programme, the board, and the work.
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The first step

One conversation
is enough
to know.

Not a sales call. A direct conversation about what triggered this, what is at stake, and what needs to happen next. No proposal before we have spoken.

What the first conversation establishes.
  • 01
    The likely shape of the problem Enough to understand what triggered this, what is being asked, and where the exposure is most likely to be.
  • 02
    Where to direct attention first Not a full assessment — but a clear view of which area warrants immediate focus and which can wait.
  • 03
    Whether this is the right engagement If Vrinik is not the right firm for the work, that will be stated directly. No engagement proceeds without mutual confidence.
Request a consultation
Responds within one business day · No obligation · No proposal before we have spoken