Career Notes

Bernard Brantley: Tomorrow is a new day. [CISO]

Bernard Brantley, CISO from Corelight sits down to share his inspiring career path with others. Bernard started at the very bottom of the tech stack, and shares how he was extremely unclear about what it was that he wanted to do in life and how he was going to get there. Ultimately he reached a point now where he has the self confidence and an incredible level of success that allows him to be authentic and proudly share his story. Bernard overcame dropping out of the military academy and was trying to figure out how he could take these big dreams and aspirations he had as a child and turn them into something fruitful as an adult. Working his way up from the bottom he is now sharing how he overcomes those days of adversity, saying "I spend minimum time trying to like spin my wheels or, kind of stay in frustration or a down period and, and really, uh, try as quickly as possible to move from, "hey, this was a tough day" to, to, into, "all right, uh, this was a tough day because maybe I didn't commit enough time in this area, or maybe I could have had a bit better conversation with this person." We thank Bernard for sharing his story with us.

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Chris Hare: Find just three people. [Development]

This week, we invite our very own Chris Hare, N2K's Project Management Specialist Content Developer, to join and discuss her career. Growing up, Chris shares that she wanted to be a veterinarian, which slowly turned into her becoming a writer for the first part of her career. She shares that she started off writing marketing copy for the technology and E-commerce space, writing for everyone from NASA to adopting the written voice of the comedian, Wayne Brady. She shares that she was able to come up into her career after finding three people that were willing to help her when she needed it. She says "I became what I like to think of as a Pied Piper of seeking out three types of people. First, someone who needed help. Second, a person who served as a mechanism for my self improvement through my jealousy of them. And third, a person who gave me the nudge to continuously improve." We thank Chris for sharing her story with us.

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Ian Blumenfeld: Swimming in a pool of cyber. [Research]

Ian Blumenfeld, a Research Director from Two Six Technologies sits down to share his story with us. Ian begins his story by sharing he wanted to be a scientist, slowly he began to figure out and pinpoint more of what he liked about science, which ended up being math. Ian explains how math began to become a passion for him, and he eventually tried to pursue a career in it by teaching. He discovered teaching was not the thing for him and then started to move into the direction he wanted too, taking on more and more challenging roles until he landed where he is today. Ian says "If you're a smart person and you have skills in coding, you can swim. So it's okay to jump. It's okay to jump into the lake, you can swim. Something will get you out. You will have, you will be able to find a job. So, if you see something that looks cool, if you see something that advances you to the next stage of your career, if you have to take a little bit of a risk, it's okay." Ian wants to be someone who helped make the world a little better when it comes to code and wants to shares his desires and passions with the community. We thank Ian for sharing his story with us.

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Grace Cassy: Actions speak louder than words. [Associate Fellow]

Grace Cassy, and Associate Fellow from Ten Eleven Ventures sits down to share her career path, getting her to where she is now. Grace spent 10 years in the UK Diplomatic Service, working on global security policy in Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Earlier in her career she was an advisor to Prime Minister Tony Blair, specializing in Asia and national security. She also co-founded Epsilon Advisory Partners, a strategy and growth firm working with world-leading global technology companies and investors. Now she is a Co-founder at CyLon and is an Early Stage Investor in cybersecurity companies. She says "I think we probably don't need too many more words, but we definitely need a bit more action." We thank Grace for sharing her story with us.

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Jeffrey Wheatman: Sometimes you just need to open the raincoat.

Jeffrey Wheatman, Cyber Risk Evangelist, from Black Kite joins to share his amazing story. As a strategic thought leader with extensive expertise in cybersecurity, Jeffrey Wheatman is regarded foremost as an expert in guiding public sector clients and Fortune 500 companies in connection with their cyber risk management programs. In his current role as Cyber Risk Evangelist at Black Kite, Jeffrey works to get the message out about the business impact of third-party risk and solutions to treat those risks. Jeffrey shared his career, along with is passion for cyber by explaining some of the roles he did moving up into his role today. He says as a leader we all need to be aware of the fact that "We make mistakes and I I'm a, I'm a big believer in sharing those mistakes and I think it's important to open the raincoat as it were, and let people understand that we're not perfect, we all need help and then that way they feel comfortable coming to you and asking for help" We thank Jeffrey for sharing his story with us.

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