A new twist on an old joke: Put two CSOs together in a room and you'll get three organizational charts.

How the corporate security function should be organized is subject to much debate. Here's an example. Ed Casey, Procter & Gamble's director of worldwide corporate security, reports into the human resources department. "HR is all about people, and our foremost task is protecting our people globally," he says. But John Pomeroy, CSO of Siemens in Canada, rejects that arrangement out-of-hand. "Culturally it just doesn't work. Human resources typically doesn't have the understanding of what's required for a total security package; they're more huggy-feely," says Pomeroy.

Other chief security officers variously advocate security reporting into facilities, operations, legal and even information technology.

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