89: Putting Creativity and Problem Solving Skills to Use in Cybersecurity with Mike Radigan

Yeah, well, I don't recall exactly when you and I met.

I moved my first startup to Columbus, Ohio in 1998.

So you're looking at security already, and that's what that startup was focused on was cybersecurity.

So we were destined to meet sometime in that time frame or within a few years, I guess.

Yeah, the ISSA back then, the Information Systems Security Association, if people aren't familiar with it, formed in the early 90s there was only about 20 people in that group at the time so it definitely was the you know the formation years of the profession and people you know getting together and what i noticed about the profession itself that really attracted me was and this may sound a little corny but they were like patriots these were

the good guys

you know and they had a mission greater than it infrastructure they were protecting the enterprise and that appealed to me uh and So I really appreciated the community, and it's been a career move.

You know, I've remained in the cybersecurity industry since then, since 2000.

Yeah, I mean, Cisco, you know, security business consultant, Next Defense, working with me years ago, Risk Lens, ADB, Senior Advisor, Cybersecurity Risk Management, Leidos, Gemini, Caterpillar, and business of security, your own, you know, sort of organization you've had for, you know, I don't know, 15 years and now back at Cisco and it's all been cyber than all those years.

And, and that's, you know, that's a long time.

That's, that's a lot of development within the cybersecurity industry from, like you said, early days to, you know, to where it is today.

Yeah.

For the

most part, I was on the, we'll call it the sell side of the table.

And what I tuned into very early was, Hey, I, the budget that I want for this security product is competing for budget from the IT evolution.

It was always an evolution going on IT.

You know, there's always a, you know, a other way to improve efficiencies or enter a new market or what have you.

And, you know, what I was selling wasn't enabling a business initiative.

It was a cost center.

And that's a, always a barrier, I think even today, for getting projects or initiatives funded.

And so that was another problem to solve.

So how can I produce a business case that's as compelling, at least can compete with these IT security projects? And so I invested quite a bit of time in solution selling methodologies and got familiar with, yeah.

I've got that book on my shelf right over there.

Well, you know, it's funny that Delivery room sales is find the pain.

Do they have money? Can they make a decision? You know, the one called close sort of thing in the technology sales.