Fireside Chat with Katie Hanahan

Welcome back to our monthly fireside chat here on LinkedIn. It's just so amazing to have us back together again. So delighted to be here and tonight. Oh my gosh. I've been looking forward to this moment for days, for hours. Hours all day long. Is it eight o'clock yet? Because tonight our special guest, one of our own Katie Hanahan, we're so excited, so grateful to have her with us. And so much looking forward to get to hear her origin story a little bit more about her and then for folks in the audience, by all means, always have the chance for you to come up and ask your questions as always. Again, this is fireside chat. We're so glad that you're here with us this evening. And again, looking forward to an amazing conversation with Katie Hanahan. With that, let me do, so what are the rules? And if you're a vendor, please don't try to sell us anything. Some of us likely need to speak for ourselves, not for our own companies. And the best part is to sit back, learn, get to know a little bit more about one of our fellow colleagues and moderators, Katie Hanahan. And Love to hear your questions as well. By the first half or so, we'll ask questions for folks who are up on the stage, second half of the second 45 minutes or so we'll go through and allow folks in the audience to raise your hand, raise your digital hand here in LinkedIn audio, and we'd be happy to bring you up on stage so you can ask your questions of our special guest, Katie Hanahan. So we'll go through some introductions as always leave Katie for last. Hey, Russell Eubanks. Privilege to be here. Love being a part of this community so much. I've been running my own security company for quite some time and just love how we get to have this moment to get to learn from others, but most importantly, get to throw it over to Octavia, like to hear from you and then we'll go to Allie. Thank you. Russell, I'm really excited to be here as well. As you all know, I haven't been around for a while. It's been super busy, super crazy. But I'm here cause I have to support. Katie, 100%. I am Octavia Howell. I am the CSO with Equifax Canada. And yes, I am based in Toronto Ontario. I am, as Russell said, my thoughts, my opinions are my own. My jokes are my own too. So I do not think that's anything of Equifax at at all. I also have an organization called Augustus Redefine, which actually elevates. Black women within security leadership. Over to you, Allie. Hey, good evening. This is Allie. I'm the Cybersecurity Awareness Manager for Savvy Cyber Kids, also advisory board member. I, Own my own little marketing agency, and then I'm working with fireside chat. Thank you for having me. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. We're so happy to have all this time, a little bit of introduction. And as we do in our time, we love to get to know our guests. And again, we're so fortunate to have Katie as our special guest. And so Katie, you'd know the routine. We'd like to turn it over to you. Have you introduced yourselves to us for folks who know you or about to get to know you and be a big fan of you to hear about you, how you got into cyber, what you're working on now and things that you'd like to share with us. But Katie, by all means, the floor is all yours. Thank you. And thank you so much for the opportunity to retell this story. Now that we've moved over to LinkedIn audio, we're getting a new audience here, either listening live but also. Listening to our recordings and it was a lot of fun when we all met on clubhouse, I guess three years ago, over three years ago now and developed this community. It was a very different venue though. Very interesting. Way to have met so many people in the industry that I had not really crossed paths with before. It was one of those things, during the pandemic when we were all in our homes and actually had time to reconnect. One of the gifts of that time is this community. So for those of you that are new to us. We, I don't know that we've had a lot of people mention the background, right? So we all met on, an app called Clubhouse, which was really at its height during the pandemic when everyone was in their homes. I was exploring various rooms within, they called them rooms, so basically forums or live, live areas where you could connect with other people. One of those incidentally was a storytelling class on Wednesday nights. And I went to that class religiously. Just because it was just really interesting. It was a lot of people who do public speaking for living. A lot of people who are off the road keynote speakers that are paid a lot of money to go in and provide guidance to corporations with variant back. So I listened to that. There was also a couple of prominent actors who are in that room that would just come in and provide guidance there, they weren't necessarily in their acting communities and able to share their guidance and how to, tell a story, how to inflect, et cetera. So that's how I started in clubhouse. And then I noticed that. that there were these other rooms where there were these people coming together and talking about different aspects of cybersecurity. I stumbled into, a law group. It expanded my network and knowledge of all of the things that relate to the contracts that had frankly, gone over my head a little bit initially. And so this group is very special though, to me, this fireside chat community, because I slowly, on Wednesday nights would leave the storytelling room and then found this room at that time led by Tomas Maldonado and Russell and Octavia and others who are tagged in the post. A lot of people are traveling today. Tomas is at the. The draft today, as you can imagine, it's the NFL draft week. It's pretty busy week for him. But when we were all able to be in, in our homes off the road this group was just so incredible to me. I was just a real, I was there religiously every Wednesday. At that time we did it every Wednesday and able to, listen to the origin stories. And the reason I even mentioned the background of how I found this group in the first place is because I am going to go way back into my origin story, and the reason I'm going to go is. far back as I do is because listening to these stories throughout the last three and a half years of my career have has taken me to a kind of a different place in both my career. And then also personally one of the things that I think is really important for everyone within the cybersecurity community in general is to know that, there are various ways that you can learn Both get into the cybersecurity space, but then also contribute to the community and continue to grow in in a career we have people who are earlier in their careers, mid careers, later in their careers as a part of this community who either show up to listen, every week or every month now or every month or the people that we have, on the program and who tell their stories and what I've gleaned from it is that there is no straight. Path. And I found some confidence in that. I think that for a while I thought I tripped into this industry. Do I even really belong here? Do I really deserve the seat at the table? And this group, particularly, I would raise my hand and ask questions and was embraced. And those questions were, good enough that eventually somebody said, Hey, would you even be interested in moderating with us? And so You know, I guess the biggest thing is, I want to encourage everybody who's listening to this program to remember that there is no straight path. And so as I do that, I'm going to transition into the origin story portion. So for me I did this the first time and I think that everybody was like, wait, why is she going back there? this far, but I promise you, I get to the cyber security part pretty quickly in the story, but I'm going to tell you something. So I went all go all the way back to little 12 year old Katie, who was living in a town of 550 people in Northern Illinois close enough to the Chicago suburbs that you can see literally in my backyard, you could see the lights of, suburbia and the city on one side and then out to Iowa on the other side. And you can see the stars. So very tiny town. It was so small that there wasn't even a stoplight. People say they have a one stop light town. I had a people slowed down and then speed up kind of town and I worked in the diner there and I got a job in that diner for one very specific reason. When I was eight years old, my dad took me to the city and we were in a restaurant and he said, those people probably make more money than I do. I said, why is that? And he said, cause they make tips. And he said, someday you're going to have to put yourself through college. And so you're going to probably have to work in a restaurant. That's probably the best place for you to be able to do that. And I wanted that. I wanted to be able to achieve a level of education that, previously my family had not achieved. I come from a very intelligent family. I remember my grandmother specifically, avid reader didn't necessarily have the opportunities for education that, a lot of people do. the depression, right? So it's, it was just, she always taught me that knowledge is power. And so when I was told at a very young age that there was a way that I could potentially get a higher education, I jumped on it. So when there was a bus kid role at the local diner, which was only one of three places you could work besides the gas station in Big Rock, Illinois, which is where I'm from, not to give too many identifiers of, for passwords, by the way, I never used that as a password, so don't even try. But what the small town was so tiny, what I had to look to in terms of People who had achieved, a high level in a career like this, the one we're in was pretty minimal, but I did know I wanted to achieve that education. One of the things that happened while I was working in that restaurant is, I developed that basic grit and work ethic that I still, I think dig deep into sometimes. And then also the reason I even started so young is I graduated high school When I was 16. So I'm excelling the story here. I worked in the restaurant. But when I was 16 years old, I had an opportunity in meeting a family through family friends so that I could go to the country of Pakistan to serve as a foreign aid worker. So at 17, I, I looked around and I thought, okay, I could stay here and work for a year in this small town where I could Or I could overcome the fear of going to a place that is so far away from a home that you're literally getting closer if you keep going and to, just go ahead and take that risk. I went and did that foreign aid work where I got very interested in the social dynamic and political dynamic of that region. And so that led me to majoring in military history in college. So as I was putting myself through school in military history, thinking that my plan for my life was definitely gonna be mapped out. I thought, Okay, I'm gonna become, I'm gonna go to grad school. I'm gonna get into the diplomatic corps. I have, this whole thing planned out. Which is the cautionary tale, because I think that's always, funny. When you plan things out, usually that doesn't always, it doesn't always materialize. But what happened was, of course, after putting myself through college, I wanted to, spend a little time making some more money to be able to go go to grad school. And so I wanted to, be a little bit less depleted with my resources. So I got a job. I tried everything. I thought I was very good in the restaurant industry. We obviously worked in a restaurant in the city of Chicago where I went to college. And I always did well in the sales. So it was a crab restaurant, the crab seafood restaurant. So they'd say Hey, if you sell whoever sells the most, sides of, crab legs or something add on, you'll get a 50 gift card or 100 gift card. I was a starving college student, so I wanted to win. I absolutely was going to do that. And so I always noticed that not only did I win those things, I. Won them by a lot. Like everyone else was just on autopilot and they didn't need that a hundred dollars, as much as I did or wanted it, but I realized I'm actually pretty good at sales. So I applied to every sales job I could possibly get with my military history degree, which is not very specialized when it comes to sales. I tried to work for an electric company a plumbing supply company, I even tried to. to sell tractors for a living, but nobody wanted to hire me. So what happened was I ended up being hired by a technology company who was looking to expand their department of defense team and they thought this is interesting. She wants to be in sales. She has a, a good enough a good enough demeanor. And that we can put her in front of clients. And they thought that, okay she knows a few words in, in Persian. And I learned a little, Dari when I was overseas in, in 2004, that was appealing because a lot of the forward operating folks that we were working with in with, within the army and the DOD that I was working with were, on the ground in Afghanistan. It was just an accident that I ended up in it sales. But then, again, working with the department of defense. So that is why I get to say that I've been in cybersecurity for 20 years. I actually just crossed that milestone. It's saying two decades, used to sound like such a long time when I started out in this career. But when I started, I, I really, again, I tripped into it because once I started really understanding what it was that we were deploying what we were designing, implementing and, working on in our integration center. In Vernon Hills, Illinois and shipping off was that, okay, there's a level here that people are talking about the security component to everything that we're supplying to the federal government and to the D O D. And I am one of those people who just has come up more organically within the industry. I, accidentally, I had to learn how to work with government contracting agencies. I kind of joke sometimes that I learned a lot about what, how things had to be secured. I stumbled upon some very large satellite communication and video telecom. It's my gateway into what really intrigued me about cyber, the cyber security community. And So I stumbled upon some of those contracts on FedBizOpps, which is the same website that if you ever watched the movie War Dogs and they sold all of those bullets and everything and they had to go out to Rock Island Arsenal in Illinois. That was I've stumbled across some of those contracts and then having, figuring out what who actually, how do you actually work with the federal government on some of these larger contracts? What's the process? What does it mean when they say that something has to be, I'm just thinking of old I don't want to date myself too much and talk about some of the certification levels we had to have at that time for something to be a secure enough solution to deploy that was intriguing to me and I just kept leaning in. And I was very thankful to have a ton of mentors in that period of my life that were really helpful. And then even within the, IT organization, which was a very large organization, which did very little in terms of contribution margin at the time to the company was a fortune 500 tech company. But the contribution margin from the. The federal government team was actually very small because they hadn't quite even mapped out how the federal government, in my case, what I discovered is that the army spends money in a very different way than we had aligned the resources at our company to support those organizations strategic programs within the military. And it's another aspect of. In this, in the cyber security industry, we all have to be a little bit entrepreneurial. Sometimes that's because we're engaging with emerging technology, figuring out whether or not that does or does not fit with our organization. But then even within our own fortune 500 companies, so say it's a deputy C. So for a, a 10 billion company, there's still this, there's still opportunities to be entrepreneurial from a cyber security perspective within these large organizations and drive change. So I think we'll elaborate as we probably have some questions around this later, but I think it's just again, as we look at origin stories and who is and who is not staying in this industry, it's where, I think people have the space and the latitude to leverage their acumen. And in my case, it was. I naturally like to know how things work. I like to help. I like to, I liked at that point, particularly to know that I was supporting, the war fighter, it doesn't, it's not a political statement. It's just a fact that people's lives were at stake at that point. On some level that mattered to me when I woke up in the morning and I did. This role. But then, the people who allowed me to be able to drive change within a very, .... I rejoined. You can hear me? Yep. Okay. Sorry about that. I don't know where I left off. I was talking about the entrepreneurial opportunities that I had within a fortune 500 company. And I was hoping we would align that to later conversations of how, is that where I left off? I had in my notes that you'd like to help and especially supporting the warfighter. Yep. And so that's where I was going with that is that that the natural attributes that you have. And then I was also talking about, even just the fearlessness on the opportunity to have being an entrepreneur within a large organization. Also that required, me to have allies within a large organization. And so I think I see a lot of ties to that early exposure to realizing that it's possible to drive change within a large organization with great ideas. And with an organized approach, but you also, need to always be cultivating those allies. So that's where I was going with how I ended up in this industry, how I tripped into it and why I stayed is because I felt. love with it. And and, being a part of the cybersecurity community that we're in is something that I never dreamed for myself when I was a 12 year old girl working in the big rock cafe, busing tables and thinking maybe someday I can go to college and maybe I can be, I just thought the best maybe a teacher or something, which is a great profession, but I didn't even in a million years think I would be, working in large organizations, global organizations be a thought leader. Sometimes I still giggle. And I think even my own sons are like, this is crazy that, our mom has, dug so deeply into an industry over two decades that, now she's people actually want to listen to her for a few minutes, like we're doing now. So I guess that's where I'm going to leave it off. I've, throughout the rest of my career, we can touch on some of the other things, most recently as the deputy see Sue at a food manufacturing company, really getting digging into the O. T. Space. I've spent a lot of time and, various, capacities in large enterprises. As a consultant, I've spent some time as a virtual see. Serving as a see. So for companies between 50 and 750 million in revenue. So I've spent a lot of time and in, in different areas, email security and passwords and I am, and even, it might transition into the space out of the federal government work was with a company called NetScout, which everybody doesn't, might not know NetScout, but they know sniffers. Everyone has heard that term. If you spend any time, if you're old, as old as I am, you do, you know what a sniffer is. But just really getting to, understand, at the packet level, what, forensic investigations. In, in working with that company. So I spent a lot of time in a lot of different areas. And now I'm in a really, unique position, having spent time, working in consulting and sales roles, but then also as a practitioner I'm really enjoying, this period of my career. And the community that, the communities that I'm a part of, where we can, I can be a mentor at this point, in that in between where I'm both a mentee. I just actually just finished the Team 8 Evolving CISO mentee program. And that was amazing, right? And I'm so thankful that I'm in this space where I get to be a little bit of both. Hoping you can still hear me. Yes, we sure can. Excellent. Yeah, so that's been amazing, Katie to Connect some dots for us and you sharing some other things, we've heard before maybe some new things You shared about your journey. It should have been just nothing short of incredible. I know I can think of a hundred questions. You've trained us well. But first let's go over to Al. Oh, and look, there's Lisa Beth Lentini Walker. How awesome. Lisa Beth, it's so amazing to have you with us. We were, Katie just finished sharing her introductory things and we were going to go over to Allie right now. Allie why don't you take it away? Then we'll go to Octavia, then Lisa Beth. All right. Thank you. Katie, that was an amazing background story. I love that. I do have a question. What's your best advice for someone transitioning to cyber security or tech from a career field like sales or marketing? Given your background in sales? Yeah, that's a great question. And I get that a lot. So my journey was a little bit different. There, there is a way that you can there's a lot of certification programs that are excellent ways to get foundational, foundation and a a knowledge base to, to jump off from that just weren't really available to me during my journey. My journey was I relied a lot on my, so when I was very early in my career, right? So when I was working with the vendor community they were very happy to spend time with me and help me understand how, In their case, it would be their solution. And cause they wanted me to sell it to somebody. But it was a way for me to become much more technical, spending time with their R and D team, their research and development teams, their CTOs, if they've given me the time and often, especially with smaller companies, they would do that. And I've noticed throughout my career people are very much. Very much invested in ensuring that the person that is bringing their product to market is, highly, highly technical and really understands how it fits into the broader ecosystem of the cyber security space. So that's that's one way that I was able to do it organically without having to the significant amount of money that goes into, getting a master's degree in cybersecurity. Although I recommend that if someone has the bandwidth and ability to do that, I think that's a great way to do, transition and add the skillset. Mine was just a more organic journey. It was also, working in consulting capacity when I said like the virtual CISO work, actually getting my hands dirty working, reporting to CTO who had background and experience that was able to, mentor me in that way. Russell teaches at Sands Institute, another great opportunity, I'm actually working on my working on my CRISC just to get a little bit broader on kind of the risk conversation, as well. So that's a certification that, that I'm working on. But there's just there's so many ways that you can do it without necessarily having to go back and get a full, degree. I know some people are, have asked me, do I need to go back and get, should I, my, my undergrad, I, should I get, should I switch my major, my, my junior year? Not necessarily, I think there are still lots of ways that you can Get into the space. And then the other thing is you can be a part of the cyber security community and be a technical trainer. For example, I was at RSA. I don't know if it was. I think it was 2020. I think it was the last one before lockdown. And I met a woman who was transitioning out of being a teacher. And she, RSA. And I stayed in touch and then I slowly, she had, she was a recruiter at that point, but she really wanted to get more hands on. So she ended up being a technical trainer and she went and worked for a cybersecurity company that where she's now, training the new salespeople as they come into the organization. So there's just so many ways that someone can have a profession within the space without necessarily being a CISO or a threat to I, I think I saw Tom Ryan was in here earlier, right? You don't necessarily have to have a whole Wikipedia. Oh, hi, Tom. I see you. You don't have to have a whole Wikipedia page dedicated to you because you're an awesome hacker and, and social engineer. You can be someone like me and still have a place and a seat at the table and have cool people Like Tom and Nika and others that joined the room today. Does that answer your question, Ali? Yes. Thank you. Couldn't find the unmute button. Thank you. Yes. Yeah. So you said something and I think because you know me well enough, Katie, as soon as you said it, you probably already know what I'm going to actually pull at. You said people can be like me and still be here. I, question that sentiment and the reason I question it is because you are an amazing person. And has an amazing story. And I think one of the things that that really draws me to you is your humility, but at the same time, I need you to puff your puff up your chest a little bit more than what you've been doing. And it goes into my question for you, right? You said you followed your passion and I know for so long especially, you say you've been in this industry for 20 years. I've been in for 17 years. I, we've dealt with this whole, you're not good enough or, women shouldn't be here. Maybe I shouldn't be here and it's interesting because anyone who I know that is in cyber and followed their passion. And fell into the cyber has literally done more things than those who have have tried to get in fresh. So I would just ask you. What is it that we need to do to have our mind shift to where we really understand our worth and be able to. To stand on the. Amazingness that we are not just women, but also, guys who feel like they're not good enough either. What do you think we need or the community needs to give back to feed into Man, that is such an amazing, first of all, statement and thank you, Octavia, for that statement and that reminder and the reminder again, that the mentorship is so important and having people in your life that will call you out and say Hey, puff your chest up, you got this and thank you. And I appreciate that. And I will work on it. But that's, that is something to your point. I I do struggle with, and I'll tell you a couple of reasons. Why to answer your question. So there's something I read recently and I've actually incorporated it into a couple of the the briefings that I've been doing. I think you and I are going to be at one together where I'll be speaking in a couple of weeks. But the the idea is interesting to me because I've really tried to figure it out myself because I look in the mirror and I think, some days I think, wow, look at all I've accomplished. I can't believe that, I, the day I had today, I can't believe that I was able to accomplish all of these things for this organization. I can't believe that, it's like, congratulations, Katie. And I can, I feel really good about myself and I feel like I am a unicorn that can contribute something that only I can contribute, but what I can also tell you is that there are the days where I still think that there is I think there's still some unconscious bias. And then that happens within any community where people don't look and act like us. And I've received been on the receiving end of it. So I think again, as an organ, as a cyber security community, one of the things that I speak to is women like me who are I wouldn't say, I hate to say mid career, I'm two decades into this now. thing. What I think a lot of people don't appreciate is that my resume doesn't necessarily reflect something that an algorithm will identify as the top candidate. They're looking for people have identified. We want more women on boards. We want more women or more diverse background people in general, in leadership positions and organizations globally. The problem is that we've also shifted to not having maybe as close of a relationship with our H. R. We're leveraging A. I. In a way that the resumes of people who didn't have the same opportunities 20 and 10 years ago that they have now, there's a lot of data to support that, particularly around women. That I have, but it's just, we look at, the funnel that we have for women in cybersecurity, we're at like 32 percent between ages 20 to 29. Then we go down to 21 percent in 30 to 39. And then it's at 12 percent between 40. So why is that? I, that's a question that I still am asking myself, but I also am encouraging people to look a little bit deeper into their own organizations and figure out how close is the relationship that they have with their HR department to be able to write a job description that allows for transferable skills that a person with a more diverse background, someone like me to, to be able to actually even be seen or Be interviewed by someone. And that's the challenge that I've had. And so I, I see that I feel it. I just, that's, I, and I appreciate that that you reminded me of how confident I should be. But I have to say that when, my. My resume and background are not necessarily celebrated when I'm in an interview process. It's a little bit discouraging, and I tend to be a little bit more self deprecating during that time, and I know that it doesn't have to. It doesn't have anything to do with my ability to do a job or to be exceptional in a position. There's only so many times that someone can get kicked down. And I wonder if, there are a lot of, there's a lot of data around why women are leaving, after they are, have achieved 20 years in the industry, but that, that, that's something that I think that if people were paying a little bit more attention to people with diverse backgrounds and were more inclusive and inviting them into an interview process, that we would have a much more positive impact. Diverse executive level within the cyber security space right now, and people feeling much more confident and again, thank you for that Octavia. You are very kind to me and I appreciate it anytime. I'm very real, not necessarily kind. I'm going to pass it over to Lisa Beth because I'm really I'm going to come back to you on something else. But, and actually sometimes being the best. This is true friendship though, right? This is true friendship. And colleagueship though, is that on this stage when we, this gets to be reheard I appreciate that you're telling the truth and that's all. That's what a good mentor and a good colleague does, and that's how we take women to the next level is. Is that truth and honesty. So thank you again. I just wanted to reiterate that. Hi, Lisa Beth. Hello. Hello, Katie. It's always good to be in this with you. And I have to say, Octavia, you are holding up a mirror. So that Katie can see herself and you are trying to get her to see what and I'm going to do the same thing too. But I'm thrilled to be here. My name is Lisa Beth Lentini Walker. I am the deputy general counsel at Marketo, which is a FinTech based out of the Bay area. And I also run a compliance ethics and corporate governance consulting firm called Lumen Worldwide Endeavors. I am. Honored to be sharing the hosting opportunity here with such an illustrious crew and also to be spending time with you, Katie. I am always in awe of how you continue to give to others at all stages and phases of your career. And the question that I have for you is, how do you prioritize all those things that you have in your life? So that you do have the capacity to continue to be present with others and give back to the community in the ways that you do. I thought you might come with a question like that, because frankly, you are one of the most balanced and a mentor to me about this specific thing. I don't do very well, Lisa Beth. That's a fact. I tend to spend a little bit too much time pouring myself into into other people and into even just, side note, I have children, I have, friends, family, I'm constantly putting myself first. And I was actually at a a meetup earlier with some of my friends from Armis who live, And we were just chatting and talking. And I said, Hey, and thinking about making, I bet a question might come up about, balance and they laugh because, frankly, I'm not great at it. I constantly put people ahead of myself and this group of people are, friends that we've been, we've been friends for a while, so they know that I absolutely don't put myself in my priorities. For my own mental health, frankly, first taking it's something simple, right? Taking a walk spending time with, my loved ones. Making sure that I, take the time to create an organized space for myself. So I'm not just living in a state of chaos, something like that, where I, I think that those things are so important. But in terms of being able to give back to the broader community, though Yes, I do spend a lot of time doing that. But at the end of the day, that actually does feed me. That gives me something that makes me feel good. So it's not altruistic. It's not that I need to pat myself on the back necessarily. It's just very much a I appreciate the opportunity to do that every time. There's. There's just so many things that, I should be doing. And so I just need to fall on the sword, frankly, and just keep the accountability, having friends in your life who will actually tell you Hey, you need to take a break. You need to take a breather. This is, this phone call does not need to happen right now. You can do it another time. Take a minute and do something that actually is, going to help you to be the person who can put the mask on The oxygen mask on your colleague, friend, mentee, child, et cetera. I love that you talked about the putting your own oxygen mask on first. It's one of the hardest things to do. It's right up there with taking the prescription of rest because rest is so hard as well, but Katie, you do an excellent job. Of giving to the community, and I am continuing to hope that you give to yourself in equal measure. Let me do a quick room reset. We are with the fireside chat with Katie Hanahan this week. We meet up every month to talk about interesting things that are happening in the information security space. space and to meet, talk with interesting people who work in that space or in adjacent spaces. And I see that Vijay joined us. So I'm going to turn it over quickly to Russell, and then he will help introduce the next round of questions. Awesome. Thanks, Lisa Beth. Vijay, great to have you. I'll come over to you next for a question. Katie. I tell you, it's just been amazing. I've been like writing, taking notes, listening to things and wow, this is just, so far it's been so rich a discussion the last 42 minutes or so, you have such a, it was such an easy vote to vote you in to become a moderator back whenever that happened, it's just a natural transition. You had an amazing voice, how you sound and not only how you sound, but what you have to say. I'd say you, you definitely belong here. We're better for having you here. And I remember personally, each time I've met you in real life twice at RSA and in Chicago about a year ago. And it's just a great memories of who you are and how you do the things that you do. I would be failing you if I didn't say say that but my question is this, you mentioned earlier when you're given your background, you said that you require, it required you to have allies to be successful. What did you do specifically to assemble and also I imagine you had to be an ally for other colleagues that you worked with. You tell us a little bit more about what that looked like. I will. And actually the first I'm going to give you one that's a little bit funny. So when I was in the global organization, when I was learning that this needed to happen, to be able to be successful. We had a large integration center. We also had a really strict policy in bringing in new supply partners. So as an integrator who had contracts with the federal government in my case, specifically the army and DoD. We had to, they were contracts that had to be full. You had to compete on the full list of bill of materials and services, or you couldn't bid at all. So we would have to get. Vendors that didn't exist within the ecosystem at the large company that I was working with, we had to bring them in. And normally that process was about a year. That, contract would definitely not be viable within a year and they were multimillion dollar contracts that would be really good for our company. So I made friends with the people in procurement. I heard they were looking for a lead singer in their band, and I decided that if it would help me be able to get my. Suppliers to the front of that list. Yes, I would sing in their band and I sung songs that I've never sung before. I'm not a big metal fan, but if you can imagine a person who is a folk rock singer, songwriter type person singing, breaking the law, like that was what I was doing on behalf of my, mission and my company to be it's ridiculous. I just, so I made friends with the folks in procurement and I did So by dedicating my, my voice to metal music. I didn't dress appropriately. If you really look it up, you can find a picture of me, I think in a turtleneck. I did not look like a rock star and I brought my, then three year old son on a Saturday to practice in the basement and he'd wear little headphones while mommy practiced with the did a rehearsal with the guys from my band from procurement. So that's the funny side, I guess there, but it's, you have to be creative sometimes. And I needed to get those suppliers. They were sometimes it was just maybe, in that case, it was bringing in the hardened cases, like the actual, like hard cases that go around. And there was also a UPS system that needed to, that didn't have a fan. So in Iraq and Afghanistan and the more desert areas where there was more sand, we needed to bring in that UPS to go in the seven U Kit that we were sending out. One time it was an identity printer, like a printer that's printed out ID cards in a certain way that we did. So I actually won the contract for, if you guys remember the green zone the actual ID cards that were issued due to people, civilians within Baghdad who could enter the green zone I was able to do that because I had that relationship with procurement where they would actually bring in these very peripheral vendors and bypass some of the traditional requirements for us to be able to do that, but because I made the business case as well, obviously. So then that where it leads to, the other mentors that I had, I think when I got kicked out of the room earlier based, not kicked out, sorry, when I dropped earlier from the call I was talking about a mentor I had. I happened, this one was on accident the business development person that the company had brought in to work with our DOD, a retired Brigadier General. He and I happened to have lived in the same part of Islamabad, Pakistan nearly the same time. It was when he was active duty. I was not and it was just, being able to relate on that level him really, feeling okay, she understands the warfighter and there's a. There's a term within the military that they, people would, especially at the time I was in my twenties, and they just didn't understand. I would enter, go into a meeting with a colonel or, captain somewhere and they just thought it was funny that I've had boots on the ground or, the term is boots on the ground where they had not, so being able, he thought that was interesting. And then he found that to be impactful enough for him who had the ear of the CEO to help bend some of the rules that we had around Bringing in those third party components into our organization, but then also leveraging what had been a traditionally an integration center that was only working with global and global 2000 and fortune 500 companies and actually being able to, dedicate a part of that integration center to DOD specific people. Business. He helped me understand contribution. Like I think I told you the contribution margin piece, some of the economics and the pieces of the fundamentals of what it takes to run a business. During that, I didn't, a military history degree does not give you that economics background. I took one economics class. Class in my, all of my four years of college. So helping me understand how to qualify what that value was to the organization and be able to, have his assistance in having CIO and executive leadership agreeing that it was a good idea to be able to. To do that, right? So that was just a matter of, both a personal connection an alignment on what the mission is, what the outcome is that we were both trying to achieve, which is in that case was supporting the war fighter and a business that's supporting whatever that global mission is. And. Global business objective is for your company. And then, in, throughout the rest of my career it's been the same. It's finding common common interest. Having somebody, take the time to spend with you is a gift. And, I think that it does have to go both ways. And I joked about it earlier, but being mid career, I'm both a mentor and a mentee. And I am definitely. Sometimes mentored by my mentees as much as I'm mentoring them as well. So I think in finding those allies, it's just, again, continually having that, collective objective that we're trying to achieve. Generally speaking, if we're, coming at this with trying to do the right thing for our company or our client, then we'll, I won't say accidentally, but I think we will have the right conversations at the right time at the right place to be able to drive impact and change within an organization and on behalf of our clients. I love that. And I'll never be able to hear breaking the law again in the same way. And yes, I'm going to practice my Google skills. If we can see what that looks like, but Hey, I love that. VJ, let's go over to you before we open it up to others in the audience. Thank you, Russell. Katie, always a pleasure to have you. And Great to see you on the hot seat tonight. So we, in the cybersecurity space, see a lot of parallels or correlation between, let's say, the cybersecurity landscape and the geopolitical landscape, right? So in your views, do you see, extending that train of thought, do you see correlation between the cybersecurity landscape and other areas, let's say, environmental or social or economical landscapes. I do. And that's such a great question. One of the first things that comes to mind is in, cyber insurance. And now that so many cyber insurance policies include a caveat that if it's a nation state attack, that it's not covered in your cyber insurance, and that's something that, you know, in our CSO circles, when we talk about those types of things. It's well, how is that defined? So say something is, something, it's a, it starts out as a nation state attack, but then it's sold and it's sold and it's sold and then it's ransomware as a service. And then now it's just a malicious actor in Russia, or it's a malicious actor in a country that may have, it may have been the origin of the malicious a ransomware as a service attack, but now it becomes a line of delineation and a legal conversation that, is the onus now is on the company that is seeking the insurance payout. For a while, people were able to leverage their cyber insurance, be able to pay ransomware and now, pay ransom for ransomware. for ransomware, but now you can't necessarily do that and prove that something was or was not a nation state attack. It becomes really murky. So that's the first thing. And I think that's the other aspect of that is that we're seeing, infrastructure in in the United States that's aging. I think that it's something that we're I'm not in that space. Personally, I'm not in, I don't work in energy or work for a government agency, but I think it's something that, I think about on a regular basis. I think about how much, our economy relies on on things like our electricity and our grid to work. Yeah, I think that as CISOs of large organizations, particularly when I was at a supply chain to the supply chain, for a while, it was it was something I definitely absolutely kept me up at night is to think if we don't have power and we're taking 26 ingredients out of a piece of corn and then we're shipping that, those 26 ingredients is some of the largest, food manufacturers globally. What does that. What does that mean for us? So I think there's, yeah, absolutely that, that connection and something that we all need to be, thinking about what those backup and recovery plans look like for organizations. And then also again, I started out with the legal piece from the insurance side is something that I think we can, we have a little bit more power, on the front end to be able to tackle, as organizations and work with our legal teams to ensure that the wording is beneficial for everybody. Love it. Thank you, Gideon. Always dropping gems. Russell, over to you. Got it. Thanks so much, Vijay. I love that question and then the response there as well. Hey, folks in the audience now, it's that time where I'd love to have you go and raise your digital hand. We'd love to invite you up on stage to ask your question of Katie, love to keep her in the hot seat, but then, questions that you have things that you want to comment on based on what you've heard so far again, by all means, love to have you to join us here up on stage while we're waiting for that. I've got another question and then we'll also ask folks on stage to also ask other questions here. Katie, I want to go back in your story when you were talking about your origin story. You said, I took a risk, went on the other side of the world and clearly you talked about, the impact that's had on you. Even to this day, 20 plus years in the cyber security industry. What does it look like as far as the, the impact that had and how that serves you today? Is there things that you did or maybe challenges you overcame that causes you to be the person, the leader, the that you are today, anything anything there that still serves you today? Russell the answer is it's everything. That moment in my life was the. was the turning point. It's the sliding doors moment. It was the thing that changed everything for me. First it, it made the world much larger to me. I started to, understand, that's where I started to really understand geopolitical conflict. What is that? What does that mean? What a ref, what are the challenges from refugee populations? I was in Pakistan in 1997 and I, October of 1996 I left on New Year's day on 1997. So I remember that was how I celebrated New Year's. But in October of 1996, the Taliban had taken over Southern Afghanistan. There was a tremendous influx of refugees in Northern Pakistan and even in Islamabad where I was. But there were highly educated women who were coming in for help with what I was doing is working with helping people fill out forms to, maybe enable them to get sponsorship and leave, Pakistan for other areas in Europe. Canada and the US. But one of the things that really, I don't want to be too graphic, but there was, a very educated woman, her toes had been cut off because she had painted her toes, her toenails. And she had an engineering degree from, a major university. And It was one of those things where it just, it struck me that I always thought that nothing bad could ever happen to an educated, an educated woman. I know, I don't know that it's so strange to say, but I just, I came from this just very sheltered, little background. And experiencing women who had, amazing jobs and professions. me being a teenager, giving them something that's even at all valuable to them, which is just helping them fill out some forms in English and help them do that. And, and understanding that they have, an education that has been stripped from them. They're right. They're right to practice the job that they have been trained to do had been taken from them. There, there are other examples where somebody, was a musician and had to flee because they were playing music at a wedding and, were there, then there were, they were sentenced to death because they had played music and music had been banned. So when I came back to the U. S. after my, time living there, it was, very much. There was nothing that would stand in my way when I thought goodness, I, I don't have a way to, I don't have a path to college. I don't know what I'm going to do, but I'm going to do it no matter what. There was actually even two days when I was, I wouldn't say, I wouldn't say, Homeless. I had a car, so I, but the choice was I had a very difficult choice to make. My parents had moved up to Northern Wisconsin. There was no way I could make any money up there to continue my journey, to try to go to college. I had a job here in Chicago. And I, my roommate had decided that she didn't, she just was like, Oh I just want to live alone. This, she was just, didn't understand that she was Making me homeless, but I lived in my car for a couple of nights and I just I asked for the late shift so that would get you to one 30 and then I'd go to the pub with everybody after work. And there's in Chicago bars are open till four. So I really only had to sleep in my car in the dark between four and, six 30 in the morning or something. It was two nights, but I had a choice at that point. I could have gone in and stayed with my parents in northern Wisconsin, but that choice at that moment would have changed everything because I wouldn't have, I wouldn't, I knew that I wouldn't have gone back to college and the thought of me having a chance to do that here in this country and the opportunity to do that here in this country and me not doing it felt like I was failing the women that I had. Spent so much time and had gotten so close to in that period of time in Pakistan. That's just one answer, but there's probably a lot of other answers. But just even that, it kept me moving. It taught me a different level of grit and determination that just came from a different place. Actually, I'm gonna add one other thing to this. The other thing that was a gift about that period of time, and I just wanna confirm, you guys can still hear me correct. Yes. The other thing that was interesting. It was like the last minute on earth that you could actually be isolated. Cause I didn't have a laptop of my own. Some people did. So I didn't have access to any internet, any email. I spoke to my parents one time over a seven month period. I didn't have access to there was no television, nothing. So I was in environment where I didn't know the language, but I learned a lot about how to communicate without language. So it's funny, we're on an audio podcast and I'm, using a lot of words today, but I think that's something that I absolutely carry with me because I remember by the time I left, I was absolutely able to go anywhere by myself. I spoke enough of the language that I could get by, but there was just so much that was done non verbally, body language, understanding, even like dangerous situations based just on, on body language. And I think part of that is because I was just very much immersed in, and again, I think it was just the gift that I was given is that it was the last possible moment on the planet that you could actually completely immerse yourself in another culture and, understand what is our basic humanness outside of our culture. I have to admit I'm just processing and trying to just comprehend the richness and depth of what you shared there clearly an impact. That you had, not only are you going there and serving the folks there, but to this day, retelling stories and talking about the impact is just again, I've struggled to have words to respond to that. Yossi, I see you're up on stage. Love to have you unmute yourself and ask your question of Katie. Yossi. Thank you. Hi, Katie. Yossi here. So I love also how you articulate, you have, taken the story. And being able to lay it out. In the continuous, story and being able to articulate it. And my question for you is, you spoke about, career being a board member at ISSA and ISACA in South Florida. I'm often asked, or I'm involved in conversations with people thinking about their career and wondering The question come up, came up recently and it's been coming up over and over again. What's the better way to progress in your career? Is it work experience or is it education like degrees, certifications, and what I'll be intending To think about is that it really depends on your specific case, right? So in your case, Katie, you've had an organic growth, maybe a little bit of right place, right time. And everybody has their unique story and some may benefit more from certifications and educations. And some have more of a ability to get that work experience. And it gets quite complicated because for example, with AI, Right now being implemented by recruiting firms, making decisions on how to push Resumes forward or filter them out the ability to interact you know on a personal basis with connecting with the right people and Getting in front of the right hiring managers is important. So There's unique aspects to it. Given all your experience and your whole story if you were to think from a different perspective, not yours and your background, what would you say to in general, or would you Have something to say about a specific approach or a specific circumstance. Yeah. If I just want to make sure I understand the question. So are you saying somebody coming into the industry who's transitioning out of another industry, or are you saying somebody who is entering college just going to answer it specifically? So it's, let's say let's look at with somebody who's been in the industry for a while, but is make is looking to To level up. See, that's, see, this is the one I was it's a tough one, a little bit because the leveling up it's sometimes difficult when you don't have as a traditional background. However this is where grit and determination, and this is where the, guidance that I received, from both from the whole panel, frankly, but particularly Octavia earlier of the confidence in the You know what you have already done and accomplished and then take a hard look at you know what it is that you're going to be doing next and then have the confidence in what you've already done and be able to articulate what you have already done. Seeking it. So for me, I do, I had a lot of years being a salesperson, a cyber security salesperson or working as a consultant. That's something that I don't necessarily need a certification. Somebody who, either does have certifications or somebody who's looking to level up just always needs to spend the time to understand what the business impact of whatever it is that they're doing in the So if someone's really looking to level up, no matter what, even in middle management within any organization, you as a cyber security professional will have to understand the broader goal of the organization from a business perspective and be able to articulate what the impact is. to the business on any type of cyber security project, process, technology people services that you would be bringing into the organization. So I think that's a skill set that somebody can can develop, either on their own or they do have, training that teaches people, how to better articulate the business impact. But I think for anybody right now, if that's a piece that you're missing, it's one of the places that I would. start even, outside of having the fundamentals of understanding what, cyber security program looks like and understanding, frameworks, understanding the NIST framework, MITRE ATT& CK framework, all that kind of stuff, all important stuff, obviously. But if you're wanting to level up and you already have that foundational knowledge, I think it's a really important thing to just spend time learning how to tell a better story about what the business impact is of what you're working on within an organization. Thanks for that, Ed. I really enjoyed getting your reply as someone who's moved from the vendor side into the, practitioner side. So thank you. Thank you. Hi Jeffrey. Hi Katie. Good to see you as usual, . Yes. Thank you for sharing your story tonight. It's really fascinating to hear to most the travels of Katie. So I have a kind of a two part question. One is, have you ever considered writing a book? And if so, what do you think at this moment in time would be the title of the book? Oh, Jeffrey. Yes, I have considered writing a book and, title pending. But yes, I'm actually, I'm writing a book and actually it's a little bit outside of the cybersecurity space. There's actually I'll tell you a little bit on a high level what it is about. It's I actually, I'm a domestic violence survivor, and I think that for a lot of women in our industry and women in general who are at the executive level, there aren't a lot of voices that talk about what that looks like for an executive woman. There's also a lot of, I always joke about being the oldest millennial, there, there is so it's, there's a lot of millennial women coming behind me that I believe need a book when I was exiting an abusive marriage to a point where I actually had to have a, a restraining order and I'm sorry, I should have done a trigger warning for anybody, we probably have to put one on our on the front of this, but the so I'm sorry if that was triggering to anybody, but I want to be cognizant of that. But when I was leaving an abusive marriage, having to get an order of protection, things like that that was something that I didn't have a lot of resources or people or women that I could trust. Saw going through similar situations that I could look to. And so the book that I'm writing is very much it's a little clinical in the way of, how you can do better to protect yourself, your assets, your children your mental health what, what that might look like. Cause nobody believed, I just wouldn't have believed it about myself, frankly, Jeffrey. So I think that it's important for me to write that book, finish that book. And be that voice and least I want to be open about that because I think that a lot of women are continuing to carry shame and believe that they can't be how can I possibly be at this level of my career? How can I possibly, have a broken wrist and shake the hand of Colin Powell within a 24 hour period? How is that possible? Yes, I am writing a book. That's more what it's about. It's more about what it's like to be at the executive level and dealing with something like that and how to most proactively move forward and, and be able to be, continue to be at the top of your game, both personally and professionally. Wow, just inspiring and powerful. So I, I have, young ladies of my own from daughter's perspective and Can't wait for the book to come out and hopefully one day get a signed copy from you. Thank you. Thank you, Jeffrey, and I'll let you know when I have a couple of working titles. I'll see if you can help me. Perfect. Thank you. Yet again, it's not often that I'm speechless, but With what you shared there, what you're brave enough to share there with us, Katie is just just amazing and appreciate the question there, Jeffrey, that led to that Tomas so glad that you're able to join us. No, you're busy doing very cool things and always great to see you got to acknowledge you here and having just an amazing. Repeat conversation with Katie recording it and make it available on our website soon. And just really intrigued with the questions, the responses, and how just the impact of Katie has had on all of us here. Again, folks in the audience, feel free to raise your hand, come up, ask a question. We'd be happy to have you in here. Have your question answered by Katie any of the other mods. Let me see if any other folks who are on stage have perhaps a, another question for Katie, I guess I can chime in. Katie, the more you speak, the more amazed I am in the more, my initial statement still holds, but I understand, I just wonder. What would you, if you were to tell yourself, if you were to look back on the beginning of, your career, I think you said you were 15 when you started at that waitressing, but what would you tell yourself if you knew everything that you know now, what would you, what, one, would you do anything differently? And then two, What would you tell yourself that maybe you can tell someone else coming into the industry? Now, what's interesting about that question is yeah, there are a million things that I suppose, knowing what I know now that I would do differently. However to your point, I stand, tall and proud of the woman I am both personally and professionally today. And unfortunately, or fortunately, the. The struggle and some of the mistakes that I've made have made me the person that I am, the employee, the mother, the friend, the colleague, the mentor, the mentee. So it's so tough. However, what I love for other people to not make the same mistakes. Absolutely. In that, so having said that, having said all those things, I, I can't take anything back. I can't go backwards. And I can't, have made different decisions. What I would say is, I think earlier on in my career, I would have I would have gotten more, I would have gotten more education. So once cybersecurity became an, maybe 10 years ago, there were people starting to, there were cybersecurity certifications programs that would have given me more of a broader baseline. I think that I did it in fragments. And I think sometimes even now I'm a little far. fragmented in my overall understanding sometimes. And so I think that if I had, had the resources time, I, it's hard to, it's hard for me to say, cause I, at the time I thought that I didn't have the time or resources, but then, I know other people who are even busier than I am that were able to figure it out. So I, I do think that's, that is, there's something beneficial about getting basic hygiene knowledge earlier in my career probably would have helped me cause I came up in a way where I became a subject matter expert. on a lot of different things at various times. And I think that if I had, a little bit more of a primer or a baseline, 10 years into my career, I would absolutely suggest. So if there are opportunities, I know Carnegie Mellon has a great program. Somebody, a friend of mine just graduated from University of, or from Clemson. There's just so many opportunities where you can, do things remote now. I would recommend somebody do that. I wish I would have done that at some point. So I didn't have to piece it all together myself. It would have been a easier path. But yeah, the failure is what's made me, when I can walk into a place as even as a consultant or in my recent role as a deputy CISO and already have started You know, stepped on that landmine. That's still very valuable to myself and to that organization. So it's a tough answer. It's a tough question because the failure is what makes me good, but I wish I hadn't had to experience the pain of the failure. Great question. If I could quickly piggyback on that, being fellow parents. You spoke about what you would do for yourself if you had to recollect, but are you doing something to nudge your kids into cybersecurity or enable them? Vijay, that's a great question. What I have I tried a million times to get them into cybersecurity? The answer is Yes, but my oldest son is an evolutionary biology and ecology, double major with a minor in environmental science. And he's graduating in May from the university of Colorado. He's a scientist, like I absolutely wanted he's a twice as smart as I am. He's better looking and nicer. He's exactly who we needed in this industry. However no interest at all. And then my another one of my sons is thinking about business psychology. I have one more coming up. He's 11. So maybe I can get him to do it, but I absolutely, encourage as many people as I possibly can to get into this industry. And I absolutely wish that they would they'd come into it because I think they'd be a great asset. They both have really good senses of humor also. Can you, having to deal with me as their mother, we have good senses of humor. We, these are the people we need. They're flexible, like they'll eat whatever I put in front of them. But nope they just don't really have an interest. It's one of those things I hope that they will Excel and whatever that they do. And I think the gift that I've gotten from being able to be a part of, community like this is that I've been able to provide for them so that they can have the education and the jumping off point. What's the, I can't remember who says the quote is. I don't know if it was if it was John Adams or if it was, Benjamin Franklin, but what's that quote about the, I am a soldier. So my sons can be a farmer and their sons can be poets. I feel like I'm the farmer in that scenario because I have this really great career and I feel like they're the poets and they get to go out and do exactly what they really want to do in the world. And so that's what I'm really thankful to have had the opportunity to provide for them. I would say I'm laughing Katie, but I would say, I know my kids are not going to go into cyber I just know it there. They're like, you work too much and you're always stressed out. We're not doing that, but I will say that they that because we do what we do, they're going to go into their industry and their careers. Being cyber literate, and therefore the people, the next generation won't have to work so hard. So just take that as they're still cyber security people, just cyber for everyone. Love it, Octavia. Yeah, that's, I love that. Kitty, thanks again for sharing your story. Really appreciate it. Hey, I just noticed Thomas. Welcome. You got really excited, BJ. Really excited. You usually, I was missing the dad jokes tonight. That's why. Hey, VJ, take it easy. Now the dad joke. don't need them though. They're fine. We're good. No you really missed them. I'll tell you. I know you do. No, I didn't want to interrupt the flow. It's been a great conversation that I've heard so far, Katie. I'm sorry that I joined this late, but I feel like I joined us at a very intricate moment. In the conversation when you were talking about your book. So I didn't want to interrupt the flow, but sorry, I'm late. I will ask you something. I don't know if it's been asked already, but besides you writing the book and focusing on that, what what are you, did we already ask you? What are you reading? Oh, you didn't ask what I'm reading. There's a book that's 100, 101 essays. Everybody should read. I'm reading that. But frankly, lately I've been working on so I radical candor. So like a business book that's one that I've been working on. I've been trying to be. Better and more precise communicator when I joined the, a global organization as a deputy CISO, I realized that I could be more precise in my language. And I think that's been, it's really been helpful for me to be able to Be a better business communicator. And cut to the chase of what we're, we were talking earlier again about, business business risk and conversation that we have to bring back to the cyber security org and then the broader org and then to the board within these organizations. And so that one has helped me be a little bit better in my communication style. Radical candor. I'm just looking it up. So is that helping you be more concise? It's sometimes I get scared and I don't want to say the, I don't want to be, I don't want to have radical candor, and I think sometimes having the tools to be able to And for me, it's just helpful to, to hear maybe it's basically saying it's okay to have a difficult conversation. It's important to have a difficult conversation. It's important to have uncomfortable conversations because that's what will achieve the ultimate objective for yourself, for your organization, for your friendships, it bleeds out of the business world, but yeah, it's been a good one for me for it getting over some fear. Thank you for that, Katie. I just added that to my to my Audible list. I can't wait to start that one. It's a good one. It definitely is a great book. And she also has several series or seasons, of podcasts as well. So hearing her voice, a great TED Talk as well if you don't have If you only have 17 minutes or so to invest in listening to Kim Scott's TED Talk on that topic is also also amazing. I know our time is almost over. I've got one more question for you, Katie. So Katie, it's The kind of thinking about the things that you've talked about and even Tomasa kind of leaning in that direction by asking what books that you're reading on now, but what are you learning now or perhaps experimenting with in your growth and leadership journey, things that you're trying to figure out, or maybe recent achievements or accomplishments that have helped you become even better in your leadership journey. That is such a good question for me right now. I'm honestly feeling a little I wouldn't say, I wouldn't say defeated, but I, in my leadership journey right now to be honest and it's something that I, I'm writing, I think I'm going to publish either on, on LinkedIn or through there's a magazine that I'm now and there's like security editorial board, but I'm really thinking a lot about just here I am. We've thank you. I've looked at the esteemed, colleagues that we are here. I currently am looking for a job and for every, time that I go through an application process. And I wasn't fired when it was a contract that just wasn't extended, which is fine, but I'm in the market. I'm told I'm incredible. I'm told I have an amazing background and can contribute so much to an organization. I did very well and have great references from every job that I've ever had in the industry. I am having a hard time right now, wanting to, keep people in our industry because of the fact that it's I'm a little bit down on it, there's still this mid career thing that's happening to me and or around me and I'm, and I'm trying to like. Figure out how to do better. So that's what I'm working on right now. Russell is I'm trying to figure out how to do better. I'm trying to be a better listener. I'm trying to do better with again, my communication, trying to leverage my network that I have of people who do appreciate the value that I bring to the industry and it didn't to overcome my fear and asking for help and one of those people that doesn't like to ask for help. for help. Or, we talked about some of the, the, somebody, I think you always say, I think you said right time, right place. And I, no, like I do. I have had to actually ask for every, almost every bit of help I've ever gotten. But it's still it's a tough thing to do. For me. So I think that right now that is, that's where I am, Russell. I think it's fair to be honest about that. And I think it's important to be honest about that because I think there are a lot of women that have also shared their stories where they feel this way as well. So actually Octavia, what are your thoughts here? I see you on muting. Yeah. I'm like, please let me in coach. No, Katie, it's very interesting. So I was at a, I was at a event last week. In, in Irving, and that actually came up and it talked about the differences in not the way that people, the way that companies interview women and the way that companies interview men. And I wish this would have came up earlier because I can literally talk about this forever. But it's very interesting because some of the questions and this is study your research by, the top three the top three recruiting firms, the question is, they normally ask women are more technical in nature. And to try to prove that they're technical, where the questions that they ask men are more strategic and, future facing, which if they ask women future and strategic questions during the interviews, then it wouldn't be a problem. And it wouldn't unsettle us either, even though some women are very technical. It's I'm not going for a CISO role. To literally, configure a switch and be down building firewalls. So I think that is, it's very interesting. And you're right. It does actually cast out, but I think that there's some things that we can actually share amongst each other where, and then what I would ask for the men too, is to help and coach and take on some women who are, that's we're going for these roles. Because it does literally there's research that shows that they are actually interviewing, and it's an unconscious bias that they're interviewing differently. Yeah, maybe you and I, we should do a separate LinkedIn Live and have a deeper conversation on that together. Because I think that's a conversation, I want more people involved. I would love to know, yeah, again, who was on that panel and the people that you were talking to. Talking to at that conference, because I think this is a conversation that I'm still trying to get to the bottom of it. Cause I felt that even just, recently I just thought that was interesting out of a thousand candidates, you narrow it down to three. I'm one of three now what's happening, and was, I just, it's curious to me how the interview process works and how to better, exist within the construct. So I think we should have a LinkedIn let's do a separate, we should. Fine. In all of your spare time Octavia? Yeah, because I got tons of it. That's an interesting one, and I would love to be in that conversation as well, just to learn. Not only to study, but just to learn from hearing your, both of your experiences. And I'm sure other women who will probably join the conversation to share their experience. Cause I, I love to learn and hear that. I, that made me think about how I interview people. And I was just thinking, do I do that? And do I know if I'm doing that? All right, and I don't personally, I don't think I do that because I was just thinking through the typical questions that I usually ask and I there's usually one or two that are very standard patented questions that I always ask. I'm not going to share them. On this forum is I don't want people to be prepared for them but it's a, it's, and it's, and I asked that of everyone, whether you're more junior, more senior, or at my same level, I'm asking you, what are you going to work for me in a security professional? What are you going to be, an assistant and internal anything in between? So I'm really curious anyways, let me stop. I'm just more curious about learning Octavia about that research study. If you have a link or anything to that, I'd love to read that because I'm sure that there's challenges that I would like to challenge my male colleagues to one, learn about that and think about how they're asking questions. And I'd love to be able to, hold myself accountable to making sure that I'm being fair and unbiased as I'm asking questions, because we all have bias. And whether you believe it or not you have it, and you just need to one, recognize it, and two, try to correct it and work through a pattern so that you don't continue to repeat that bias with individuals that you interview. It's not something to be ashamed about, in my opinion. It's something to be rec to acknowledge and recognize and don't do it again. If you repeatedly do it again then you should be ashamed about it. But if you're trying to actively work on correcting it. I think that's a positive step. So I would love to read that research study and just educate myself more and then hold my my male colleagues and even other female colleges. I would imagine. It probably applies on both sides. But yeah, I would love to be able to read it, learn, hold myself accountable, and hold others accountable in my organization. Make sure that we do better. But anyway, sorry, I didn't want to take too much of your time. I know this is about you, Katie. It is 9. 31, Russell. I don't want to Jump ahead. I know you, you sounds like you've been leading a good good charge today, but I do want to ask if I may I do want to thank the moderators and I do see that there is someone that did jump on stage. So Katie, if you still have time and if others still have time. Maybe we'll pass it over to Byron and then we'll wrap up if you're good with that. I have much time in the world. Yes, absolutely. Bye Byron. Welcome. Hello, how are you? And esteemed panel here. This has been really good listening and I just had a question because you touched on a lot of different topics that for me as a Not really a CISO, but having ownership of a full of the whole IT landscape for my company, I have to dabble in cyber quite a bit. You touched on points about being strategic versus technical, and I wanted to get your take on what you thought would be from a CISO perspective. What do you think is More impactful being someone that is technical versus someone that's being more strategic. So I'll stop there and then maybe ask a couple more questions based on how you answer. Yeah, no. And Hopefully this answer will help. I think that as a CISO, as a senior leader within an organization, particularly larger organizations, the strategy piece is a much more important piece. A good leader will be able to go and seek out the team that they need to be able to solve for the broader, problems that, not to put it that way. Problems or, business solutions that are required to be a robust cyber security organization to be a secure organization to be able to continue to operate. So I think the strategy piece is much more important at the higher level and the acumen to be able to know when to bring those solutions. smartest people into a room. I think that any CISO who wants to be the smartest person in the room is probably not in the right room because they need to hire smarter people to be able to do some of those more technical pieces of the operational piece of the organization. And that's just, again, that's my opinion. That's, but that's my answer. Strong answer. No, that's, you can hear me, right? Yeah. I'm off mute. No, that's great. Yeah, I'm thinking about it because we're, and I'm speaking off of my experience here and the side of being in a smaller organization or a smaller business unit of a bigger organization. And there's a very conservative component to it. And from the standpoint of like head count, for example, and so finding the right blend of skillset that's in house versus external resource to make sure you get the right. A blend of a team to be able to then foster the right cyber strategy, and convey that back to leadership so that you can do exactly what you need to do, because you know what you need to do, but you may not have either all of the funding or all the right skillset at one point in time or some component that's always missing. So I'm trying to figure out like. For myself, because my organization is smaller, right? Like we'll probably never have a CISO. So I have to wear a bunch of different hats. So that's where I'm looking at is saying where I can be technical, but I'm more strategic I guess what I'm looking for is maybe some, I don't want to say mentorship, but a path of how do you convey the right message to then be able to say, you're more strategic. You need specific technical skill sets. But if you don't have them making sure that you get exactly what you need out of it to be so Byron. So they need so so have my I'm sorry. This Octavia. So I think that I want to be cognizant of time as well. And I want to make sure that get your question answer. But I think that this, your question is really more personalized to you and I will be happy to, if you want to ping me on LinkedIn messenger or whatever, I'll be happy to go through it with you. And we can take it from there if that's okay. Sure. That's fine. Cool. Go ahead, Russell. Oh, I was going to say, Tomás, you want to close out or I think what we have left to do, focus on the stage moderators up on the stage. Any last words or any acknowledgements for Katie? And then as always, Katie, I'd love to give you the last word for your session this evening. I was just going to say, Katie, thank you for the time. It's been amazing. It always is to hear your journey. And again, you're just halfway through, still got so many more stars and amazing journeys ahead of you. So I wish you all the best. Katie, I just want to say I'm so happy that I got a chance to meet you several years ago online when we started this sort of journey doing these Clubhouse or when we started on Clubhouse and now we're on LinkedIn doing these sort of fireside chats. And it's been really great to. To know and learn more about you and I know you noticed already, so I don't need to tell you to just keep your head up keep grinding. I'm sure something good will, will come your way. So just stay the course. Thank you, Tomas. Yeah, it's definitely been the highlight of my days. I mentioned at the beginning. I've been looking forward to this time and you did not disappoint to inspired all of us with your story and what you shared. And then with that, Katie always leave the last word for our guest, and of course, that's you this evening. So Katie Floor is all yours. Thank you. And it's interesting because I prepared all day for the question. I thought Tomas would ask me at the end. And he said, he usually asks I was going to ask Katie, but I didn't want to keep running over time. But I will have an answer. I will absolutely ask it. So let me see you up, Katie. If there was one piece of advice that you would ask the younger Katie, what would it be and why? And I had decided very early on in thinking about and preparing for this, that I was going to reverse it because what I need to tell myself today is I need to call back to young Katie and I need to remind, I need her to remind me to continue to have the grit, the Determination, the dream, the confidence that young woman had the fearlessness and I need to conjure up that woman that I know is still in me. And sometimes I've gotten tired, gotten over, I've gotten, to the point where I'm at the end of my rope and I need to call back to her and I want her to remind me that this is everything that I ever hoped and dreamed for, and if not more. So I want to be content and happy in the position that I'm in, and I want that young woman to continue to be there and to inspire me to continue to move forward. That's my answer. And thank you so much again for this. This was fun to be on the hot seat. I was a little nervous today, but it was it was nice to be with you all and tell the story again. Thank you. Katie, you'd never disappoint. Thank you everybody for tuning in. We will be back in a few weeks with our next guest and that'll be announced. So just follow our fireside chat LinkedIn group page if you don't already. And you can tune into the recording on fireside chat dot live. Thank you everybody. Have a good evening. Have a good rest of your week and don't forget to watch, sports happening. Hey, we'll be watching. I hate watching the draft tomorrow. I'll be watching. I'll be watching. I have a cousin that's in a draft, so hopefully, yes, that is exciting. All right. Bye everybody. Thank you.