Fireside Chat w/Octavia N. Howell, CISO @ Equifax Canada

Hello and welcome to our fireside chat. We're glad you're able to make it. So if it's the first time you've joined us, this is our fireside chat. We do this on a monthly basis. This evening we're joined by Octavia Howell, who is the CISO at Equifax Canada and also one of our resident moderators and co-hosts. So really happy to have Octavia on the show this evening to share her story. I know we had Octavia on here maybe about a year ago now, I think, Octavia, but we didn't record her session. So this will be a great session that we will be able to allow the recording and allow it for playback for folks who missed the session. Again, if this is the first time you've joined us, we do this on a monthly basis. We do have some ground rules and really the ground rules are going to be very simple. Let's just have a good time. Let's use this as a really great opportunity to get to know our guest this evening. As I mentioned, Octavia, get to know her and her origin story and her journey and get to learn a little bit more about her today. So if you are a vendor in the audience, we appreciate you being here and we appreciate you joining in. But if you do, when we get to the point in time in the show and we do allow for guests to come on to, for the audience members to join in and ask questions, if you are a vendor, please don't try to sell us on your latest and greatest product or solution. This is not the time or the place. Let's use that for a different opportunity. Let's really use this as an opportunity to get to know our guests and really ask some probing questions and insightful questions. So without further ado, I'm just going to go quickly around the, actually, before I get to around the room, there are comments and opinions are our own and do not represent our current or prior employers. So we ask that you please keep that in mind. If you do want to quote us or capture this and replay it back for whatever reason, we ask that you just get in touch with us and just ask us for permission, if you will. So without further ado, I'm Tomas Maldonado. I'm the CISO at the NFL. Hussein, over to you. Good evening. This is Hussein Syed, CISO at Robert Wood Johnson Health System. Thank you. Over to Vijay. Thank you, Hussein. Good evening, everybody. Welcome aboard. My name is Vijay Bala. I'm the CISO for the Asset Foundation at Goldman Sachs. Katie. Katie, sorry. Yeah. Hi. Good evening, everybody. I'm Katie Hannahan. I am a cybersecurity professional, been in the industry almost 20 years and in a little bit of a transition, but I feel like one of the things on my CV right now that I'm most proud of is being a moderator on this fireside chat. Welcome, everyone. Thank you for being here. I'm really looking forward to having this conversation tonight again with Octavia. Russell, over to you. It's amazing to be back at fireside chat. Hey, Russell Eubanks, founder of Security Ever After, where we help companies who lost their CISO. Definitely a highlight of our evening to be back here and looking forward to the conversation with Octavia. Anil, over to you. Good evening. This is Anil Varghese. I'm the Senior Operating Advisor with Francisco Partners. Lisa Beth. Hey, hey, everybody. It's a fantastic Wednesday. My name is Lisa Beth Lentini-Walker. I am Assistant General Counsel over at Marketo, which is a fintech. And I also run a consulting firm in compliance and ethics called Lumen. And I love being here because I get to meet amazing people and have fantastic conversations whenever we have our fireside moments. With that, we'll turn it over to David. Thanks. David Kass, a global CISO for GSR. We're a crypto market maker. Definitely great hearing everybody's voices. So, you know, happy to be participating. And who do I turn it over to next? Is it over back to you, Tomas? Back to me, David. So thanks. Thanks, co-host. And it's our lovely pleasure to have Octavia. Octavia, Octavia, I know you know the question that's going to come your way, but most of our audience don't know it. So we usually like to start off with this with an opportunity for our guests to introduce themselves. So I'll tell you, why don't you take a moment to introduce yourself? And while you're going through that introduction, why don't you tell us a little bit more about you and your origin story? Awesome. Thank you, Tomas. And thank you, all the moderators. It's really great to be here. You know, honestly, we went from doing this every week to doing it once a month. And about maybe around the second month, well, the second week, I'm like, man, like, I really miss my crew. But I'm really glad to be here. I am Octavia Howell. I am currently the CISO of Equifax Canada. And I am, let's see, there's a lot about me. A lot of my origin story is already public, but I'm trying to figure out how I kind of encapsulate where I am right now. So I am, I am a daughter of, of immigrants to the U.S. And now I am an immigrant in Canada. So that's awesome. Kind of coming full circle. I started off my career and really didn't know what I wanted to do at all. Computer science and mathematics major at Spelman College, was really good at a lot of things, had no clue what I wanted to do and kind of got this amazing opportunity to go to a company that most of you all know called the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Company or Freddie Mac in 2006. If you know anything about what happened the following years, you know, that was very crucial to my career at that moment. I went to a rotational program, thought I wanted to do database management or database administration. Hated going through the database administration program. And so ended up in voice over IP when we were moving from digital to, to voice over IP was from analog to voice over IP. And my job was to prevent crosstalk. Around the maybe early 2000s. There was this thing where anytime you try to, when they were going to voice over IP, anytime you try to pick up the phone to talk to someone on analog lines, sometimes you actually hear cross talk. Meaning that if the signals got switched up, then you potentially could actually hear someone else's conversation. And it happened more oftentimes than not. And so my job really throughout was to manage conference, conference calls and to prevent the calls from crossing over within the company. And so pretty much all of this glorified ACL, which at the time I did not know what an access control list was. All I knew was I was preventing an IP address from getting to this part of the IP address. And I was denying or allowing something to get through on, you know, on multiple ports. And so I did not know exactly what those terminologies were. When I initially started my career, I was working on firewalls. I was working on ACLs, proxies, and I had no clue what the terms were. And so I say that the reason I put a pin in that, because a lot of times within our industry, we get caught up in terminology and we actually cross a lot of people out because of the terminology. So here I was, this amazing person who was just preventing things from happening. And I had no clue exactly the security terminology that I was doing. So 20, 23 years old, you know, at the time, housing market started to crash, started to crumble. Meem and Brothers shut down. It was a big deal. And I was bored working on ACLs. And so my, I told my manager, I had a real, I had a great manager. Her name was Babs Godoy. And she said, well, what do you want to do? I was like, listen, I'm bored. I cannot do this anymore. And she said, well, I have a friend who's leaving the, leaving a company. They normally don't allow anyone without five years in technology to even be on this team. But we may be able to get you on this team where you won't be bored. And that team was actually network security. And so at the time to come into security, you had to have five years or 10 years experience in technology. They gave me a chance. Again, I started working on it and the rest is history where I just became that network security girl. And I pride myself in being efficient and being detail oriented. And so one of the things that I realized as I was growing in my career was even though I prided myself in being detail oriented and being the, and I like when people call me the network security girl, because honestly, I was the only girl that ever went to any network security conferences. I was the only woman anywhere in my full face makeup. You know, I used to wear a really long weave and stiletto heels, fingernails done everything. And I loved it. But after a while it became old. After a while it became like, I need to have more women in this space with me so that it will be normal for like, so that when I walk in the room, these guys don't feel like they have to stop talking. Or when I, you know, when I'm about to do something, it's not a big show, right? I need to normalize women in this space. And so that was one transition for me. And then another one was, I really did not want to be the nerd girl, the technical girl so much. As you all know, my, my hashtag is pretty nerd gal. But I was like, I have to get to the point where I'm actually making business decisions. And where I can actually have real conversations that's not back office. Right. And so at that moment, I decided that I was my, my next move in my career really needed to be where I had a seat at the table. So it really needs to be a business function. And so I went into the information security officer function, stayed as a technology ISO for about six months, moved to a business ISO for about a year and a half. And then in September of 2021, got a phone call from my global CISO. I was like, Hey, have you ever considered moving to Canada? And I was like, no, that's not a thought that one has on a normal basis. And thought about it, talked to my husband, talked to my kids. Toys R Us had closed all of its locations in the U.S. And so my kids were like, Canada still has Toys R Us. Let's go. And so because, so my kids were on board because of Toys R Us. My husband was on board because he was just tired of like the mess that was going on in the U.S. at the time. And so we decided to take a chance and actually move the family to Canada and start a new career learning Canadian laws and privacy laws and history and just everything about Canada. And it's actually really dope and really cool. So here I am. Equifax is a data analytics company. As you all know, we are actually, you know, very known in the U.S. Trying to expand our, to be known among consumers, which is everyday people in Canada and hoping to make a big impact here. Thanks for that, Octavia. And if you've just joined us, again, we're joined this evening by Octavia Howell, who is a CISO at Equifax Canada. I forgot to mention that if you do have a question, we will open up for the audience to raise your hand and ask your questions in about 30 to 45 minutes or so. Just hang tight with us and we'll bring folks up. I will pass it over to, sorry, I'm losing my, I'm losing, who's next? I see Katie next on my screen. So Katie, I'll pass it over to you. Oh, okay. Wow. I get to be first. I wasn't expecting that. I came in later to the pre-room. Hi, Octavia. Can you, this is so exciting for me personally, probably less for you, but for me personally, to be able to actually get to ask you some questions. We've been on the stage together for, I guess, almost two years now and as co-moderators. And I can't say enough about how much I've learned from you and the questions that you've asked and the insight that you've shared in our room. And so to be able to ask questions of you today is really quite exciting for me. So thank you again for being our guest, being put in the hot seat tonight. But there are a lot of things that, you know, I didn't know about you and your backstory, frankly. And what I found really interesting is that statement that you made, you know, about normalizing, you know, in your case, it was a woman, right? In a workplace, you know, as a leader now, I think, and as I'm moving into, you know, more leadership roles in my career, I find it really impactful to hear the stories. I'm curious if you could share with us, you know, how it is that you've been able to, again, normalize a place for everyone at the table who has a voice. And that's one of the things I've admired about sharing a stage with you and, you know, being able to ask these questions of our guests. But I'm really excited to ask that question of you tonight is how do we, you know, again, normalize people to have a voice at that table? Yeah, you know, so that's a good question. One of the things that I realized, if you are a marginalized person, it's easy to see when others are being marginalized, right? And so that's something I always try to remember. And I always try to put myself back in the place when I wasn't the VP or when I wasn't, when I was an analyst or associate. And when people would kind of ignore me and I would have to fight and prove myself with academics and technology acumen before I was allowed to speak, right? And so I try to make sure that the fight that I have is not going to be the fight that someone that comes after me has to have, if that makes sense, right? And so I kind of look at everything and I try to pay attention to cues because people, I genuinely feel that people have the best intentions and sometimes don't really understand or know that when they're actually doing things that can be seen as a microaggression. And so because of that, I learned to gently be able to educate the masses and those around me while giving space for other people to speak. And so it's just something, like I said, I want to live in a world where everyone is actually treated and given the respect just because they're a human being and smart and opposed to them being a woman or a man or a, you know, a person of Irish descent or African descent or anything else. I just want to live in a world where everyone is treated by their merit and their honor. And so I try to make, I try to have everything around me be that. And I try to exemplify that in what I do as well. Yeah, thank you. I appreciate that. And I think the term, you know, the term microaggression is thrown around a lot in our industry, but I appreciate the nuance with which you bring, you know, your stories to the table. And this group has done that because I think that's where we are now. I think everyone's acknowledged we are to a certain point, you know, kind of to your point at the very beginning when you were opening. So I appreciate you kind of adding that, you know, color to the microaggression piece, because I think that's where we're all still, you know, sitting as marginalized folks in the industry. So, again, thank you for being a voice for all of us on the fringe and being women who are standing up and being leaders in our industry. Over to you, Tomas, because I have no idea what the order is on LinkedIn Audio. No worries. Thank you for that, Katie. Russell, I see you next. Over to you. Over to me. So how awesome to have the tables turned. Octavia, it's love us writing down all the things that you've done, some things I've known and things I didn't know at all. I love that network security girl. That's going to be sticky there for sure. And I appreciate you taking a chance, not just in moving to Canada, your whole family to Canada, but in your whole journey that you shared with us. You know, it's a question I've got. You know, I hear a lot of folks talking about the BISO role, and you mentioned that earlier, the business ISO. Can you tell me, was it an advantage or disadvantage and why for you coming up in a very technical career and then moving over to the business side? Did you find that to be an advantage or disadvantage? And why did that lead to your success as a BISO? Yeah, I actually found it as an advantage. I went into the BISO role with my eyes wide open. So I went from, I managed a team like the entire department at New York Life. I managed the network security and the data security team at New York Life. And while the business liaisons were very much attuned and they knew that I understood what they needed to do from a revenue perspective, every time I had to do a upgrade or a patch to the low balancers or upgrade the forward proxies or even move to the cloud, you know, because we needed to get off our legacy on-prem, it was a struggle. It was literally, I felt like I had to like write a proposal, a business case, explain to them that I knew revenue and explain to them that I knew the business. And it was, it was like pulling teeth out of a child who had just sprouted teeth, right? It was really hard. And I made a decision that in order for me to advance security within any organization that I'm in, I have to have that seat. I have to be able to understand these nuances when it came to growth, revenue, understanding where the business is going, understanding how they make money outside of me just being in the back end. And because when I was in network security, it was opening up this port, maybe configuring these URLs, these bits, maybe going to these back ends. And while I tested and I saw the webpage that might've come up or I saw the application that came up, I did not really understand what the business was doing and how they were making money off of the work that I was doing. And so going to the BSO role, I knew I needed to learn. And so I went in, like I said, wide open with, Hey, I'm here. I know security like the back of my hand. I'm good with that. I'm here to learn business. I'm here to learn how I can help you be more secure and actually make security a business enabler. And so I think it was an advantage for me because I had that technical background. Um, I'm going to tell you when I initially got to the company, we had some network outages and it was funny because I sat with the rest of the security team at the time because it was pre COVID. And they knew I had, they knew I ran network for New York life before I went to the company. And every time we had a network outage, everybody would stand up and look at me. And I would literally be about to pull my hair out because there was nothing I could do about it because I did not have access to the network. And so I think that those moments was the hardest part for me is like when there's a thing that goes wrong that you know you can fix, but because you're now in security, you don't, you can't fix it. That's probably the hardest thing that I had to deal with when I, when I became a BSO. That's so amazing. I appreciate the insight. That's stuff I've never done, but you're one of the more prominent BSOs that I first met. And I'd love to hear kind of how that did contribute to your success. Thanks so much. Tomas, back to you. Jay, over to you, my friend. Thank you, Tomas. Octavia, today's a delight. You know, I've known your professional journey, but your personal journey equally amazes me. An easy softball question, right? Like you're a CISO now. You represent Cybersity. You're an ITSMF. You're a cybersecurity diva, ex-founder, mentor, speaker. How do you juggle all of this? BJ, I thought you said you was going to give me a softball question. You should have just responded, oh, it's with my eyes closed. Right. Yeah. It's interesting. So my, my entire career, I have tried to do things that makes it, that intertwines with each other, that makes it easier for me to do what I love to do. And as I said before, and when I was telling my story, my whole purpose is to be able to lead this industry way better than it was when I came in. And not just better in terms of, you know, women and diversity, but just knowledge and equity as well. And so I initially, you know, I initially was a part of ITSMF at the time did not have a large, an ITSMF for you all who don't know what that is. It's the IT Senior Management, Information Technology Senior Management Forum. And it is an organization that actually helps black leaders in technology rise to the executive ranks. And I went into ITSMF because I had amazing people who are already members, founding members. What I did not know is the person who, who the CIO at the time who hired me on to Freddie Mac was one of the founders of ITSMF. You know, almost 30, 30 something years ago. And they brought me back on after my first management position. When they found out I was a manager, they were like, nope, we have to get her to ITSMF. And so ITSMF did not have a strong security presence within the industry at the time that I joined. And so I said, you know what? I have some people who are my friends in security. Most of the people who founded Cybersity or at the time ICNCP, the International Consortium for Minorities and Cyber Professionals, they were actually, they came out of membership of ITSMF. And so I'm like, okay, well, they're trying to get people onto the entry levels. I'm trying to get my peers because what we need to do is we need to actually create more leaders within the industry so that we can actually have more hiring managers. Those people who have a seat at the table, those people who have authority who can really move the business and have hiring authority to actually bring on these entry level and mid level and continue the right to like secure the entire pipeline. So while they were trying to get people to entry levels, I was like, okay, entry level, that's great. We need more leaders. And so as I was doing that, really realizing that there were people who, if I continue to build up the executive leadership and ignore those who are coming entry level, then we're going to have a problem in the middle. And so at one point I felt like I was kind of patching leaking holes, honestly. And now I think I'm to the point where I need to, I am really trying to focus on how we sustain the mid level careers, right? Those mid managers, because right now that's where I see the problem. And so even though, you know, you may look at my CV and see me kind of bouncing on this organization, it really does come full circle. Because my role and what I need to do and what I feel passionate about is one, I think black women of African descent really in leadership within security. And two, making sure that we secure the pipeline end to end and not just, you know, not just clog it at the beginning, have it empty in the middle and have it very lean at the top. Because right now we are very upside down and we need to figure out how we kind of smooth out that pipeline. Love it. Thank you, Octavia. Tomas, over to you. And Neil, over to you, my friend. And then after Neil, we'll get to Lisa Beth and then Hussain, okay? Great. Thanks, Tomas. Octavia, thanks for jumping into the hot seat. You know, as you talk about your journey, one of the things that, you know, captured my interest, I want you to provide some insights on, is some of the key traits that you look for in leaders as you're honing those, that next generation of leaders. And specifically, you know, want to dial into adaptability. You're one of the few security leaders that's moved to a different country. A lot of folks have moved across this country. But give us some insights on those traits that you see that you're trying to harness with the next generation from a leadership perspective. Thanks, Neil. That's a good question. One of the first things that I look for is curiosity. Not just, not arrogance. I'm going to say, I'm going to say that, I'm going to explain. What I see, what I have seen is that there, there's a lot of book smarts in, within our industry. And that causes a lot of people to beat their chest. And those of you all who know me personally, you all have heard me come up with the term mediocre Mitches. And so the mediocre Mitch is the person who thinks that they're mediocre Mitch or mediocre Michelle's. And I apologize if your name is Mitch or Michelle. It has nothing to do with your actual name. But if you're mediocre, you may fall into the mediocre Mitch or Michelle. But those are people who think that they can just come in to the industry or come in and they demand, oh, I'm going to make, you know, $120,000, $200,000. And I have no background, no experience. And I just feel like I'm, I'm here and you have a problem and I'm your solution. For me, the leaders that I look for are those who are hungry and want to actually give back. Not those who are selfish because we still have a problem within our, our industry, but we need people giving back. So I look for hunger. I look for tenacity, curiosity, and the willing to continue to learn. And if they, if you have those things coupled with the ability to already know security and already be able to understand business, understand technology and be able to help them, then those are the kind of the traits that I look for. Awesome. Thanks for sharing that. Well, I'm going to step right in because I know it's my turn and I've been waiting so patiently. Octavia, it's great to have you and to be on the fireside chat and also to be able to just ask you some of these questions. I like the reference to the mediocrity crew that sometimes we have to deal with. But my question for you is really a little bit more practical. You have recently undergone a move. And I remember, you know, a move I had in my own life. It wasn't to another country, but it was across the country. What would you say to other people that are considering a move like this in terms of things that you've learned, suggestions that you have, both, you know, from a professional perspective as well as a personal perspective? Are there things that you've learned as part of that journey? Yeah. I would say do not move to another country unless you have an immigration attorney. That would probably be the first thing. But no, I think that for me, I had a one of my chief operating officers at when I was at New York Life. We I was a part of a program called Women Unlimited and it was a leadership development program. And at that time, we kind of went around and we would go to the headquarters in New York and we would meet with, you know, the CEO, CIO, COO. We'll have a full day session, breakfast, lunch, dinner with them, and we can ask them anything. And I would never forget one of my COO as he was getting ready for early retirement. We asked him if there was something that he would want to leave us with. And it was a group of only six or seven women from the company. And he looked at me and said, never say no, because you never know. And that stuck with me to never say no, because you never know. And so when Jamil called me and asked me to move, I remember hearing never say no, because you never know. And so I would just say, don't count yourself out. I was told by one of my mentors a long time ago that in order for you to really look at global positions or really look at whether you're going to be making the big bucks, right? The million dollar deals. You're going to have to. They're going to look at your resume and you're going to have to show that you are willing to move somewhere. And I know I wanted to make a difference worldwide. And when the opportunity came up to move to Canada, I jumped on it. Because never say no, because you never know. And, you know, I did not know what I was getting myself into. I did not know if I was going to, well, I knew I was going to be successful because I'm pretty much trying to be successful at everything I do. But I did not know where it was going to take me. But I wasn't going to tell myself no. And so that's one thing that I will give to anyone is I'll pass on that message to never say no, because you never know. I love it. You never do know. So thank you for sharing that, Octavia. I'll turn it back to Tomas. All right. I think, David Cass, you're up next, my friend. Oh, sure. Thanks, Tomas. And Octavia, always great speaking. You have great experience. And I was just wondering, you know, how do you encourage people that, you know, that want to be mentors, not only mentees, but a lot of times, you know, not every mentor is suited for a particular mentee. And not every mentor understands that the level of work that actually goes into being good at it. So how do you, you know, kind of encourage that dialogue on both ends? Yeah, I think you have to know why you're getting, you want to be a mentor. And you have to also know why, as a mentee, you want someone to be your mentor. The first thing that, when people come to me and say, hey, I want you to be my mentor, I always ask them why. Because I'm not going to be a great mentor to everyone. I know that, just like I'm not a great manager to everyone, right? And, you know, I have some of my team members on this call. And they laugh at me because, you know, I'll say, oh, well, that person requires micromanagement. And I can't micromanage them. So I'm going to go over here. Or I'm not going to hire them. Or I'm not going to talk to them because this person requires this that I know that I cannot give. Right? And so I would say if you're going to step into being a mentor because you don't want to, one, you don't want to discourage anyone from following their career because of something that you said because you're hurt or you had some trauma in your life that now you're putting back on someone else. Right? And two, you always want to make sure that you are going to leave a positive imprint on someone. And so always check. Always have a conversation. And use your network. One of the things that I use, I do not mentor everyone. But if I have someone that comes to me and they tell me why they want me to be their mentor and I know someone that fits that profile perfectly, I will call that person. I would say, hey, I know this great guy. I know this great woman. They're amazing. I want to introduce you. Maybe you guys can have a mentor-mentee relationship. I don't know, but let's just get on a call and see how it goes. And so I would encourage people to do that as well. But when you find your fit and you know those people that look up to you and they want to do the work, then I think then you can step in. But yes, mentoring is hard. But I would say make sure as it's like a date, you have to find your match. And you don't match up with everyone. You have to realize that. Yeah, those are some great points. Thanks so much. Tomas, over to you. Octavia. Octavia, I get to ask you another question. But before I do, I just want to remind everybody, if you do have a question for Octavia, feel free to raise your hand and I'll bring you up on stage and you can ask Octavia a question. Octavia, I've got two questions. One, what's your favorite dad joke that I say? I'm just playing. You don't have to answer that. I don't answer that. Octavia, let's talk about culture. You moved to Canada. You've been there, I think, about a year, right? Or close to it. From a cultural transition standpoint, if somebody's looking to make that move, what are some of the challenges or opportunities, however you want to put it, what are some of the challenges or opportunities that you would share with somebody that is potentially considering making a move? Maybe not to Canada, but just making a move to another country to run a major function at that country. And that major function being, obviously, the CISO for the business. Yeah, for me, what I found was, and I think this is for any country. I came here saying, hey, I know Equifax. I know their business model. I know security. This is going to be a slam dunk for me. It wasn't a slam dunk because there was a couple of things from a cultural perspective that I had to, oh, wait, what's going on here? I would say, make sure that you understand the country's values. Not just the country's values, but the individual values within your business, your team, the stakeholders that you actually work with, and how that ties into the overall values of the country. There are a lot of stereotypes for, and I will just say within Canada, there are a lot of stereotypes of Americans in Canada. And there are a lot of stereotypes of Canadians to Americans. And most of those stereotypes, there are some stereotypes that are true, but most of those stereotypes should not be painted across the board. Right? And so I think that we have to be very careful because one of the things I think about a weekend, my husband was like, oh, my God, Canadians are so nice. I'm like, no, they're not. What are you talking about? Right? Right? Right? And it was just kind of understanding the nuances of how people saw value, right? Americans value being very blunt and upfront so they're understood. Canadians value you being left intact as a human being and that your feelings are still left intact, but they're still going to say what they want to say. But it's just going to be in a nice way. And so I think that you have to make sure that you're understanding that and understanding the communication styles with everyone. Right? And so that was probably the biggest cultural thing for me because I will be honest, and I don't want to hear this. I see a bunch of people from Equifax on this Equifax panel on this call. I don't want to hear this because I know you're going to say something to me tomorrow when meeting. But I cried like my first maybe three months because I was trying to be super nice because I did not want the beast to come out to anyone. Right? I was just trying to be super nice. And I remember about maybe within a three-month period, I was just like, I can't take this anymore. I'm being fake. I'm not being myself. I just need to like just go. And I just need to be super American. Right? And I said it to my team. I was like, okay, I'm going to be American right now. I'm just going to be American. And at the end of the day, one of my team members said, like, you were hired from America. You weren't hired to be Canadian. Won't you just do what you need to do? And so I would say, you know, respect everyone, but understand the culture, understand the values is probably my biggest piece of advice when you're thinking about going to another country. And that's great advice. And look, I would say that that applies even if you weren't going to another country, if you started in a new industry or a new company, you know, all of that applies, right? Be yourself, but also be appreciative and understand the sort of the culture and the surrounding aspects of what motivates or drives people. So that's great advice, Octavia. I do see Tahar on the stage. Again, just a reminder, this is our monthly Fireside Chat. We're joined this evening by Maria Howell, who is the CISO at Equifax Canada. If you've just joined us, don't worry. We have a recording of this and it will be on our firesidechat.live website for you to be able to listen to shortly after the show. If you do have a question, feel free to raise your hand and I will bring you up on stage. Tahar, over to you. Hello, everyone. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, depending on where you're reaching from across the world. Can you hear me? Loud and clear. Loud and clear. Awesome. Octavia, thank you for having this forum and all of you here to have this safe space to have a transparent conversation. I have one question in two parts, Octavia. Number one, when you spoke about perceptions of Americans across the world, and I've lived across the world, not only as a former army officer. So you are totally on that. We are the redheaded stepchildren in other countries that I'm not going to mention, just so no one's offended. And number two, as a global company, also tearing down those barriers that we didn't put there and we don't know where it comes from. As you are moving, whether it's up in business, whether it's up in your company, a middle manager, and you are a person, not just a woman, but a person of color. I'm curious to how did you navigate all those perceptions? For example, confidence being misconstrued as cockiness. You've mentioned that. Or competence misconstrued as, for no reason, intimidating others in the room and making them feel comfortable with your excellence and your brilliance. So in those two parts, could you kind of share, how did you navigate that and come out through the other side without burning bridges? Yeah, so Tahar, you always ask me questions that make me think back. And so I appreciate you for being that sister to me who always says that. There were some bridges that were burnt along the way. I'm not going to lie. I had to learn self-awareness and emotional intelligence in order to check myself first and not have any kind of perceptions of the way that people were coming across to me. Even when people, at one point, when people came and I felt like it was, you know, because they were intimidated by me, I used to have a, you know, a fulfilling kind of personality in my 20s. You know, it was like, you know, feelings, what are you talking about? A fulfilling. Like, we don't have feelings. This is business. And that caused a lot of bridges to be burnt. I wouldn't have, I wouldn't even say a bridge. Maybe it was kind of like a little, like I could have walked in the water. It's fine. But as I got older and as I moved along the career, I realized that I needed to actually check that. Because even though that wasn't, those things, those relationships probably weren't worth saving at the time. I don't want to have that. I did not want to have that personality where I went and I did not care about how I was being perceived or how I was coming across. Right. I wanted to make sure that I was always, and I said it earlier about how, you know, be careful who you mentor. Or as I said, you want to leave a positive impact on everyone's life and you can't do that burning bridges, period. And so I think for me now, who I come across, I try to leave that positive impact. But I also try to make sure that I'm never taking what someone says as a personal attack on me. And they may just be having a bad day. Right. Right. When I was at New York Life, there was a CIO, his name was David Castellani. And David made us go through this training about, and he gave us these cards called a mood elevator. And it's like, you know, your mood elevator is, are you curious? Are you in a bad mood? And it's like, you know what? Sometimes people may be in that, you know, below that line of the mood elevator and they are not ready to receive a conversation. It takes a lot of emotional intelligence and self-awareness to realize, one, where you are, and two, where that other person is. And maybe it's not the best time to have that conversation. Or maybe it's not the best time to actually approach them in a way that may put them on edge. And so I don't think I'm a cocky person, but I am confident in everything that I do. But I also lead and walk with grace. And I try to ensure that whoever I'm speaking to, that they see the grace that I give myself and I also give them grace. So I think that kind of softens the cockiness a little bit or the arrogance or the confidence or whatever it is that, you know, whatever agitation you want to put to it. I think it softens it a little. Thank you for sharing that perspective. It's just something that has dawned on what I see globally. It's painted on women. It's painted on people of color. And you can't get in your own way because it impacts everyone. If you are a leader in an organization, you need that relationship to build bridges for others. If you are the leader of a company like I am, you know, that's opportunities where you're not creating new jobs for your people. So I was just curious on how do someone like yourself, you've done it, how you navigated that. So thank you for sharing that perspective. Thanks, Tahar. Thanks for joining the conversation. We appreciate you. Kayla, hopefully I said that right. Kayla, over to you. Did I say that right? Yes, you did. Hi, everyone. Thank you, Octavia, for your perspective. I, too, actually chose to leave for a year secondment from the United States. And I actually traveled to England for a year. Left my three-turning four-year-old daughter with her dad here at the time. So I can absolutely relate to some of the things that you were previously mentioning. And I just wanted to make a comment that your advice of basically just saying yes and working it out as you go and accepting the challenge, I think it's spot on. So for anyone here that does have the opportunity, please, like, just say yes and figure it out. It will absolutely change your life. So thank you for sharing that story, Octavia. But my question for you is around how do you, how would you recommend that female CISOs or female technical managers or VPs that are the only females in the room handle themselves when they are feeling disrespected? Do you have any advice on, you know, how to keep that grace? Like, is there certain things that you follow, things that you've learned over time? I'm in my first CISO role right now, and I find myself struggling with this often. And being the Bostonian American that I am, sometimes find it very difficult to, you know, keep my mouth shut, take a deep breath, and kind of keep my composure until another time. So is there anything that you could maybe share that has worked for you in the past that maybe that I or others could learn from? Yeah. I've never had that experience as I was, as you know, in my current position. And when I will say that at Equifax Canada, 50, 50% of the equal there, the president is also a woman, HR women, head of marketing, head of legal, and then myself. And then everyone else is our men. And we have a little bit of a leg up when it comes to, like, who's going to talk and who's not. But I have been in a situation when I initially became a manager. I had one gentleman that always tried to prove that I did not belong in the room. And, you know, initially I was very upset about it, but what I ended up doing is there were some people who also saw it. And you have to, that's when you start having to play the political game a little bit, unfortunately, and start realizing who your allies are. Right. Right. Start having conversations with other people who have authority and you start recognizing who, who the, the big boys are in the room and start building relationships with them. Once you start building those relationships with them and say, Hey, you know, do you mind when we're in this meeting, I have these topics that I want to bring up. You know, I just want you to make space for me to be able to bring those topics up and what ended up happening when that, when I had those situations, it 100% worked. And after a while, probably after a couple of meetings, I didn't have to go and do my canvases, canvassing before the meetings anymore, because they knew who I was. They knew I had backing and I didn't get that disrespect anymore. So I would say, try to make sure that you build those relationships at these levels. It's all about the relationships that you build. It's not about you trying to prove a point or you trying to get your programs through. You're not going to do that if you don't have the relationships built. So I would say, you know, focus on the relationships, focus on those, those people who can help you move your agenda through. And I hope that helps. Yes, it does. Thank you very much. Thanks, Kayla. Thanks for asking your question. Hopefully I pronounced your name right. It's over to you. And if it's the first time you're using this app, you can unmute yourself on the bottom right hand of your screen if you're on your phone. All right, we'll come back. Alan, over to you. Anything you want to ask Octavia? Yeah. Sorry about that. Can you hear me? Oh, there you go. There you go. Did I pronounce your name right? Is it Chinadu? Yes. Yes. Yes, you did. So I'm going to pretend Octavia doesn't know me. So I'm Chinadu eBay. I work with AWS. I'm SDM. So it's all for development manager. My question for you, Octavia, is, you know, the security bar is constantly being raised. And I wanted to get your perspective. Obviously, us working together at New York Life, you know, you worked at Equifax, right? U.S. base. Then moving to, you know, a Canadian company. Like, from a security bar standpoint, who have a higher bar, right? I know there's, like, international standards. But who would you say have a higher bar? And have you had to upskill yourself, relearn some things from, you know, for more from a technical standpoint? So I think, and yes, Chin, I'm going to act like I don't know you, but it's okay. I'm glad you're here. Very good to see you. Me and Chin go way back. So Chin, actually, so I used to be the youngest manager, the youngest VP at New York Life. And it was like, ugh, like, people used to always call me a baby. And then Chinadu joined, and Chinadu became the youngest one in the company. And I was so happy that I wasn't being called a baby anymore. So Chin and I became friends because he took my baby spot. And so I could actually, you know, walk with authority because he was a younger VP at the time. But, but yes, the bar is, I think when you look at the bar, it's not based on country to country. Like if you, I came from a pretty high, at Equifax in the U.S. We have the, you know, we got a lot of money after 2017 to do a lot of things, right? And pretty much built policies, processes. How do you do, you know, DevSecOps and FDLC in the cloud? How do you do it on AWS, Azure, and GCP? How do you, like literally, you know, more exposure within a week than I had my entire career to cloud security. I think once you know, then you want to take that knowledge wherever you go. So in terms of, you know, I wouldn't say which country is more mature. I would just say which country had focus areas. In the U.K. and in Canada, previously, the focus was on privacy and not necessarily security. So in the U.S., the focus was never on privacy. The focus was always on security. So I was talking to one of my U.K. counterparts, one of my Australian counterparts yesterday. And we were talking about, like, in the U.S., I think when data privacy came about, it had to pull itself out of security, right? And it was really hard to identify what parts were privacy and what parts were security and, like, what, you know, who cared about what. In Canada, it was privacy. Everything was about privacy and not necessarily so much about security. And now there's this focus now on security because there's more breaches coming through. There are, you know, you have a higher case of fraud because now the list of those, the people who've been breached or the companies who've been breached are now being leaked. And now you have fraudulent actors going through and trying to steal their data and taking their identity. And you have this entire ecosystem where privacy is no longer the thing that keeps you protected. So now you have to lean on security. And so because I had that experience where security was number one, I can use that and lean on that. And also I'm talking to other CISOs of Equifax Canada customers about how we actually do things and how we can actually up, you know, up the ante within security. Everybody wants to do the right thing. Everyone wants to work together. It's just, I think when you're looking at different countries, it's what they initially focused on and how to use that to pivot into ensuring that you're actually securing an ecosystem. But great question, Chin. Yeah, yeah, that's, I appreciate that response and just really gets me thinking about the political system and how that might, you know, push a country towards privacy versus security. And other components of security of security domain. Thank you for that response. Thanks, Chinu. Thanks for jumping up on stage and asking your question. And Octavia, you must have heard some really good dad jokes at New York Life. I'm just saying, especially if you were the baby. You know. No, I didn't. The best dad jokes came from you. They were also the worst. I will take that award any day. Alan, thanks for joining us on our fireside chat. Anything you want to ask Octavia? I do. I want to say first, thank you, Tomas, for hosting these. It's my first one actually tuning in. But my question is, first of all, I'm a girl dad, right? And my daughter, and I was talking about getting more women into technology. She spent a lot of time, you know, six years while she was working on her bachelor's as a vet tech. And she thought, I think she thought that's where she was going to. I never thought she would end up in technology given the path that she had taken through high school. But she did. So she got her IT, a bachelor's of science in IT. And then she got her first job offer with L3 Harris, where I'm working right now, as a new college grad. And the first offer she got, she was so excited. And she came to me and she says, oh, this is amazing, right? My salary is going to change substantially from what I'm doing as a vet tech to now. And she was just going to sign on the line. And I told her, I says, you need to counter. And she stopped and she said, she gave me that are you crazy look, right? Because they're going to say no. And I said, you need to counter. And this is more of a statement for women in technology. And she did counter and she got what she asked for. And I mean, that's just a life lesson for women coming into technology that, I mean, you just can't buy that, right? I don't, you know, I think that's something she's going to carry with her. And when it's time to negotiate her salary, she'll do that. She won't think twice about it. I think it's so important as parents, and especially as parents of females going into technology roles, where they're coming in at a disadvantage from a pay standpoint, to have somebody to tell them that it's okay to ask for what you're worth. What are your thoughts on that, Octavia? I believe 100% you have to ask for what you're worth and counter. I think what ends up happening is when you have, if you have a boy and a girl as a parent, you, and I don't do this with my children because it's my children. But if I look at when I was growing up, my mom, it was me. My brother was told to fight for everything, right? If he doesn't like something, say something. And he needs to say something. Like the parent isn't, my mom wasn't going to say something on his behalf. My grandparents weren't going to speak on his behalf. They will make him go speak. But me, on the other hand, if something was done to me, they would jump in front of me and they would speak on my behalf. Right? They would always, it was kind of like I was the damsel in distress. I was the one that needed to be protected. And I think that gave, they gave a disadvantage to me as a woman. And I think a lot of parents do this and a lot of communities do this to women, not realizing that if you tell them to stand up for themselves, it wouldn't be so hard for us to get over that fear of fighting for ourselves. Right? Or like Kayla said, feeling awkward when, you know, when, because the only, really awkward when you want to stand up for yourself, because the only way that you know how to actually fight and stand up for yourself is in a violent way because you weren't groomed and taught how to do that in a way that can be political. Right? Or that can actually have some tack to it. And so I think that if we kind of look at, and that's one of the things that I tell people all the time as well, when I even hire people, I'll go back to my head of HR and they say, well, this, she only asked for this amount of money. Okay. We'll pay her this. Well, she didn't ask for that. I know, but she's worth this. Right? And then I have a conversation with the person after I hired them and tell them like, this is why you got this. And you need it to actually stand up for yourself. Right? And I don't think it's only women. I think minorities who have been disadvantaged, who feel as if they're being given opportunities, they end up being doing the same thing. But I think we have to start telling people like, you need to be able to stand up for what you're worth, do your research. And actually, it takes confidence. But the confidence also comes with having people around you who actually also know what you're worth and can actually give you a little bit of teeth. And saying, okay, well, this is what the salary is. This is what we're supposed to be getting. And this is what you negotiate to. But, no, I'm glad that you said it to your daughter. We just need to do a little bit more. Thank you for that. Appreciate it. Thanks, Alan. Thanks for joining the conversation this evening. I agree with several points mentioned. Ria, thank you for joining us. Anything you want to ask Octavia? And just real quick, sorry, Ria, sorry to interrupt you. Just real quick, I'm going to move some folks down because I think this platform has a limitation as to how many people I can actually have on stage to ask questions. So if you've already asked your question, I'm just going to move you down. Please don't take offense to that. Feel free to raise your hand if you want to join the conversation again. And then one last quick announcement, we will go for another 25 minutes or so. This is our monthly fireside chat. So if you do have something that you want to ask, feel free to raise your hand and we'll bring you up. Ria, over to you. Awesome. Thank you so much. Octavia, I had the pleasure of meeting you for the first time when I attended my first ITMSF event in Austin last fall. And, you know, there was a lot of things that I took away from the CISO panel that you moderated. And then just listening tonight and hearing your introspection about things that you felt like you needed to do as you were positioning and moving up the leadership ladder, you know, getting a better understanding of the business and how it impacts business outcomes and strategic investments. And here's my question. I'm actually a career shifter. I decided after an incredible career of global crisis management and P&L ownership, and quite frankly, after working and serving as a key in a cyber breach, the first that I ever actually participated in, that I really wanted to shift my career into working with technology and security professionals. And so when you were sharing your perspectives about what you felt you needed to do to try to position for key leadership roles, I'm curious if you've been able to see and any nuggets you might share with those of us who may have started on the business side or another very strong technical side that has intersectionality with cybersecurity. And some thoughts of what we might look like and what success could look like if we were aspiring to be a CISO. Yeah, I would say it depends on what you think success will look like for you. Every CISO role is not the same. And I think we have to realize that. And so as you actually think about, you know, those who are, I find that those who are, you know, not business and not technical minded, they struggle more when moving into a strategic leadership role within security. Because you'll either gravitate more to business or you will gravitate more to security or you will gravitate more to security. And you have to be able to shift to do both. And so I would say probably the best thing that you can do is try to make sure that you learn all of it, like just a little bit of all of it so that you can actually flex your muscle on both ends. right you don't want to have you don't want to not be very not be very technical when you need to be technical or at least have someone who is technical that can actually pick up that pick up that slap or when you know your weaknesses I just hire people who are stronger in me and my weaknesses but success will really look like the success will look different based on what you want it to be so I would just say try out the companies if you're trying to be a CISO don't just be a CISO just for the title but look at the company and look at exactly what you want to do right so I know for instance when before Tomas went to the NFL the that CISO role was more of a technical role and then it kind of went into what it is now my role was my CISO role at Equifax Canada my predecessor he was very much on the technical side okay well I'm just going to check these things and see if you can go through but it kind of evolved into business strategy and how we're actually going to move to business forward after a while so I don't have a really good answer for you when it comes to success for you but you would have to identify what that is and actually go with a company and the strategic plan of that company that fits yeah thank you and pardon me if I was suggesting for myself I was just as you suggested you know having that balance between you know business strategy and then the technical piece which is something that I'm learning now I do appreciate that thank you thank you thanks sorry Octavia thanks Ria thanks for jumping up on stage and asking your question and for those who are listening I do know what a power button is Octavia I know how to turn my computer it works every day so still got some technical capabilities there are you sure I'm positive I mean you're an expert at web development so that's that there you go there you go I like that I like that I got I have my webmaster hat on for a short period of time all right Xavier thanks for joining us this evening we've got about 20 more minutes so folks if you have anything you want to ask feel free to raise your hand I'll bring you up Xavier over to you anything you want to ask Octavia hey Tomas thanks for having me Russell hey Katie thank you guys know from Clubhouse welcome to for the rest of the state as well the same guests Ms. Octavia thank you for your time I think Ria's question was probably a very important segue to my question I was trying to think of this super great question I asked because I'm normally quite terrible at it but I'm a security researcher so I think I have an idea of what success looks like almost every day so to some degree but what advice would you have for someone who's in my position where I'm an engineer on a daily I obviously love my current career but I really obviously have a passion for this cyber thing so I think that's the best super you know duper question I could probably ask at this point what would be your tips for someone in my position to either gain the right experience to try to transition or maybe to just truly find a good way to contribute on the weekends or you know after work possibly yeah I think security researchers have have a lot to offer if I were you honestly I would start contributing more to the industry and actually start actually getting with with leaders with CISOs and other leaders about what their day-to-day is right so you say you want to you know want to do something over the weekend or even you know off hours that can actually give you a lot of insight one into you already do the research into what's going on with the threat landscape but it could also give you a little bit of that what the day-to-day life is what the issues are with CISOs what they're seeing on a daily basis with cyber ops leaders on a daily basis so you can kind of marry that in with those conversations you can kind of blend and be able to identify hey you know that these are the problems and these are the solutions that you can actually put up with that you can either one go into a sales leadership role within a security organization or two you can actually start kind of maybe coming in as a strategy a security strategy advisor and then or maybe a a chief of staff to a CISO to be able to actually get that get that experience and so I would just say kind of figure out how oh you know how you want to go from going up but use your security researcher hat and actually use that to your advantage don't drop it because that's something that we lose as we go up in in our careers is that ability to do a lot of research and ability to continue so we need people like you to kind of help us with those strategies thank you so much for that answer it was actually way more fulfilling than I thought from the question I asked but really appreciate that and I definitely hope to continue the work that I am doing I would love to blast all that but this now is not the time so I hope to see you guys again sometime and for the guys that know in clubhouse can't wait to share my adventures thanks Xavier thanks for contributing to our community and I and adding to the conversation this evening rose over to you anything you want to ask Octavia yes thank you for having me Octavia thank you for you know sharing your experience and your thoughts um you know I think for me some of the biggest struggles that at least I've had and I will say cybersity has started to like break the mold and some of the areas that I've had frustrations but I find that it's very hard to get connected with like women in the CISO role right like everybody says they're willing to help but then you know you'll reach out and things like that and you're not getting much traction and again I think cybersity does a really good job and you know making people like you Tomas and a lot of other people on this board you know easily accessible but I guess the question I have for you is what other forms and resources do you recommend to start building some of these relationships with you know different CISOs especially those that look like you know you and I type of thing or you know what are your thoughts there and what would you recommend? I'm just going to go ahead and say it right so I I connect women black women CISOs together right and that's what my organization Augustus redefined when I actually came up with it in 2019 it was literally for hey we need to actually get these these black women in leadership together and we need to actually build more CISOs right and so there's not really platforms per se but I would say if you connect with me I will make sure that gets you connected to whomever you want to get connected to all of the black female CISOs I would say almost in the in Canada and in the U.S. are friends of mine and so if you want to talk to them just shoot me a message let's connect you it's not that hard thank you it's one of the things I love about this fireside chat like we've we make connections and we continue to make connections Rose thanks for joining the conversation this evening and I was just going to say it's not always easy for us existing CISOs to connect with other CISOs sometimes it's hard actually not sometimes a lot of times it's hard for us to connect with other CISOs you know whether it's on a phone call or anything like that but you know stay at it and stay persistent and obviously use your network which you just did right now so Octavia is going to hook you up oh man hopefully I don't get this from Moyo did I get that right yes you did the moment you took the pause I was like he's trying to call my name I was gonna I was gonna say it with my Spanish accent Moyo but I'm like I don't know if it's like that but anyways thank you for joining us thank you thank you for having me thank you so much Octavia for sharing of your experience with us you've touched on a few other things a few other answers to my question but I'm looking for more of a thread that binds it together I am a program manager walked around software development teams for a few years and I'm trying to be intentional about making a transition to to work more closely with cyber security teams and hopefully progress through the ranks of that you did touch on earlier around being intentional about being confident but not arrogant and you also talked about mediocre mix for me transitioning among other things in terms of okay what do I need to be learning right now one of the challenges I find or the questions I keep asking myself is what does transition look like for me when I think of where I am in my career and what level of compensation I'm willing to expose myself to or to embrace while also balancing that with what does intentional learning look like what does growth look like and wanting to prioritize the growth as opposed to the compensation but also being mindful of not sure changing myself so back to a bit of Alan's point so what would be your advice in really how do you balance the confidence without the harrogance with also not sure changing myself you asked a lot more no it's good it's good if you are going into a role where you feel like you always have to manage yourself around your confidence even when you are competent you're in the wrong role period you you have entered into a lower level than what you are worth and so I I was going through my link about a year ago and someone and I forgot what her name was but it was a video and she said you know the reason why a lot of a lot of specifically black women get very frustrated it's because we end up taking peasant roles instead of taking the role of the queen that we are and so we would end up we would end up taking a role as a peasant and then we arrive as a queen and we expect them to treat us like a queen but when they start treating us like peasants we get upset and we're like no you can't treat me like this well actually you took a role as a peasant so if you take a role as a peasant you have to be willing to be treated like a peasant but the problem is you are a queen and so as a queen can you guys still hear me yes okay so as a queen you have to make sure that you are actually taking a role with the skills and all of the amazing awesomeness that you are that is also commiserant of your skills and your worth and i would just say if you're doing program management now there is a program management role that is similar to what you probably are doing within a security function as well right and so just be careful not to and i always i hate when people say oh i'm shifting or breaking into security and they leave everything that they had before and all of the knowledge and all the goodness that they had before and they try to act like they're coming into something brand new the same the reason that we need more diversity and security is because we also need that talent and that uh that goodness that comes with all of the backgrounds and all of the cultural fits and all of the knowledge that you had in your previous roles right that's what we need and we just need to put the security lens on and i would just say this as you say i'm very see i'm very passionate about this because i hate when it happens you when you step into a room you step into a room and you know that you are confident because you are competent and if you're competent then it's not arrogance it's confidence yes thank you that that definitely did minister to me in ways i can't even put in words but thank you very much i do appreciate that perspective and i also just wanted to say thank you again for the work you're doing with cyber city i am a current cyber city mentor and being part of that really is what is exposing me to more of this network so thank you i appreciate it so thank you thanks moyo thanks for coming up on stage and asking your question and octavia you're getting a lot of easy questions today i don't know what's going on everybody's like softballing you ryan over to you anything you want to ask i'll show you i might have a hard question so i actually have two if anyone remember they usually come with like multiples but it's been a while hi everybody hey octavia i hate to put you on the spot and to master's record i don't think unless he can read mine from over a thousand miles away he has no way of knowing my question but i do apologize if i'm putting you on the spot or this is like a harder than usual question i think i've asked it before when we were back in the clubhouse app but you talk a lot about success and confidence and i'm you know sure that you have learned many things and you can that's how you can mentor and teach i'm curious if at any point in your career right if they're that you you'd want to share that you either felt especially like a very difficult challenge or even could say like whether it was like a fail forward or you felt like you failed and you had to try again kind of how you dealt with that or how you kind of got through that or what that meant to you because you've talked a lot about success and also you've mentioned a lot about handling things with grace which is actually one of my top core values so i really admire that and i would just be curious if you had any specific guidance or kind of like lessons learned from your perspective on that right are you asking me about have i failed and how did i get over yeah if you wouldn't mind sharing that because i think it's one thing to say it's i don't want to say it's easy to say be confident and be successful but with that does come like struggle right especially if you're constantly learning yeah so i i don't think i've ever failed but i have failed i have felt like i have been a failure before but i so i'll talk about that so i talked about how i used to work for freddie mac and i started working for freddie mac in 2008 i mean 2006 sorry in 2006 started working for freddie mac so in 2008 i'm working for freddie mac from 2006 to 2011 2011 in 2008 it was during the height of the housing crisis and it was also an election year and if you can remember george w bush actually called in john mccain and barack obama because he didn't know who was going to win the election and we were heading towards a recession and the housing was the housing crisis was was toppling out and the economy was falling and so he was just like i'm going to bring both of you all on and we're going to have a conversation and we need to put some programs in place to hold up the housing market or we're going to go into a great another depression right and they didn't want a second great depression so all in all i at the time was on the network security team and so we were in charge of you know anytime there was a new program we had to hurry up and stand it up because we had to stand it up for the american people to be able to stay in their houses i don't know if you all remember hasp harp har we had a joke at freddie mac that that every time barack obama breathe we had to create a new program and we had past part and i was 20 something you know as old people say whippersnapper i could do all this i can run 10 miles i could stay up all night and drink red bull and i'm fine and that's really what i thought like i thought i was like the golden child right you know here i am you know it's me and there's other this other guy that was on my team he was a whiz in building firewalls i was a whiz in f5 load balancing we're gonna do this we're gonna we're gonna carry this entire company on our backs so we worked the whole day and then we had to go in and they were like oh do you want someone else to work on the hasp har heart implementations and we were like no we're gonna work on this whole thing right so we you know we went through worked a full day went home took a shower logged back in at eight o'clock worked on configurations taking things out of the pool putting things in the pool out in and just did this whole thing until two o'clock in the morning did the testing have harp is ready to go everybody's clapping oh my god octavia you're amazing i was taking it all in all this arrogance just eating up just feeding all of this right all story short we end up leaving a non-prod server in the production pool that pointed to a non-production database with fictitious fictitious scores that actually pulled incorrect credit scores and we end up boosting the economy for one day well i end up boosting the economy for one day and uh huh did you boost it like into the stock market into the stock market oh wow 100 into the stock market end up boosting the economy one day and freddie mac approved a record number of loans for mortgages and refinances that day which boosted the economy and i remember so i mean i walked back into the office and everybody was like hey octavia you did great last time i was like yeah and then all of a sudden maybe 10 minutes later you saw people running into my director's office and then all of a sudden you saw you heard take it out and yeah i felt like i i was i went to update my resume i was like i have to go home i'm gonna get fired there's nothing like this is the worst thing that could have happened to me and long story short i felt like crap my cto called me in his office and i thought he called me in his office to fire me but he called me in his office and he said do you know what you did and i was like but i had screenshots i showed people everybody was like everybody was there with me i don't understand how this happened and he said i am not gonna fire you but you now are the only person that is allowed to touch the low balancers so every change and everything that happens it goes through you and if it happens again it's on your tail so he gave me grace but then he put me in charge of every implementation that went through on all of the load balancers all of the three dns or gtm at the time and i had to literally manage that entire platform because i made that mistake wow that sounds kind of like a opportunity in a way it was a great opportunity but you asked me how i that was the biggest failure that i've ever had it was i laugh about it now but part of me still kind of hurts in my heart when i think about it well i do appreciate you sharing that i know we're right right at time but i did have another question but it was like a lot i think it'd be a lot easier can i ask you really quick or will i get like booted here i'm gonna take silence it's compliance i was gonna i was gonna say um you couldn't get off mute fast enough yeah i was gonna ask i'm curious i feel like wait hang on hang on right i just want to quickly say octavia did i ever tell you about that house that i bought a few years ago thank you for that go ahead go ahead right and then i do know this might just be my perspective because i've only really worked in the united states and lived in the united states although i've traveled but i'm curious if there has been a major i feel like especially the cyber security community in my eyes is very americanized from you know rsa black hat a lot of what we're doing i feel like it's a lot of it is here and i don't know if i don't want to say i make the assumption but i feel like a lot of people kind of make the assumption that like what we experience and how we do our job must be the same globally have you experienced any major difference in the cyber security community in canada whether with just the cso's there or you know just however you've been involved from america that maybe we don't have insight to that also maybe surprised you or like is there a major difference there i don't think there's a major difference in the way we do our job but i do think there is a major difference in in what we are what canada is exposed to and it would be great if there would be like a rsa or something that's actually based in toronto and opposed to always being in the u.s and like the most expensive place in the u.s but i don't think it's right but yeah but i don't think it's different in the way that we do our job again i think it's the values and also like we very much lean on privacy and some things that are allowed to be done in the u.s we cannot do in canada same with if you go to the uk or australia or anywhere else like there's some things that can be collected some data that can be collected and used for other purposes that you just cannot do in canada so that makes sense yeah i've heard that canadian privacy laws are like i feel like they don't get as much attention as gdpr but that they're at that level they are yeah yeah well i appreciate that insight all right well thanks for the time hope you're doing well thanks ryan thanks for jumping up on stage and asking your question i was just gonna ask octavia do you prefer usd or ea what is this cn cad honestly i would prefer to get paid in usd over canadian dollars but that's just because the canadian dollar now is i think it's at 74 cents to the us dollar right now we kind of need this partial recession thing to kind of flip on its head a little bit all right so look it is the it is towards the end of our segment so we're not going to allow any folks to sort of raise their hand and bring you up on stage just because i want to be very conscious of time we kind of ran over for four minutes but i do want to give the moderators some final moments to reflect or ask our final question before we get to i guess the very last one moderators co-hosts anything you want to say to octavia i just want to say octavia you always inspire me i'm so glad that i got to spend some time with you tonight and i've learned a lot so thank you for everything that you do for the community and for everything that you do for the people that you know and care about can i say the same i mean we've spent so much time together but really hearing your story and getting you know some just deeper insight it was so helpful your statement about never say no because you never know was really interesting to me i mean very similar to you know a lot of the decisions we've talked about with you know a lot of our favorite guests i would say on this program over the last two years have been those who have really leaned into opportunities and so appreciate that you know sentiment as well so thanks again for you know digging back into your story and being on the hot seat with us tonight likewise octavia always a delight it is a fascinating evening i was always hearing your journey both on the professional and the personal side so thank you so much yeah i love thank you as well yeah sorry david i actually love what you said earlier be confident because you're competent it's a good takeaway for me and perhaps for all of us as well so thank you and thanks for being brave enough to take a chance to be back in the hot seat always appreciate the perspectives octavia thanks a lot octavia look i'll leave the i'll leave the closing words for you i'm not going to ask you the reflection question because i know we asked you that before i was going to try to give you a one to reflect on maybe your see so journey a little bit more so be so and now see so and maybe reflect on that but you know i'll leave you to sort of bring us home with any final thoughts that you want to have what that you want to say and share with the audience and obviously from on behalf of myself it's always a pleasure to hear you talk and to hear your journey even though you do make fun of my dad jokes it's all love so i'll leave it to you octavia no i appreciate it i appreciate the opportunity to be here i would just say my final thoughts you know everything that you do in life is an opportunity for you to learn and also to take that story with you and so just in everything that you do with it whether it's in your career or in your life don't forget where you come from and don't forget the lessons that you learned in that place because that's going to take you and that you're never going to know when you're never going to know when you need it but it's going to take you further if you remember and if you also use that as a stepping stone to get to your next heights so always just be you know be grateful for where you come from but take it and just lean into that awesome well thank you everybody for joining us we will be back next month and we will share the date with you all via linkedin so be on the lookout for that and if you again if you missed a good portion of today's segment you can catch it it will be posted on our firesidechat.live website shortly after today's show so have a good evening and have a good rest of your week everybody cheers