ON THE LIGHTER SIDE OF THINGS, WE

ABOUT LIFE INSIDE AND OUTSIDE THE OFFICE.

What would you describe as your most memorable achievement in the cybersecurity industry?

In general terms, my most memorable achievements have come from helping bring innovative new companies to market whilst building great teams and thoroughly enjoying the process of doing so. An example is working at HP across different cultures, where it was important to bring people together and to ensure we all had a really positive experience of working together.

What first made you think of a career in cybersecurity?

I fell into the career by accident. Having been a windsurfing instructor for six years, I needed to find a new job and happened to talk to someone I was teaching, who then offered me a role. A couple of months later, I was installing firewalls for a vendor, and things progressed quite rapidly from there.

What style of management philosophy do you employ in your current position?

I work hard to help everyone be the best versions of themselves, then the work will take care of itself because smart empowered people will work it out.

What do you think is the current hot cybersecurity talking point?

A big topic is the need to be very data-driven, with a focus needed on individual pieces of data. What we need to do is tie it together with techniques and tactics, defend against those, then update the technical data behind it automatically.

How do you deal with stress and unwind outside the office?

I like to play golf and I also coach kids’ football – golf is more stressful, and coaching is rewarding and wholesome.

If you could go back and change one career decision what would it be?

I don’ t feel like I made specific decisions about my career, I’ ve been really lucky, great opportunities have presented themselves at the right time, so there isn’ t really anything I could change. I would perhaps tell myself at the beginning of my career to be more relaxed and take two seconds to think before answering.

What do you currently identify as the major areas of investment in the cybersecurity industry?

The first is collaboration. Helping your industry peers and business partners with information. We see the uptake of the ISAC Community more prevalently now, not just in a few headline industries and the US, the realisation of their value is spreading.

Collective defence is a huge trend that many organisations are focusing on. It’ s fascinating and

I work hard to help everyone be the best versions of themselves.

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