Discover how BlackCloak takes cybersecurity beyond the enterprise, extending critical protection to the personal lives of executives and their families. Join hosts Sean Martin and Marco Ciappelli as they discuss the importance of empathy, innovation, and personalized service in today's security landscape with Founder Chris Pierson and two new BlackCloak hires, Ryan Black and Matt Covington.
In this BlackCLoak Brand Story, hosts Sean Martin and Marco Ciappelli engage in an in-depth conversation with Founder Chris Pierson, Chief Information Security Officer Ryan Black, and Product Manager Matt Covington. The discussion explores the company’s dedication to protecting security and privacy for CISOs, executives, and high-net-worth individuals.
The episode kicks off with Martin and Ciappelli extending a warm welcome to Pierson, Black, and Covington while highlighting the mission-driven approach of BlackCloak. Pierson elaborates on BlackCloak’s unique focus on protecting not just organizations but also extending security measures to the personal lives of executives and their families. This connection underscores the significance of safeguarding home environments, which are increasingly becoming targets for cyberattacks.
Covington shares his intriguing journey from having a master's degree in literary theory to becoming involved in cybersecurity, emphasizing the importance of empathy in product development. He explains how BlackCloak's technology seeks to scale its services efficiently by automating repetitive tasks, thereby allowing their experts to focus on critical problem-solving for clients.
Throughout the conversation, Ryan Black describes the flexible, personalized concierge service that BlackCloak offers, aimed at addressing the unique security needs of individuals outside the corporate framework. He emphasizes that their approach goes beyond traditional enterprise security, focusing on protecting personal devices and networks that executives use at home.
The episode also touches on the emotional and psychological aspects of cybersecurity, illustrating how personal experiences with phishing attacks have driven both Black and Covington in their professional paths. The hosts and guests also discuss the personal side of cybersecurity, addressing behavioral vulnerabilities and the integration of user-friendly technology in personal security measures.
Finally, the session highlights the collaborative and proactive culture at Black Cloak, where team members are committed to going above and beyond to protect their clients. This episode offers listeners valuable insights into how BlackCloak is pioneering an empathetic and comprehensive approach to cybersecurity.
Note: This story contains promotional content. Learn more: https://www.itspmagazine.com/their-infosec-story
Guests:
Chris Pierson, Founder and CEO of BlackCloak [@BlackCloakCyber]
On Linkedin | https://www.linkedin.com/in/drchristopherpierson/
On Twitter | https://twitter.com/drchrispierson
Ryan Black, Chief Information Security Officer, BlackCloak [@BlackCloakCyber]
On LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryancblack/
Matt Covington, VP of Product, BlackCloak [@BlackCloakCyber]
On LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/mecovington/
Resources
Learn more about BlackCloak and their offering: https://itspm.ag/itspbcweb
BlackCloak welcomes Ryan Black: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/blackcloak_personalcybersecurity-cybersecurity-executiveprotection-activity-7198293889777098752-Bd5z
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The Focus on Community and Empathy-Driven Culture Behind BlackCloak's Success in Attracting Passionate Professionals | A BlackCloak Brand Story with Chris Pierson, Matt Covington, and Ryan Black
Please note that this transcript was created using AI technology and may contain inaccuracies or deviations from the original audio file. The transcript is provided for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a substitute for the original recording, as errors may exist. At this time, we provide it “as it is,” and we hope it can be helpful for our audience.
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Sean Martin: [00:00:00] Marco,
Marco Ciappelli: Sean,
Sean Martin: it's time to, uh, time to dig deep into the inner workings of our good friends organization.
Marco Ciappelli: Yeah, the one that we thought it was just one man show. The old, we thought it was
Sean Martin: probably, I don't know if it started as a one man for us. It started as a
Marco Ciappelli: one, a one man idea for sure. One
Sean Martin: super cool dude had a super cool idea and it's, uh, become something really even beyond super cool.
That's black book. And so it's great to have
Marco Ciappelli: Chris Pearson. That dude is? Chris Pearson. Chris
Sean Martin: Pearson. There you go. Chris. I'm happy to call you a friend, my friend, and so happy for you and the growth that you've seen and experienced and the good work you're doing for the community of CISOs and their families and organizations that they represent.
Chris Pierson: Super happy, super good to see you guys like post RSA. It's like, everyone's alive. Right. I mean, who knew?
Marco Ciappelli: [00:01:00] No,
Chris Pierson: but it's a, it's great. It's good to, it's good to be back on. It's good to chat with you guys. Mix it up a little bit. I brought some friends too. So yeah, I know we might be able to like get into a few good topics here.
Marco Ciappelli: Well, you want to. You want to do the honor
Chris Pierson: you guys can you know, you guys can ping at it
Sean Martin: All right, i'll i'll do it so i'm, uh Thrilled to uh, let's see. Where do I go? I'm gonna sorry ryan. I'm i'm gonna go with uh, With, uh, my, my fellow product manager, product developer, uh, Matt Covington joins us, uh, here on the show representing, uh, Black Cloak and, and all the product stuff that's going on there.
And then of course, Ryan, I don't know if you have the harder job as the CISO, and certainly helping CISOs do their job. Uh, with the support of the services that Black Cloak offers. So, if you didn't guess, uh, we have [00:02:00] Product Management Matt and, uh, Chief Information Security Officer with Ryan. Thank you guys for, uh, for joining us.
Have a good day. You're welcome. And you're, you're just starting to warm the seats there at Black Cloak. Probably, uh, drinking from the fire hose at this point, getting, uh, getting up to speed on everything. Um, maybe a quick few words from each of you on your, some of your history. So the stuff you've worked on in the past and, uh, what, what shapes you for, uh,
for
doing some cool stuff now at Black Cloak, Matt, we'll start with you.
Matt Covington: Sure, absolutely. So I took a very interesting route into cybersecurity. I actually have a master's degree in literary theory and in no way, shape or form that I ever expect to end up in the world of cybersecurity, but you know, just so happens that, uh, got married, moved to California, tech companies were the companies that were hiring and just really fell in love, uh, with technology and the difference it can make in people's lives.
So I started out in box software. For the [00:03:00] Macintosh computer shout out for stuff it deluxe for the really really old people on the call here who may remember that Sean you mentioned you're at Norton and yeah from there took a A journey through some some leaps into first of all sort of uh, I. t service management a company called box zone in maryland.
Sean. We were just chatting about our friend brian reid Um there and yeah, it was a really great adventure really Starting to address problems were definitely security adjacent if not actually security And then from there I spent a lot of time spent, uh, eight and a half years at, uh, zero Fox. And again, this was sort of the cutting edge of a new category of security platform.
Um, we eventually evolved to be sort of what we describe as external cybersecurity. You sort of had telemetry of what was happening on your network. You had sort of the ingress, egress point on the network, and then you had everything that was happening outside of that. network, social media, uh, register, [00:04:00] uh, phishing attacks, uh, malicious domains, and yeah, they did that break and a half years and now super excited to be, to be at black cloak.
And yeah, I think, cause we, we've discussed black cloak is one of those sort of uniquely mission focused companies. Chris leads with such passion and energy for the problems we're solving. It's hard not to get. Really excited and really carried away. So I think from interview one, Chris and I were pulling books off bookshelves to share with each other that were, you know, and so I think we hit it off right out of the gate and so yeah, really, really excited to be here.
Sean Martin: And for those that don't know, Boxtone is an important piece, I think, for, especially for what, uh, Black Cloak does. Boxtone is deeply in, uh, trenched in the mobile space. And I think some studios have maybe one, perhaps more, uh, mobile devices. So, uh, good, good to have that experience for sure. Brian, what's going on?
Ryan Black: Yeah, thanks, Sean. And Matt, you hit it on the head. I, I think, uh, working backwards, actually, from the mission that we had at Black Cloak, [00:05:00] It's, uh, and I've heard this story time and time again as I've met more of the team. It's really the intersection of protecting people and applying what brought a lot of us into security.
Whether we started in technology like myself or tertiary important roles like product or engineering, it's protecting people. And we've seen the impact this has had on different people's lives, right? Personally, my own family, people I've worked with and for. And so my background spans a wide gamut of security, anywhere from security leadership, traditional blue team, to security services delivery, places like HP four to five bug crowd Mandate, for example, um, but also red team and some of the and the hacker side of things as well.
So bringing some of that tech and those are all important to me. But at the end of the day, you're a black cloak. Uh, why I'm here? Much of what Matt said. Great leadership, great mission. The opportunity to make an impact on Monday, and I'm really happy to be here with what we're doing.
Chris Pierson: And I think that's kind of the, um, you know, Sean market.
It's kind of the cool theme here is look like we want people want to bring together, you know, a plus, you know, uh, individuals that are just like so [00:06:00] deeply knowledgeable about their areas. But more so what we want is folks to actually have that empathy, that empathetic side of I actually want to help the CISO, the CSL Solve this big, massive problem for their executives and their families.
But at the end of the day, it's all about helping people or on the flip side and the high net worth side to say, I want to help them because they're uniquely targeted because of their financial reserves that they have. And at the end of the day, I want to help them and their family and the people. And when you find two gray individuals, like what we have in Matt and Ryan, that have the tech that have the knowledge to have the expertise, they have the culture.
Uh, and that get up and go, but then they're aligned into the mission and not just agree with the mission, but it drives them each and every day. It comes out in our product and it comes out in our stance on cybersecurity. Um, you know, for me it's, it's, it's kinda the best of both worlds and, and I just love it.
Marco Ciappelli: You know, I [00:07:00] love that you went there, Chris, because as they were sharing their, in short, their story, it's a story that it repeats, and me, when I look at things from a branding perspective, because that's my main hat that I have been wearing for a long time, Is that knowing you and knowing what Black Clock does is that you're really a true company like you're you're not faking it I mean, I know you I know you have this mission You're driven by this and to see that, you know, people are doing are walking the talk I think is very important for for the team and i'm sure chris when you when you choose the team you look at that
Chris Pierson: It's it's, I mean, like it's, it's, it's the front thing that we do.
It's a top notch item there. Once you have that, everything else falls into place. If you don't have that, it just ruins everything else. Um, and there really becomes no common, really becomes no common shared platform of understanding of what we want to achieve and how we want to achieve it. And it's one of the cool things that our clients pick up on as well.
I mean, when we're having conversations, [00:08:00] when we actually say, Hey, look, you have a bad day inside the four walls of your company, and there's anything we can help you with externally. Call us. Text us, we'll take care of it. I get, I get phone calls and texts personally from CISOs that have known for, you know, whatever, 15 years.
Hey, you know, can you jump on this? Can you give me some advice and guidance? Can you help us out here? What can you do? Yeah, absolutely. An opportunity to help, an opportunity at that is where we love what we do. We shine and we really get to enhance the relationship.
Ryan Black: Yeah, we've, we've been there for us, right?
I mean, we've had some of the situations, but we're on the other side of that table and it's nice to have a network of friends, a partner that you could call. Um, and just extending that to having some rails and services. That's just a natural, uh, evolution of that.
Sean Martin: It all comes back to, for me, I, I'm fortunate enough to, uh, not be a CISO and just get to talk to a lot of them and get invited to some conversations, uh, a lot of them off the record and it, [00:09:00] it all comes back to, to the community and trust.
And if you have that trust and the ability to have the conversations that are real and meaningful, so you can see the path from problem to solution. Um, even if you're not the one solving the problem or you have. Friends and other places that can help come in and then solve the problem. I think that's where it all, all comes together.
Um, doing that at scale is where it becomes really fun. Right? So I'm going to go to Matt and talk to you a little bit about what are some of the things you hope to do with the, the product side of things. To help, uh, multiply Chris and the rest of the team, uh, and make that community and then the, the, the communications and that, that level of trust, uh, scale out.
Matt Covington: Yeah, absolutely. And so I want to touch on something Chris mentioned before, right? He used a word that I have always used hiring product managers. And that's empathy, right? So many who is able to put themselves into the, The seat of the person that we're helping [00:10:00] and sort of really trying to understand the pain from their point of view.
At the end of the day, you know, cool technology only gets you so far. Smart people only get you so far. You really need to be able to drive that down to the point of solving problems for people. And so I love the relationship with Ryan already. Right. You know, I think we've had some great conversations and the way I view my role in some respects is.
In our ideal world, Ryan is our pioneer, right? Ryan and his security team are out there in the wilderness, they're experimenting, they're figuring out what needs these CISOs have, they're figuring out really creative ways to solve those problems for them, and then the technology team comes along behind and sort of paves that road out, right?
Allows us to You use it at scale. And so I think one of the formulas we're looking at, we need to be able to, you know, if we want to do what we, what we say we're going to do as a company, we need to be able to sort of massively scale, uh, delivery of services without having to necessarily scale costs proportionately [00:11:00] behind that.
And really, I think what that means in the cyber security world is sort of starting out with the intelligence. cycle, looking at all the different phases and finding the bits of that intelligence cycle that tend to be very repetitive, right? That initial collection of data, bringing in data, labeling the PII elements in that data, all of that kind of work that in the standard security model can be very time consuming.
There's a lot that you can do with, with automation too, so that when you. Put something in front of a, in front of a Ryan in front of one of Ryan's team. They're starting from a, from a further along the road than they would otherwise start. And so they get to spend their time solving those parts of the problem that uniquely benefit from having that human being, uh, in the loop.
And so I think that's the way I look at the partnership between Ryan's unique role is. Both the CISO, but also the driver of security innovation, uh, within the company from the role of product, right? It's just exactly how do you, how do you scale that delivery? How do you, uh, [00:12:00] break down all of the playbooks Ryan and his team are following and find ways that we can leverage technology to do bits of that faster, more efficiently, so that we're able to actually get the real benefit from that team, creatively solving problems.
Sean Martin: And I want to. Sorry, Mark. I want to, I'm going to connect this to Ryan because it's important. We haven't said it and I'm going to encourage everybody to listen to the other stories that we've recorded with Chris to get the full, uh, the full lowdown, but we're not talking about a security operations program in an enterprise.
We're talking about the CISOs and the executives and board members and other high net worth folks that are part of what make that company run. That happened to be targets, them and their families. Bad stuff, bad stuff happens to them, which then leaves the company, well, them personally in the family at risk.
And then ultimately the company at risk. So the company is not equipped to deal with [00:13:00] that at the personal level. That's where Chris and black Coke and this team come together to help. And so it's a, it's a different conversation than which, which MDR am I deploying across 10, 000 machines? It's not that scale.
This is. What devices are we using at home? What networks are we connecting to? What social media platforms are we using? Where are we sharing our data? Who has access to my devices? My children? Family members? So that, it's a different conversation. So Ryan, I want to get your perspective on that as you're talking to CISOs specifically, other executives, and some of the other folks that the Black Club protects.
Ryan Black: Yeah, I think it's a great distinction, Sean. When I think of this and as I came to meet more of the team and more how we deliver, it's an opportunity for us to be flexible to adapt. You mentioned some things like you've got a pattern of what devices are deployed or what your EDR is for an enterprise.
Our clients are like us. We've got I. R. T. [00:14:00] Devices at home. We have a smart home control system for lighting or other things like that. And so our team's conscious of that attack service and how we can do things like penetration, testing a hardening of different devices and tailoring those to their needs.
That concierge service we talk about to understand the risk risk reduction through technology, their education and then again on to the right is if anything were to happen to be able to respond quickly and help Uh, and some of the things Matt, you spoke on about the efficiency and the scale that also helps us with that.
It's a cost consideration, but the more we can tee up that service for my team and I to review and engage quickly, we can also apply more of that concierge service. It's very important to us.
Marco Ciappelli: Yeah, I want to stay with with Ryan because when you when you start introducing yourself, you mentioned about hearing experience and even things that happened to people, you know, or personally to yourself that kind of then Motivate you to look at things now from, you know, not just business.
This is life. And then we go [00:15:00] back to empathy once again. So I'm curious to know what was like that moment or those moment where you were like, you know, this is this is really not just technology. This is this is humanity.
Ryan Black: Security is a human opportunity, right? And that's where the empathy could should come from.
I think I'll give you two examples. Way back early in my career, I did technology consulting. I think, uh, general IT support for, uh, some high network folks as well. And, uh, I've seen things like, uh, phishing attacks and going after them personally for folks they knew. And some of that very targeted spear phishing, as we say.
And how tricky that is. How easy it can be for any of us to be victims of those things. Being a victim, it's not your fault. But the impact that can cost our life of stress, the fear of not just the immediate impact, but what else might happen, the embarrassment for maybe even falling for something, but feeling that way, even though you are the victim, that person is a victim.
So early in my career, I've seen some of those and helping with that and the frustration I felt and the pain I felt to see those people go through that and wanting to help. And [00:16:00] then later on, as I matured in my career into security leadership, occasionally a little bit of anxiety of where we could protect the house.
And when those executives and that staff that I was a partner to, you know, left those four walls or had their iPad or went home, knowing what types of risks they were exposed to and how that can bleed over not to just the stress of their personal life, but impact our business as well and saying, I wish I could do more about that.
But then as we talk about the black folk and and share that privacy and that sort of separation of church and state, I don't also want to know what their family has on their personal devices or maybe some of that family business. And so, you know, I would say that anxiety or wanting to help and I would approach that through education and partnership, but knowing the limitations of that.
So definitely both of those things resonate with me.
Marco Ciappelli: Yeah, absolutely. Matt, any of those stories?
Matt Covington: Yeah, I agree. I agree with what Ryan's saying. You know, I think it very quickly becomes personal. You know, I think my, my own family, right? Parents are older, they're engaged in technology and all the time, you know, the emails [00:17:00] they get and, you know, they're lucky I'm 10 minutes away down the road and they get to get in their car and drive over and pop in and I get to read their emails for them.
And so you really get to see, you know, just how targeted people are just, you know, again, it's just that unfortunate reality of there is, or, you know, nation state scale, industrialized. Uh, attack platforms out there that are targeting these people. And again, you're talking about life savings. You're talking about ability to pay for health care.
And so it is so innately personal. I think once you see the problem from that point of view, that, you know, it really does give you that passion for the mission.
Marco Ciappelli: Yeah. And I have to say, like, when we talk about, you know, relatives and so on, unless our relative is a celebrity, it's, It's a random thing that could happen to them, right?
You just, they just like fall in the net and swim in it. But when Chris came up to us with, you know, years ago with this idea, it's like, wow, [00:18:00] these are people that actually there is other people, the bad guys with the intention to, and the time to make, to research and to target and to find a way in it. So it's a, It's a different game.
Chris Pierson: Well, maybe, but, but, and what's so interesting about it though, it keeps on following that same course and pattern right now, literally some of the largest breaches, you know, but scattered spider that they're right. They're taking advantage of not just the executives, but of their family members too, and all the rest.
It's like, everyone knows how to exert pressure on people. Um, you exert pressure, exert pressure in the personal life. It transcends into the company. You go in and have a breach in the personal life. You can go ahead and get into the company. You go ahead and mess around with the family there. It takes the executive off of office scope off of time and it impacts the company.
Um, and the person that, you know, always is getting calls like, you know, my prior life and then, you know, Ryan, uh, as well as like constantly getting a phone call, constantly getting a phone call. And how do you go ahead and do that? And how do you march down that line? [00:19:00] And, and we're not putting the genie back in the bottle on this one, folks.
Like this is. People, you know, the amount of home constructions, everyone got a new home office, everyone, this, everyone, that the amount of standing desks that are now in the homes, I mean, this is crazy. The home is the new battleground. Cyber criminals know this nation states know this. They're coming for the executives there.
You can write doing one thing like a privacy only approach. I mean, obviously better than doing nothing, but it ain't good enough. It's not good enough, right? Data removal is like one small essence of things. You got to actually have protection, actually stand guard, actually be there as a concierge. I like Matt's concierge.
He gets in a car and he'll be there in 10 minutes. We're going to privatize that. I want to see those SLA. Matt at scale.
Matt Covington: Ah,
exactly. There you go. Yeah, ma as a service. .
Chris Pierson: But it's like, it just, you know, this is, this is, this is gonna be continuing. And the fact of the matter is, is cybercriminals onto something really, really good here.
And they're only going to amp it up more and more.
Matt Covington: But it's such an interesting [00:20:00] intersection of people and, people and technology, right? And I think as an industry, we've gotten really good thinking about, you know, network vulnerabilities and how you address those. We're dealing with behavioral vulnerabilities, right?
People's tendency to pick up the phone, to respond emotionally to, you know, Hey, you know, your kid. Has been arrested and needs bail money. Whatever, whatever that attack is. And I think Xero Fox, sorry, Black Cloak got my old hat on there, but Black Cloak is uniquely situated at that intersection between the two things, right, bringing technology, but at the same time, thinking about this from that behavioral vulnerability point of view, and that's why the concierge service, the training, um, the LMS.
That we have built into the platform are so important in complementing the technology because technology alone is not going to solve this problem.
Sean Martin: Yeah. And I love that you went there, Matt, because the, um, uh, I was just thinking an employee in an organization has the backing and [00:21:00] support of it and security and executive team and HR, perhaps even to deal with certain things you go home and a lot of that goes away, right?
And so you kind of touched on it. You have to have the awareness of what. What could go wrong, right? Where am I weak that I could be targeted and exploited and taken advantage of. And then it's what, how do, how do I raise the bar of my own security posture for me personally, my family, my, my environment at home, and not a lot of, a lot of folks have the ability to do that.
And I mean, when we were looking at a security operations program in a business, we have the ability to have a conversation at the executive level, operational level to say. What's the risk? What controls can we put in place? What other mitigating factors can we employ to achieve some objective, but not disable the [00:22:00] business?
And, You start bringing technologies into the personal space. And I mean, just my own experience working with family, you throw a VPN and a firewall on, and, uh, if something has a hiccup, right, the first reaction is turn that stuff off or yell and scream because I can't access anything, neither of which are great.
And so that's where I think what you provide through Black Cloak is the full picture, right? Awareness, understanding. How do we take control? How do we work with Black Cloak 2? To shore those things up. So I don't know, uh, Ryan, have you, have you started to have conversations with, with some folks where you're able to say, what challenges do you see?
Here's what we're seeing. Here's where we come together and, and complete that circle with you. Absolutely, Sean.
Ryan Black: Yeah. And that last piece, that last mile is very important, right? There's some context and pragmatism of what to do that [00:23:00] trade off of maybe additional security and their lifestyle and their needs and how they want to use technology.
So being thoughtful and talking through that. Cutting through the jargon, distilling this down to the settings on your iPhone and how you can improve your privacy and some of those things, explaining the potential impact. Talk through what it means to turn something on and turn, turn something off to see your point, Sean.
You know, if we just say a checklist of items without that context, without that concierge service, you can run into things that the ROI may not be there or it's too inconvenient and you don't have that context or worse yet, the person doesn't understand adequately what the, what the receiving the benefit, right?
So, you know, That's what's important beyond the technology is the as the people and the technology helps those people work more effectively, efficiently and scale very complimentary. The whole thing, the balanced breakfast, let's say, is very important for that reason.
Marco Ciappelli: I want to extend this because I'm very passionate about the psychological aspect of all of this.
And of course, I share all of that. You know, I'm with my parents now in middle. So I mean, it's like, Oh, my God, what's going on [00:24:00] here? But But the point is, Matt, like when you roll out in the product, like I'm thinking like you do a product that you think about user interface. If it's not easy to use, people are not just going to use it.
And I may talk about anything when it comes to server security is like that. I feel like the challenge is 10 times as much because people just don't care. Right? And you can force feeding that in the corporate environment. But that at home, I think that the psychological aspect of creating the product, but also again, translating the product and trading off what you can do versus what you cannot do is the core of your business.
Matt Covington: 100%. I mean, Chris has what he calls the mom test. And we talk about this all the time. You know, and again, it is we are on the one hand, we're cyber security. Company, but our customers are members of people who have the obligation are not cyber security [00:25:00] professionals. And so it's just critically important.
We try and think really carefully and intentionally about the wording, right? You know, what are we choosing to put on screen? What numbers we choosing to put on screen? Do they make sense? Do they convey what? You know what story we're trying to tell? And so I think a lot of times we're always kind of Pulling things back to the storytelling.
So a new interface, right? What is the story we're trying to tell? What are the outcomes we're trying to present here? And really thinking this through, could you hand this phone to someone on the street and have them look at the screen and be able to derive what it was doing? I mean, going all the way back in history to doing box commute.
Box software, we used to spend Saturdays standing outside prize electronics in San Jose, right? And we'd have the front of the box for a stuff at deluxe, we'd have, we'd have it displayed there. And literally we were, we'd open it up, you know, put it down. Okay. What do you remember? What did you see? What did you take away?
And, and so again, it's just that glanceable people don't pay a lot of attention, people don't read all the words and so [00:26:00] trying to figure out what it is that people take away. And that sort of glanceable information, I think is very important.
Chris Pierson: I miss fries.
Matt Covington: Oh my gosh, I miss
Chris Pierson: fries. The amount of money I spent there and my direct deposit for my paycheck.
It just like went straight. Yes, exactly. You do need another Antec case with super cool LED lights. Yes, I do.
Sean Martin: There you go. Well, I want to, I want to take this conversation, Chris, um, maybe to you because we, we talk about culture and the organization at the enterprise for security awareness and, and security programs at the enterprise level.
We're now talking about it, um, at the. end user, um, in the home and out and about. And some folks want to have control and visibility. Others don't want to have control and visibility. They want somebody else to do it for them and [00:27:00] just take care of it for me. So you, you help with that, but you, when you're looking to build your team, what, what do you look for to help ensure that you have the best culture?
To match those different environments. Somebody who, if it's a security executive, somebody who knows, but Needs help at home with the family. Somebody who doesn't know that doesn't that needs help and doesn't doesn't really care. These want protection So how what are some of the attributes you look for in the hires that you make to have a culture that supports?
all those nuances and Situations.
Chris Pierson: It's an interesting question. The human element of this is massively important I always have hired off of three things tech and the tech could be it could be You know, if you're a lawyer, it means you're the best lawyer, the best finance person, the best HR person, whatever.
But whatever you say you're doing and good at, you're the best [00:28:00] there. Second, kind of culture, and we'll go a little bit deeper on that. Three, which actually is really the secret sauce, is the get up and go. It's just, you know, can you get shit done? Can you go ahead and actually tackle something, not wait for others, and return it back, MVP fashion, but can you just go and solve stuff?
Um, on the, and that's overall how we hire for everything. The culture piece is super important in terms of, well, we will hire individuals that enjoy technology, know technology, but they might be a, like a 6 out of 10 on cyber maybe or something initially. And we will make them a 10 out of 10 through our learning management platform, learning management system, our central controlled everything to make them the best that they can be in order to make them successful.
They have to be super high on the empathy score, super high in the listing score, super high on the alignment to mission score. They've got to be culturally aligned and they [00:29:00] have to actually be able to solve really, really hard problems. And And think through that in terms of our clients, their parents, gen one, gen two, gen three, for high net worth families, a CEO that has a, you know, they have to go jump on and do their quarterly earnings call in 10 minutes.
And yet they need to talk to us and they only have five minutes. Um, we have to have people that are super empathetic there and really, really aware of all those things. That is actually the thing that is the hardest to hire for. Sometimes tech folks can go too deep in the hole and they can't come back up to understand either the business logic of things or the human element of things.
And if you're missing the human element, it's just done from day one. It's something that is really, really hard to teach. You can teach cyber, we can teach tech, but you can't teach the human element. Um, those people are the ones that we gravitate towards the ones that have that massive human element. Uh, they will be successful in the long term and then we both Ryan in terms of from a chief [00:30:00] information security officer side training them, you know, learning labs, capture the flag, all the rest of these things will build them up to be a lean mean fighting machine and Matt from an enablement perspective.
Black Cloak builds its own software, externally, internally, all the rest, like, from an enablement perspective, what can we actually do to better enable, better equip, better arm the person to better serve the client? And so those things all kind of triangulate, um, all triangulate in our mind.
Sean Martin: I love it. I'm going to go to Matt and Ryan.
Uh, your perspective on, The culture that you've experienced thus far from Black Cloak. What, is there a moment where you just said, Thank God I'm here. This is amazing. And if you can describe what that is.
Marco Ciappelli: Should we get Chris out of the conversation here?
Sean Martin: That's right.
Matt Covington: First you have to put [00:31:00] your headphones on.
It's, it's really interesting. So I definitely knew all about Black Cloak through reputation, right? And the thing that, you know, externally, it was that last mile, right. Translating the technology to people. And so I think for me, as I was sort of, you know, Again, it's this company I want to talk to, you know, that was definitely the, the lead in that made it a, yeah, this is a conversation I want to have, um, you know, I think from day one, you just see examples of people being willing to go above and above and beyond whether it's, you know, jumping on calls, You know, late in the evening over the weekends to handle an emergency situation that there's never any sense of, wish I didn't do that.
And I think the big thing is the thing I really enjoy about the company is that that sense of celebrating achievement, right? And so we, we celebrate those individuals who go, uh, Above and beyond. And there's a great generosity of spirit that goes around the [00:32:00] company in recognizing, you know, this unique situation we're in having to translate, you know, the technology that down to people.
And so, you know, I think very, very early on, it was just super clear. The, you know, again, that sense of mission isn't just Chris, right. It exists at all levels of the company and just watching some of our security teams, some of our, you know, success team interact with customers is fantastic. You know, I think an early example of knowing that this was a company that was built differently was, and this was either right as I was joining or right after I joined, but the big AT& T bridge.
And so one of our team had pulled it down. Search through had it again. We don't have to process this. The speech document beginning to wear and break out all the parameters. We just need to find the bits in there that are actually going to impact our customers, our CISOs, our organizations, and somebody took the time and effort to do that.
And again, it was just that. Going above and beyond to get the right information as quickly as possible in front of our customers And [00:33:00] so, you know, it was quite funny Many weeks down the line from that getting my letter from at& t telling me what black folk had told me three three weeks before Or four weeks before and so again, it was just that that you know, nobody told somebody to go do that Somebody just like huh?
That's interesting. I I heard about this Can I find it? Yes, I can. Can I pull it down? Can I break out those, those company names? And that's just the great example of talked about the relationship between sort of pioneers and security and then sort of automating, doing it at scale from technology, those are the sort of invaluable moments, somebody figuring out that a customer has a unique snowflake problem we haven't seen before, figuring out how to solve it.
Coming back to the company as being able to sit down, celebrate the achievement, but is it repeatable? If so, how do we repeat it? How do we do that again with lower effort? And so, yeah, again, it's just, I think that's just such a great. Cultural collaboration, top to bottom, uh, the organization.
Ryan Black: Yeah, definitely.
Many of the things you mentioned there, Matt, [00:34:00] you know, uh, having joined shortly after yourself and seeing a lot of that through, you know, my own onboarding with the questions I'm asking, but also very key folks leaning in to say, you should know about this or here, let me help you with that very, very proactive and helping me learn, helping me understand opportunities, pain points, things that our clients need.
And it really accelerating my ability and ongoing to lean in and be able to add value and help. I certainly appreciate that. And just to add a bit, I was fortunate to join before a team offsite from some of our security operations center colleagues. So seeing those folks in person, same thing. Authentic people who care about what we're doing.
Who want to help me help? Uh, so that, that goes anywhere from Matt, like you were talking about some ideas around ideation around different product things and being proactive in that to the, uh, basically what's antithetical to that's not my job. I've never heard that here. I've never heard anything like that here.
It's how can I help? People spin up a group DM and Slack. We used to chat or jump into a zoom, a video chat and say, let's solve this thing. So it's not about a work charts, titles, or what's on a [00:35:00] Monday is we've got something to help each other with, with a really nice eye to how do we do this again, or did we capture that good idea?
Did we capture a note? So we can put that in a road book. So I touched on several things there, Matt, you said it very well, but I've seen those things myself and that's not accidental. So anywhere from the leadership team and some of how the previous conversation about how we hire. That permeates. And it's very important to say secret sauce for an agile growing company like ours, it matters a lot.
So happy to be here. Why did rejoice from the aha moment? I'd say I'd say like day two or three. People messaging me saying hello and then bringing me things to learn
Sean Martin: super cool. Super cool. Well marco Are we gonna are we gonna join the black cloak?
Marco Ciappelli: Well, i'm waiting from uh the letter from chris because uh, you know, I know i'm good with people So
Chris Pierson: I gotta I gotta make sure you guys get the uh t shirts and all the black clothes right That's right.
Marco Ciappelli: I like your thing there No, listen, um, [00:36:00] we didn't we didn't really touch much in exactly what You know, Black Cloak does, but we've done it. Many times, many conversation with Chris, many chapter going from hacking cars to privacy, to other personal stories with other friends in the CISOs in the industry. So always, uh, always great.
And honestly, really good to see that the company is growing with so, you know, very, very valuable people like Ryan and Matt and, uh, looking forward to meeting more people. I mean, more new Blacklock team people in the future and, uh, and see you succeed and growth and for everybody interested in learning more and even, you know, getting in touch with you guys, uh, there'll be a ton of links and notes in the, in the podcast or the YouTube video that you're watching.
And of course, uh, Sean, we'll have another conversation and, [00:37:00] uh, always looking forward for that.
Chris Pierson: No, we love it. Thank you guys so much. Uh, thank you guys so much. And Matt and Ryan, obviously, thank you for being part of the growing team.
Matt Covington: Uh, it's been a pleasure. Really enjoyed the conversation. Thanks guys.
Nice to meet you, Marco. Nice to meet you, Sean. Likewise.
Sean Martin: Yeah, it's great. Great to have a genuine conversation with genuine folks and, and Marco.
Marco Ciappelli: Yeah. Headshot.
Sean Martin: Now, Chris, keep up the good work, my friend. Congrats on all the success and milestones along the way. And the two, two new folks, Ryan and Matt, glad to see you join the team and looking forward to seeing what you guys do with the product and the engagements with the executives.
Chris Pierson: It's all about the team.
Thank you guys.
Sean Martin: Thanks everybody for listening, watching. Please stay tuned, uh, for more from Black Cloak, of course. And, uh, for more brand stories here on ITSP magazine, we're always looking [00:38:00] for fun, fun stuff. And this is certainly a good group. So thanks everybody.