Breaking into Cybersecurity Leadership w Warner Moore

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Outro Music

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Christophe Foulon: Welcome to another

episode of Breaking into Cybersecurity.

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Today we have Warner Moore with us

who'll be sharing his background into

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cybersecurity, as well as sharing tips

and tricks of his specialty along the way.

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Warner, give us a little bit

of background about yourself.

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Warner Moore: My pleasure to be here

today, Chris, and thanks for having me.

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I normally say my background is tech

and cybersecurity which is quite true.

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I started my career in the early

days of the internet focusing on the

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bleeding edge of technology, which.

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Really drove me towards, as technology

changed towards internet technologies.

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Back in the olden days, we called

them.com companies and over that

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time I helped build several business

to business softwares as service

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companies across industries, including

FinTech, InsureTech, and health Tech.

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I've often served in security

leadership roles and technology

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leadership roles, but security has

really been a focus in my career.

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And I quit counting at a certain point,

but in my time I built over seven

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security and or privacy programs.

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Christophe Foulon: And what is

it about cybersecurity and or

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privacy that got you hooked?

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Warner Moore: In the early days

of the internet it was really just

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a leading area of technology.

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A nerdy thing we like to do.

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Technology wasn't as secure.

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As it is today, which is weird to say out

loud given the common narrative and media

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where we're having breaches all the time.

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But back then, pretty much everything

we ran was fundamentally insecure.

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So running secure systems was difficult

and for me it was a bit of a game.

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I.

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I had a server where people

would log in directly into it.

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That's how we did things back then,

and it was really hardened and I

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challenged people to compromise it

and not maliciously, but to test the

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security and they were never able

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to.

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And

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a lot of the technologies we have today

came of that time free and open source

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technologies, intrusion detection systems

like Snort file Integrity monitors or fem.

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I've been known to call them host-based

IDS at times, and they were at

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the time, but not so much anymore.

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Tripwire and just Nessus or

early vulnerability scanning.

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I could go on.

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So many security technologies came out of

open source in early days of the internet.

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So it was a natural focus area for me.

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And privacy?

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I think we all have a right or

should have a right to privacy to

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control our data, to not share things

without our consent or knowledge.

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And it, it's more values and the

intersection of security where

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it can help enable privacy has

always been attractive to me.

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Christophe Foulon: So as you think about

the next generation, how do we develop and

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create the next generation of engineers

that will think security and privacy?

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Warner Moore: I think this is an

important area to focus in our profession.

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I, there's a lot of data out there and.

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Some of the sources might be questionable,

but I do think anecdotally we can all

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admit that there are not enough skilled

folks to satisfy all the things we need

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to do professionally with cybersecurity.

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And universities have been stepping up

and creating cybersecurity programs over

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the past 10 years and professionally,

we've created so many great resources.

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But ultimately it's not like back

in the day where you had to earn

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your stripes in tech and you might

luck into a specialized field.

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We have to make an active point to

develop young and new talent and

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Find ways to curate and craft in the

next generation of professionals.

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If we as security leaders don't

take an active part of this and

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supporting and enabling our companies

to develop new talent, we're not

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going to solve the talent shortage

for at least a decade or two to come.

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Christophe Foulon: And as a security

leader, how do you assess the talent that.

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You have on your own team before

deciding to go out and get another

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headcount or get another solution.

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Warner Moore: I think of it less from

the perspective of skill assessment.

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Have a great team and I'm

grateful to have them.

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Ultimately big part of what I do

is being able to hang out with

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smart folks who make an impact.

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It's more about Do we have enough

folks on the team to deliver what

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we need to do in the business?

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And that's how I approach not only running

a security organization, but building

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a security program more strategically.

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Are we understanding the

way the business operates?

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Are we understanding The goals are we

understanding the economics and the

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financial implications of the business?

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And how does our work

and security tie to that?

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So frequently when I'm assessing adding

to the team, it's more around do we

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have capacity to deliver on what we need

to do and the commitments we've made.

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Christophe Foulon: And as you think about,

. Out technical skills versus soft skills

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how would you weigh ' em in importance?

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Warner Moore: I've been building

technology and security teams

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for well over a decade and early

when I was hiring I weighed, I.

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Technical skills, very highly

coming from a technical background,

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that's easy to do, right?

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Valuing things that we're good at and

passionate about, and what I quickly

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learned is that while those who are the

best of the best, and when it comes to

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a particular technical skill, I think

in technical fields, we are less refined

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when it comes to social or soft skills

or business skills, and that, that's

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something I'd encourage everyone to

develop regardless of their career goals.

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It, it's going to enable someone who

wants to remain in a technical role

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to be more successful, make more of an

impact, and have less friction in the

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things they're trying to do every day.

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And once someone, and if someone

chooses to follow a management

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path, it's non-negotiable.

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And frequently soft skills are

more, or lack thereof, are more

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limiting in one's career journey.

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Then a lot of other

skills at a certain point.

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Later and for a long time, while technical

skills are important and necessary.

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Those who have better communication

skills, better listening skills the

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ability to collaborate cross-functionally

with team members are those who

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ultimately get hired and get

promoted and have more opportunities.

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I'll never forget a couple times where.

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I had the opportunity to hire some

of the best engineers in our city,

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if not the country and the world.

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And there are An ability to work in a

team collaboratively and in a way that

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didn't alienate people in the process,

limited my ability to hire them.

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And quite unfortunate.

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I knew it was the right decision

at the time, but it was still a

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very difficult decision to make.

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And I live by that to this day.

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Christophe Foulon: You hit on some of

the skills that I ask about all the time.

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Communication.

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Collaboration, and then

another one, delegation.

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How would you rate your

ability of those three skills?

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I.

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Warner Moore: Communication,

collaboration, and delegation.

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There are stu studies that show

self ratings when it comes to

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judging or assessing one's abilities

generally are not very accurate.

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I'll just take that question

off the cuff and say that.

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Delegation is always

something that I'm working on.

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It's quite nuanced and different

team members and different skill with

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different skills and experience levels

of different levels of abilities When

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it comes to stepping up when things

are delegated to them I think it's very

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difficult to balance between Just here

take this and walking away and never

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looking at it again versus handing it

over and providing the right level of

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support to ensure the team member is

successful and the outcome is successful.

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Admittedly soft skills are and leadership

skills I look at as a lifelong journey.

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There isn't one day where suddenly

someone's a leader or suddenly

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someone's a fantastic communicator.

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I've been actively working

on communication skills for

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well over a decade, and it's

something I practice and work on.

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Regularly to this day, and I think

that's true of most topics like this.

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Christophe Foulon: Now, as you think

about networking, how important

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is networking with people to this

career and to leadership in general?

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Warner Moore: Relationships

are everything.

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A bit of a controversial statement

is businesses are people without.

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being into the corporations or

people, legal or political arguments.

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I think that's a good way

to look at anything we do.

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If you're a individual contributor

do you have relationships in your

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profession to learn, develop skills,

refine skills, ask for help in special

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areas, find a new job when you need it.

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Know when.

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New job opportunities are out there.

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What does the market look

like in a management role?

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Being able to hire the right team

members knowing who can help in what

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areas of the organization to help you

and your team be successful in the role.

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On an executive level creating

awareness in the, your functional

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area professionally in your city, in

your country, in your profession as

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a whole being able to draw in the

right areas to build your team.

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And I could Wax poetical, on and

on about all sorts of different

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examples, but building relationships

is everything we do as humans.

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I've often met with even senior level

managers who had been in a role for.

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A decade plus, and I never see them at

our professional community groups or

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our executive meetings in the community.

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And then suddenly I get an introduction

out of the blue where they want help

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because they need a new job or they

want help because they wanna hire

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a special team member and at that

point I'm just meeting the person

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for the first time and they're

introducing themself to the community.

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It's best to have relationships

give and then when I.

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You need things folks

will be there to help too.

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Doing it proactively is super important.

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A book by Adam Grant one of my favorite

books of last year that I read is

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called Give and Take, and it talks all

about the science and the benefits or.

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Lack of benefits for those who

don't give really a fantastic book.

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He is a professor out of

Wharton Science-based focused

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on organizational psychology.

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Christophe Foulon: And it sounds very

similar to using influence as well.

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As part of that skillset how

would you describe influence and

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its importance to your career?

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Warner Moore: There's a one of my all

time favorite books is called Influence.

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It's a bit of a classic at this point.

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The, but that's a completely

unrelated I it's interesting.

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I normally don't think

about influence as a thing.

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I usually think about how I can help

folks how I can give back how I can

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make an impact be it team members the

organizations I work with my professional

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community, nonprofit community.

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It giving I is one of the

best ways to build influence.

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I, it's I how would you react?

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I if someone you, you don't know

asks for something out of the

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blue, but I if someone you've

known for a while who's helped you

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over time in different ways and.

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You've built rapport in a relationship

and they ask for help on what's

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your response going to be, then

you can treat it rhetorically.

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But I, I think that's a good

way to look at influence.

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Christophe Foulon: That definitely is now.

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. Any final words of advice for the

next generation of leaders that

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you hope to come behind this?

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Warner Moore: I often talk to

experienced engineers and technical

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people, and they might be thinking

of a management transition, and I.

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Maybe as a career progression, maybe as

a opportunity that an organization is

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pushing to someone towards, there's a

certain age in a career where it's almost

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more difficult not to fall into that kind

of work, and we don't often talk about

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how it's a completely different job.

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It, going into a management role for the

first time is a complete career change,

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and we don't talk about it that way.

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We talk about it as a profession as a

continuation of the profession we're in.

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That's absolutely not the case.

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And the soft skills we talked

about administrative skills,

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management skills, leadership

skills our ability to organize and.

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Build teams and help people be successful.

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It's not about our ability to

get things done personally.

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In fact, a default reaction for

somebody in that position if the

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team's not performing might be

to do the work yourself, which

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is the exact wrong thing to do.

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So those management is a career change.

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And it's not an a technical role, and

it's important to weigh that very heavily.

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And if someone wants to make that

journey, and it will be a journey, look

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at it that way and be prepared to start.

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New and it's going to be a learning

journey, and there will be a lot of folks

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who hopefully can help along the way.

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I wish everyone the best of luck,

It's not an easy path, but a lot of

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folks can be very effective at it.

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Christophe Foulon: Thank you.

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I think we definitely need a diverse

. Group of individuals that help lead as

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well as help engineer 'cause we need

that diverse perspective to challenge

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and tackle the problems of tomorrow.

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Warner Moore: I couldn't agree more.

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Often the best engineers should stay.

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The best engineers.

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That's.

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Much more coveted skillset,

and there are a lot of managers

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out there, and many of them are

earlier in their learning journey.

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So if you're really good at

something and you like it, do

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you want to make that change?

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It's not only a question to ask, it's a

decision to make before taking the leap.

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Christophe Foulon: It is.

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Thanks everyone for joining us

and have a great rest of your day.

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Warner Moore: Such a pleasure.

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Take care everyone.

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Feel free to reach out on

LinkedIn and mention this podcast.

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Always happy to chat.

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I.