Matthew Chiodi (00:00.801)
MK, welcome to the show.

MK Palmore (00:02.728)
Hey, Matt, thanks for having me.

Matthew Chiodi (00:04.942)
This is going to be fun. Now I just, I noticed this is the first time I've seen you in this room. And for those that are just listening to the podcast, you're not going to able to see it, but MK behind him has a complete drum set, at least from what I can see. So you've got a super interesting background. You're in the Marine Corps, FBI, cybersecurity leadership. And now I find out that you're a drummer. Tell me a little bit about a, when did you, when did you learn to play the drums and then talk to me a little bit about

how your diverse experiences has shaped your leadership philosophy.

MK Palmore (00:37.662)
So my suspicion is there are lots of hidden musicians in the cyber security space because I come across people all the time that are hobbyist musicians like myself and that's all I am. I've been playing the drums since I was a little guy. My dad put me in front of a drum set at the age of five and I've been kicking around off and on on acoustic drums ever since. And you know I go through these periods.

in my adulthood where I get super, super interested in it and that's the result of this home office that I have which now has my computer and workstation but also my acoustic drum kit behind me keeps me engaged.

Matthew Chiodi (01:16.974)
I love it. love it. talk to me a little bit about, again, your diverse kind of leadership experience. Again, Marine Corps, FBI, you've been in cybersecurity leadership for the last couple of years. Maybe talk a little bit about how that diverse experience has shaped your leadership philosophy.

MK Palmore (01:18.09)
It's a lot of fun.

MK Palmore (01:36.126)
Yeah, so I think this is a great question because those experiences have absolutely taken me through not just a diverse set of experiences in terms of dealing with people, dealing with cultures of organizations and institutions, but really personal experiences that have shaped my current understanding of the discipline of leadership. And as you know, this is certainly an area where I spend a ton of time. I call myself the leadership student because I feel it's an eternal pursuit in terms of the learning about it.

And the different phases of my life professionally have been times where I've learned very different things about leadership. Being a leader in the United States Marine Corps is a unique experience, especially for a young college graduate who steps in as a young commissioned officer. It's an institution that's been around for hundreds of years. They have a way of thinking, a way of doing business.

that you are absolutely engrossed in. You become acclimated to that environment, the expectations, the mission and culture and how people think. And it definitely shapes you as a young person, as a young professional. And I took that mission-oriented attitude with me into the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which was my next stop in terms of public service. But it was during my time in the FBI, and I just told this story recently, that I had a bit of a pivot in terms of my focus on leadership.

taking me from a purely mission-oriented style of leadership to one that was more people-focused, and it was the experience of seeing the impact that the work and jobs have on people as individuals and the strain that it causes on people that really forced me to rethink how it was that I thought about the purpose of leading and what it's really about, and it really adjusted my focus to much more of a people-centered...

form of leadership where it's really about growing people, growing their opportunities, growing their experiences, all the while successfully engaging in the requirements the mission set and getting those things done. But that little flip in focus from mission to people, it helped me to understand what our true purpose is. As I told a few folks yesterday, I was presenting on the topic of leadership.

MK Palmore (03:56.232)
No one's going to remember you for having launched a solution or product in a company. That's not your legacy. In fact, you know how it is. There's nothing that you do in that realm that's alone. Most of those efforts are done by wildly successful teams where folks contribute to varying degrees in terms of getting a product or solution to market and then actually launching it. What people will remember about you in any organization is their

direct interactions with you, whether or not you took the time, especially in a leadership role, to give them a minute of your time and provide guidance, insight, or just have a conversation, a real conversation with them about something that wasn't necessarily work related, or even just asked about them, their future, what it is that they want to do professionally. Those moments matter to people because it's those individual moments that oftentimes impact their own individual trajectory.

And as a team leader, I've come to believe absolutely that it's more important when you walk away from one position to the next. It's more important the impact that you have on the individuals than the impact you have on the organization.

Matthew Chiodi (05:04.342)
Was there any particular leader that maybe exemplified that for you early on in your career?

MK Palmore (05:09.882)
I wouldn't say early on, but I've definitely had some experiences where I worked for folks who just really blew me away in terms of their focus on leadership. The one thing that they all have in common is this people-centered focus on leadership. I'd run through a brick wall for these folks because they took the time and showed the interest in me as an individual in terms of developing, offering themselves up, in terms of being mentors.

And I watch them. I see how they approach situations. see the level of engagement, the level of empathy that they that they you think they naturally possess it. don't you know, and maybe it was developed over time, but it seems like the best of what I've seen has been people who are people focused with great amounts of empathy. And they still were folks that you could count on for accomplishing things and getting things done. And those are are the people who stick out in my mind who I've.

who I've tried desperately to emulate. I don't always succeed, but yeah, a handful of people in mind. And those were folks that I came across in the Marine Corps, in the FBI. And then lastly, in the private sector, I've seen a handful of folks who I look at and I'm like, wow, they really, they understand it and they're getting that right.

Matthew Chiodi (06:07.309)
Hmm.

Matthew Chiodi (06:24.364)
I love that. And you're right. When I think about my career and I think about some of the leaders that I've worked for, that I have the highest respect for those are the leaders who took the time to pour into me, who knew me well enough to ask me to do things that I didn't think I could do. And it was

MK Palmore (06:37.204)
Mm-hmm.

Matthew Chiodi (06:44.718)
Absolutely scared out of my mind doing them. You many times I had this one leader and I've told them this many times over the last decade or so. I'm like, do you remember that time it was five minutes or 10 minutes before this meeting with these client bunch of VPs. And you're like, Hey, I need you to run this meeting for me. And I was like, what? You know, and, he, there was a habit of that and it wasn't, I found out in the end for part of me, it thought like, man, he's just like blowing this meeting off, but it was that he realized that he knew me well enough early enough in my career that.

He knew that if he had given me a day or two, I would have just over rotated on it. And he needed, he needed me to see that I could carry a meeting before I thought I could. And that's what I remember because he took the time and then even the informal one-on-ones, I can remember he was super busy guy, super busy, but I remember just going in for stopping by his office and him, you know, probably missing other meetings in order to have that personal one-on-one time.

MK Palmore (07:16.97)
Right.

MK Palmore (07:22.634)
All

MK Palmore (07:41.866)
So important, so important. And I think in the midst of those things, and certainly I've been privileged enough from time to time to have people tell me or give me feedback later that, I was thankful that you took that time three years ago to sit down with me and give me 15 minutes. I knew you were busy. But I remembered that conversation. And guess what? The advice you gave me resulted in x, y, and z. Those things land with people. And the opposite of it.

Matthew Chiodi (08:08.141)
Hmm.

MK Palmore (08:11.622)
lands as well when you see senior leaders who appear that they don't have the bandwidth to give you a moment of their time. I'm sorry, it leaves an impression on you and certainly gives, rightfully or wrongfully, the folks within teams, gives them an impression of the kind of person that you likely are. So I always try and pay attention to that kind of stuff.

Matthew Chiodi (08:26.446)
sure does.

MK Palmore (08:40.562)
None of us have unlimited bandwidth and every once in a while I over commit just like everyone else, but I try and make time for people when I can, for sure.

Matthew Chiodi (08:42.446)
Right?

Matthew Chiodi (08:49.592)
So in our industry, cybersecurity, there's a lot of folks that have amazing technical experience. But I think it was in one of your LinkedIn posts, you mentioned this myth that technical experience alone makes a great leader. Talk with us a little bit more about that. Again, I can remember early on in my career, I loved just being so deeply technical, I cherished it. So I'm curious from your perspective, what do you mean by that?

MK Palmore (09:05.886)
Yeah.

MK Palmore (09:11.708)
Right. Yeah, no, and yeah, and so let me let me set the stage first by saying I respect deeply folks who are deeply technical. I understand that at the end of the day, if we can't get it built and launched successfully, that these things are not going to happen. And so respect those capabilities. What I would ask is that even and especially for folks who are deeply technical.

that you think about that other half of your brain that needs to be nourished and that you need to be able to show people, and that is those skills that oftentimes get overlooked like your ability to communicate, like your ability to lead and empathize with others. It's great if you can come to the table and you're the first one up to the whiteboard to help architect a solution, but if you're a poor communicator and you feel as though

your technical skills at the end of the day should carry everything in terms of how you impact the enterprise. I'm here to tell folks that in all likelihood it will not. If you look at any high level leader, especially those operating a high level and chief operating officers, chief executive officers, folks who have been imbued and given those roles like SVP roles and these massive organizations, they are all pretty good communicators because at the end of the day,

You could be as inwardly facing and technical as you'd like to be, but if you can't express in a board setting or to other chief executives exactly what that technology, the impact that it may or may not have on company outcomes and things like that, like if you can't express those in a clear fashion, no one's gonna be looking to bring you into those executive roles so that you can continue to excel. And I guess more than anything, I just ask folks to pay attention to both sides of that.

and understand that if you come to the table and you can at least understand the technology, there's a place for you still in cybersecurity that may not require deeply technical skill sets in order for you to be able to enter the industry, thrive and actually contribute in a way that's at the end of the day, substantive in a way that helps the industry.

Matthew Chiodi (11:23.49)
I like that. And, know, I think very much related to this and one of your LinkedIn posts you mentioned, or you compared leadership to programming. don't know if you remember this post, but it was about finding the right patterns to express logic. So on one hand, if you based upon what you just said, and like this comment, it would almost seem like they're at odds, maybe expand a little bit on the analogy. How do you, how do you, how does that apply to leading specifically like security teams?

MK Palmore (11:36.35)
Right. Yeah.

MK Palmore (11:49.566)
Yeah, I don't think they're at odds at all. I think that oftentimes people just over-rotate or over-index on the idea that technical skills at the end of the day are going to win the day. In some instances they can, but I guess my proffer is that I think we're actually leaving, for lack of a better analogy, we're leaving money on the table. I think a high-performing team that has both technologists and good leaders, and certainly if you can find an individual that combines those skills,

you actually will produce more. You actually are by the very design of it, you've added an additional ingredient, your outcomes are going to be scaled maybe multiple fold if you put good leaders in place because they'll be able to extract actually more out of a team of highly technical professionals. And so my idea is just that we need to be thinking about both of these things and as I...

continue my journey as a cybersecurity leader and an industry leader, I'm always thinking about, okay, I see great talent all over the place. What am I doing to nourish folks to make sure that their leadership skills are also something that they're developing and bringing along with those technical talents? Because I think the combination of both of those technically oriented folks with high level communication skills and ability to lead, that's a big one-two punch. No one can stop you from progressing in an industry if you've got both of those skills in hand.

Matthew Chiodi (13:13.454)
I like that. And I would agree with you. So you touched on the next area I wanted to go to, was, which was communication, right? So you can be extremely technically adept. You can be someone who understands business concepts. But again, if you're, if you're maybe early on earlier on in your career and you quite haven't figured out the communication piece or later on in your career and you're just not, it's not a natural strength.

I've noticed with you, MK, you are a great communicator. This has been my experience with you. Talk with us a little bit about like, how did you develop this skill of communication that you have today? I know with a lot of time we look at a senior leader like yourself. There's an assumption that you were always like this. You're always a great communicator. Talk with us a little bit about like, how did you develop the skill and just maybe start from there.

MK Palmore (14:01.514)
Times at bat is the short answer. Iterations, right? You know, any professional athlete, especially quarterback St. Anisfail will tell you that's the number of reps that they're able to do in practice that actually contribute to their level of skill on the playing field. And for me, it boils down to number of reps and opportunities. I have always been there, so there was a morsel of something there.

Matthew Chiodi (14:04.238)
Hmm.

MK Palmore (14:25.866)
always been at least a decent communicator, but I think that I achieved a different level in status when I've been put into positions professionally where I've had jobs that have required me to be a communicator. And I have always been one to jump at opportunities to express, make sure that I understand how to communicate topics and issues. I did a little bit of time as an adjunct instructor.

which I think was immensely helpful in sort of helping me to perfect what I felt like my messaging needed to be in front of audiences of different sizes and how I could get in touch with that audience in as quickly a fashion as I possibly could. And it's just through iteration, I understand like what that perfect scenario looks like for me, what an ideal scenario looks like. And every once in a while, I like to push myself. I've been in front of audiences that number in the hundreds.

and I've been in rooms with small teams and everything in between. And I have my own personal sweet spot that I like. Like I actually have a number in mind that I think is the perfect scenario for me. And it's more akin to what a classroom size might look like rather than a main stage presenter, because I feel like if I can connect with the people directly in the audience, I feel like I hit a home run every time. it's through iteration, through practice, I've always been one to...

Matthew Chiodi (15:36.876)
Hmm.

MK Palmore (15:53.5)
sort of volunteer, if you will, to do things that are uncomfortable for me. And it's through wading through that kind of space that I've been able to develop what might be considered, I don't like the term expertise, but certainly I feel comfortable getting up in front of folks and speaking on topics. And the security topic in particular was one that I had to get my head wrapped around, because I already felt like I had at least the beginnings of high-level communication skills. I had to learn the technology piece.

and then figure out how I, as a sort of novice technologist, how I would then convey those concepts in terms of, I've shown you that I understand it, but let's bring it down to the lowest common denominator so we can actually talk about how we solve a particular problem associated with it. And that's kind of where my sweet spot exists. Like I am able to get in front of an audience of both highly technical folks and also folks on the other end of the spectrum who's like,

Matthew Chiodi (16:22.018)
Hmm.

MK Palmore (16:49.834)
hey, I just kind of barely understand this technology. What issue are we trying to solve? And I tend to be able to build that bridge so that the technologists can have their portion of the say, but I'm also bringing in the people who may be stakeholders, but aren't necessarily deeply ensconced in the technology. And I act as a bridge to make sure we're all talking the same language and actually keyed in on what it is that we need to solve.

Matthew Chiodi (17:12.482)
you know, early in my career, one of my managers who I still am in contact with said, hey, there's this Toastmasters thing and I think you should go to it. And I was like, Toastmasters, what is that? Is it like a drinking club? know, it's like, it a drinking club? What are you trying to say? But I ended up going, this is back when I was at Deloitte and of course, know, Deloitte.

MK Palmore (17:27.464)
right? Yeah.

Matthew Chiodi (17:35.586)
They want your, they want everybody to be polished as consultants as you'd expect. that for me was a really great experience. And I did that for a couple of years. And that is a great way, I think in a low pressure environment to get reps that you're talking about getting the reps in. Like, so if you're a listener and you are like not where you want to be in terms of communication, strongly recommend you find your local toast masters group.

and just show up because that's the kind of thing it is. And if you want to get free at bats where the stakes are extremely low, that's a great place to do it.

MK Palmore (18:10.814)
Yeah, there you go. mean, and that's a great point to reemphasize, whether it be low stakes or just the idea and understanding from you as a speaker that you are not going to hit a home run every time. mean, God, please do not assume that folks who are known to be speakers or great speakers hit a home run every time because I don't. I don't. Even today, every once in a while, I have an interaction.

with a group of customers and I was like, you know what? That didn't go exactly the way that I had planned. And you know, because the audience is not giving you the feedback that you are used to getting, so you know that you did not nail that one. Yeah, I mean, you learn from failure, right? And that's one of those things that at least I like to think when I have those situations happen, I definitely quickly identify, okay, here's where maybe I went askew.

Matthew Chiodi (18:45.582)
Yeah.

MK Palmore (19:04.187)
didn't talk about a particular topic long enough or didn't make sure I get their buy-in early on to make sure we were all on the same sheet of music. I've had those situations occur as well and I take a lesson from

Matthew Chiodi (19:15.226)
I like your honesty there. You immediately brought to mind one of the times where I was at, it was early the early days at Palo Alto Networks where I was out on a, I was with the sales team out in front of a very large bank. And I knew there was a sensitive topic and for whatever reason things were going well.

I brought it up and I don't know what I was thinking like in terms of it, but I thought I could do something with it. And was it ever like a Led Zeppelin? Like it went over and just crashed like quiet room, the sales guys in the back going like this, going like, no, like, no, don't like, why did you bring it to BS? He's like, why did you bring it up? We knew a sense of topic. And I was like, I thought I could do something with it. And yeah. So for people that are listening, feed people that are good communicators.

MK Palmore (19:45.482)
Why'd you bring that up?

Matthew Chiodi (20:00.824)
also make a lot of mistakes with it. But I think it's learning from it, being that continual student and looking at other leaders in terms of how they're recovering from failures like that. that's a, it does happen. It does happen. But so you wrote, so you can tell I spent a lot of time looking through your LinkedIn profile. It's an amazing source of information and.

MK Palmore (20:12.35)
Right. It happens.

MK Palmore (20:21.972)
Yeah.

Matthew Chiodi (20:25.078)
I love how active you are in sharing your knowledge with the community. And you wrote though, this caught my attention. You said, when leaders go quiet, assumptions grow loud. So where did you come up with that? Like what were maybe some of the experiences that you were like, things are getting quiet.

MK Palmore (20:39.817)
Yeah.

MK Palmore (20:44.394)
I've had a number of experiences, especially in high profile environments where things may not be going exactly as planned. And it creates a lot of uncertainty, especially up and down in an organization. And my experience has been that when you communicate something to the folks that work on your teams, work with you, something is communicated from higher.

It alleviates some of the pressure that's developing. It's like a release valve for pressure building for my engineers out there. If you don't say something, that pressure just builds. And what happens is that in the absence of clear guidance or clear direction, people will come up with their own answers about what's going on. And we have a tendency as humans to gravitate towards the thing that we think is going to be the most harmful to us.

Matthew Chiodi (21:40.718)
Mm.

MK Palmore (21:40.874)
as individuals, which is unfortunate because that's not even always the case. Certainly in the last, what, four years, we've been in this period of sort of economic uncertainty. came off of COVID, went into a little bit of a boom. Everybody was back to work and things are great. And then all of a sudden, things kind of start to get a little bit squeamish. We see corporations having a fair number.

not necessarily massive, but consistent layoffs. so maybe our belief that the economic issue is in a sound one creates uncertainty in people. People are worried about whether not their individual jobs ultimately will be impacted. And so I've just found that over time that as a leader, you have a responsibility to provide information, even if that information is, I don't...

Matthew Chiodi (22:09.389)
Hmm.

MK Palmore (22:34.3)
I am not quite sure exactly all of the things that are going on, but to be fully transparent, here's what I know. That can be enormously comforting to folks. And it gives them the, it allows them to sort of repurpose that energy and get back to work. Like, because they're not so much dealing with the uncertainty of what's going on. You know, the boss, he or she steps in and says, hey, here's what I understand is going on. Well, let's continue on the mission. Let's continue doing what we're responsible for doing. let's.

Matthew Chiodi (22:40.439)
Hmm.

MK Palmore (23:03.166)
until we're told otherwise, I think can be extremely impactful. I just call on all leaders to make sure that as you get into those periods of uncertainty, make sure you actually ramp up your communication rather than dial it back because the people need that in order to continue doing the jobs that they're doing. And of course, the lower you are in the organization, the more that you feel out of touch with leadership decisions, it can have an immensely chaotic effect on

their ability to be productive if the idea there is just complete uncertainty, complete grayness with no communication as to what they have to look forward to.

Matthew Chiodi (23:41.142)
I heard the quote recently, I think it's from Andy Stanley and he said, pay attention to the tension as a leader, pay attention to the tension. And I've been, think we've all been in those meetings where, you know, it's a leadership meeting, there's a bunch of leaders in there and there's just this palpable tension in the room and no one's addressing it. And you kind of walk away from those meetings. You just, you just have that feeling, right? Like, I wish we would have talked about this. And so I think.

MK Palmore (23:47.038)
Right. Yeah, that's great.

Matthew Chiodi (24:10.318)
in those moments, right? There's silence from, you know, whoever the, whether it's a CEO or CEO, whoever's running those meetings where they probably felt it as well and likely chose to, well, maybe they didn't feel it. It depends on how high their EQ is, but they may have chosen to purposely not address it because it was a difficult topic. And so I think, you know, going back to your point when leaders go quiet, assumptions grow loud. People walk away from those meetings with

MK Palmore (24:29.588)
Yeah.

Matthew Chiodi (24:38.506)
assumptions that again lead to anxiety for your workforce. And if you as a leader are feeling that way, that does roll down in my experience to your workforce. They're going to sense it from you.

MK Palmore (24:42.527)
Right.

MK Palmore (24:49.734)
If you feel uncertainty as a leader, imagine how the people working for you feel. It definitely rolls in. It grows in its impact the lower you go at each stage that you progress through the organization.

Matthew Chiodi (25:06.798)
We touched on this a little bit earlier in that in cybersecurity specifically, there is this tendency, at least from what I've seen, that there's just a very big emphasis on the technical skills side of it. And yet I think over the last call it five to 10 years, there is an expectation that if you are a cybersecurity leader, you're going to be able to communicate and act as a bridge between the technical parts of your team and your business stakeholders.

Talk a little bit more about in terms of, know, if you're somebody who is a cybersecurity leader, whether it's, you know, a director level or above, talk about some of the skills that you think, or maybe some of the resources they could go after in order to build the ability to bridge that gap between the technical and the business side. How would you recommend they approach that?

MK Palmore (25:57.502)
Yeah, I mean, it has to do a little bit about the conversation that we just had around reps, right? It's the opportunities that you get to have conversations in circles where maybe you normally don't. I think as a good leader, one of the things that I try and do is give opportunities for my team members to amplify the work that they're doing. I think that's a clear...

Matthew Chiodi (26:03.277)
Mm-hmm.

Matthew Chiodi (26:18.285)
Hmm.

MK Palmore (26:20.618)
example of an opportunity to develop communication skills in people. You could have someone who's knocking it out of the park, right, or working on an individual project. How many times have you actually asked the overall team, hey, I'd like to give 10 minutes for so-and-so to come up and talk about the work that they've been doing. One builds confidence in the employee in terms of the project that they've been working on, its level of importance, and it also acts as an opportunity for people to develop those skills and get comfortable.

You know, if you can get over the anxiousness of presenting and get comfortable, especially if you have some relative expertise in the topic that you're presenting on, that opens the door to actual conversation where people can actually learn and there's an exchange of information. That tension or anxiety acts as a barrier to your ability to communicate and you've got to look for ways to get over that barrier. You know, one of the things I do if I'm speaking in front of

a large audience, for say an audience that I've never communicated with. I've been asked to come and talk on some particular topic. There's a couple of things I do to release my own personal anxiety around, even to this day, around this scenario. One, I like to see the room that I'm gonna be speaking in before I go in there. I hate coming from behind the curtain on the stage and then there's the room and that's my first time seeing it and the number of people, believe it or not. So I like to see the room beforehand. Obviously, you

polish up on your material so that you're not tied to, especially if you're using decks. I mean, I've gotten to the point now where thankfully the deck for me is the visual for you. I don't need it, but it's there if you want something to look at. And maybe it's used as a cue for me, but I think I'm a long way away from reading bullets on a slide. So if I've seen the room, I've practiced and I feel like I know my, from a knowledge standpoint, my material.

Matthew Chiodi (28:01.431)
Hmm.

MK Palmore (28:15.882)
I have the ability then to visualize my own success in that environment. And I literally go through a visualization exercise of me successfully delivering that information in a calm, composed fashion. believe it or not, I'm imagining the nods from the audience members in terms of their responsiveness, they're hearing what I'm saying, they're engaging. I even look for opportunities, of course, to...

to interact and maybe even ask questions depending on how large the room is so that I can get them engaged and let them make sure, hey, are you following along with this or am I just up here throwing out a bunch of information that ultimately ends up not to be useful? I mean, there's a couple of things baked in the question that you have, like the practice of doing it, the iteration, the process that you go through in order to prepare for the opportunity to communicate and deliver to people.

All of those things are important and I would just say in a corporate environment, any opportunity that you get to present to a team, your team, and especially teams that you are unfamiliar with so that they become familiar with your work, raise your hand for that every time. Because when people do become familiar with your work, especially outside of your team, they then get some kind of knowledge as to who you are.

and are more apt and often to turn to you to help with other things that are maybe tangential to what it is that you're doing, but it helps expand your network internally at the company as well. yeah, just raise your hand. Take every opportunity that you can, especially if you're afraid of it, so that you can do it and get over that anxiety of speaking in

Matthew Chiodi (29:55.438)
When I was at Deloitte, one of the things they talked about was, um, what are you, what is your eminence? And I remember the time when I'm like, what do mean? What is your eminence? And it's basically, what are you, what do you want to be known for? And this was, again, this was early on in my career. And, but it was just like, when you're, you have a personal brand, whether you realize it or not, what, what is it that you want to be known for? What is the specialty? If it's a technical top tech technical area.

MK Palmore (30:05.194)
Mm-hmm.

Matthew Chiodi (30:22.122)
leadership, whatever it might be, what is your eminence? And I think this fits really well into what you were talking about, because what I found is if you were willing to stand up and talk about something, you were immediately seen as a leader or a thought leader in that area.

It doesn't matter how junior you are. could be, you know, if it's something that's very top of mind today with, you know, which is AI, where there are very few people who are truly experts on the topic. And there's just a hunger for knowledge, right? I'm seeing a whole explosion of people that are, you know, in their twenties that are now being there. They're becoming the leaders on this because they've, they've deep dived into it. And people like me are trying to figure out, okay, like, how do I, how do I best leverage this? And again, these are folks that probably maybe a year ago,

MK Palmore (30:44.52)
Mm-hmm.

Matthew Chiodi (31:07.232)
Maybe knew nothing about it themselves, but they were willing to stand up, get in front of an audience, even if it's, you know, podcast or YouTube or whatever it might be. But they're now leaders in that space.

MK Palmore (31:13.044)
Mm-hmm.

MK Palmore (31:17.798)
And the one common thread, first of all, agree with everything that you just said, the one common thread I see in those people is relatedness. Like they're able to, in a related way...

convey this immensely complex information about artificial intelligence and large language models in a way that resonates for people because they have a level of comfort in communicating their knowledge about this topic in front of those audiences. And the best ones that I've seen are people that are immensely relatable. Like you feel like, you know, not only do I know this person, maybe I know a version of them in my own circle and here they are communicating about this great topic. now, now we can concentrate on the material

real itself, right? Because you trust the communicator. You're actually listening. They're presenting it to you in a way that makes sense. They've taken this immensely technical topic, turned it into something that's real and tangible. And hey, you walk away feeling, I think I understand this AI thing now. I understand its possibilities, its potential for impact. And then you want to learn more. It actually increases your desire to learn more.

Matthew Chiodi (32:24.116)
One of the things that gets talked about a lot in cybersecurity over the last, it five years is just how there's a talent shortage. There's all these open roles and you've done a lot of work with a cybersity, which you've been a champion for diversity in cybersecurity. What do you think, what have you seen are some of the biggest barriers to bringing non-traditional talent into the field? like, what are some of the ways you've seen organizations successfully overcome those?

MK Palmore (32:53.022)
The biggest challenge is awareness. I think the cybersecurity industry has done itself a disservice in terms of how it's presented the topic of cybersecurity to wider society. We don't do a good job. Again, we act as our own gatekeepers. We present the topic as one that's immensely technical, which it is, but...

The caveat we put on that vision that we've created of it is not only is it immensely technical, but you wouldn't understand it even if you tried. So just do these basic things and stay off your computer. Don't click those links. We try and dumb it down to this really, you know, this thing that's quite frankly not helpful to us trying to really solve this problem. So I think we've done ourselves a disservice as an industry from the awareness standpoint. And I also think that we don't do enough to include

people who I think would be inclined and good at this work. We haven't done a good job reaching out to those people in the places where they happen to be. You can pick any well-known cybersecurity leader today. If you were to put together 10 folks with deep see-saw experience and line them up, you'd probably have, if you're being smart about it, probably three or four women in that group, six men.

you'd find that probably two of them have cybersecurity specific backgrounds and then the other eight likely don't come from cybersecurity backgrounds. Maybe two others come from a deeply IT background, but I guarantee you four of them are gonna be people who were like English majors in college and pick this stuff up because they had a technical sales job or something like that when they first started out or

Matthew Chiodi (34:20.654)
Hmm.

MK Palmore (34:42.026)
They've spent enough time around the industry in either risk and compliance or other adjacent areas that they've developed the understanding and technical expertise that they need to do the job. Most of them are decent communicators, oh by the way, because that's how you get to be named a CISO. Like no one's going to put a CISO in place who just turns knobs and knows how to write code. Like you better be able to communicate because they don't want to put you in front of the board of directors from time to time and explain exactly what's going on in the organization.

You got to be a decent communicator. I think between awareness, how it is that we conduct outreach, and then the on-ramps that we need to be giving ourselves to actually allow people to come into the industry, I think all of those things are probably misfiring. And I'll tell you a case in point, entry-level jobs and cybersecurity, no one has them. You know why? Because organizations don't want to spend the time teaching people.

Matthew Chiodi (35:35.192)
Hmph.

MK Palmore (35:40.266)
how to be cyber professionals. They want you to come in, get in front of that screen with deep experience and expertise and protect their organizations immediately. And that is a problem for us as an industry because we're not preparing for the future. Entry level jobs essentially do not exist in the cyber security space because companies don't give themselves the grace to understand that you should be able to bring people in, train them up, teach them because the

Matthew Chiodi (35:49.635)
Hmm.

MK Palmore (36:09.77)
The grace that we give ourselves for mistakes and failure is non-existent. You don't want failure. You don't want a mistake. not giving yourself time to having the mistakes. I personally think that's the reason why CISOs, I think the number is still at 24 months, or the average time of a CISO in corporate America. And most of them move on because they're like, knock on wood, they're like, hey, I haven't had a major breach. I better get out of here before something happens or something that, you know,

Matthew Chiodi (36:14.893)
Hmm.

Matthew Chiodi (36:26.456)
Yeah.

MK Palmore (36:39.346)
ends up in a downward spiral. We're not investing in the future in cybersecurity. We are overburdened with the tyranny of the now. And as an industry, probably aren't spending enough time thinking about what this industry is going to look like in five to 10 years. Certainly not any longer than that. But I'd say we're probably doing a poor job of it collectively as an industry because we're unwilling to take those calculated risk and bringing in new talent.

teaching and spending that talent up and then ensuring that they're ready. know, what's the old adage, you know, if I spend time training that person up and they're going to leave. Of course they're going to leave. Yes, we're all rotating through, you know, this experience of life. The idea of someone coming into a job or a corporation like you think you own them or they're going to work for you for 20 plus years, that's a little bit of an outdated concept now.

You should expect to come in, nourish that person, train them up, get them to be the best performing individual that they can be, and then the gates open for them. And you should just constantly be rotating talent. Some people will remain and become the core of your company culture and your existence as an organization. Some people are going to rotate out, and you better hope they had a great experience. So they talk about how great an opportunity you gave them and trained them up and made them ready for other opportunities.

Matthew Chiodi (38:05.614)
I love that. That's powerful. And I think that challenges a lot of the ways people look at their talent because they feel like it's a, I don't know. You're right. I think that you said that they treat it like it's like,

MK Palmore (38:12.009)
Yeah.

Matthew Chiodi (38:18.358)
I'm yours, you're mine, this is part of it. like, how could someone ever leave, right? And again, the best leaders I've had when I've come to them and have said, basically, here's my notice. Of course, there's the, yeah, they're excited. Of course, there's a part of them that's like, you know, but they're the best leaders are the ones that are excited for you, right? So I appreciate that. MK, how do you stay sharp? What's your personal routine look like?

MK Palmore (38:19.55)
Yeah.

MK Palmore (38:30.154)
They should be excited. Yeah. Yeah.

MK Palmore (38:45.674)
My personal routine is that I battle with probably taking on too much. I don't know about you, but my bandwidth is non-existent at the moment. I stay sharp because I'm constantly engaged in the issues in terms of learning. I always also know, I give myself enough grace to know that I don't know everything and I'm pretty good at getting up to speed quickly on things. So I digest white papers.

Matthew Chiodi (38:51.47)
See ya.

MK Palmore (39:15.754)
If someone wants to send me a deck and that explains a particularly challenging topic, I'm pretty good at digesting stuff on my own. And if I hear someone present on a topic, forget about it. At that point, I'm a little bit like a machine. If I hear someone present on it, I could probably go present on that same topic shortly thereafter. I'm always in listen mode, and I take the best of what I hear and read, and I incorporate that into my own.

MK Palmore (39:45.098)
The last thing I'll say on sort staying sharp thing is I always know that I don't know everything. I mean, there's just, there's no end to this.

Matthew Chiodi (39:53.164)
beginner's mind.

MK Palmore (39:54.078)
Yeah, and nearly every aspect of life. I just got to be open to the idea that maybe I'm going to hear something or see something that's just brand new to me.

Matthew Chiodi (40:01.518)
Is there anything I should have asked you or anything else you wanted to cover?

MK Palmore (40:05.322)
No, think we've covered at least a ton of the stuff that represents all the crap on my plate as someone who's going through this journey. But no, I think we're...

Matthew Chiodi (40:18.338)
I love it. Well, MK, thanks for coming on the show. This has been fun.

MK Palmore (40:21.47)
You bet. Great conversation, Matt. Thanks for having me.