This episode features Kimberly Anstett, CIO at Trellix. Kimberly shares insights from her experience with digital transformation, the importance of prioritizing employee experience, and much more.
This episode features Kimberly Anstett, CIO at Trellix. Kimberly shares insights from her experience with digital transformation, focusing on the critical alignment of CIO and CISO roles to create a unified IT and IS strategy. She discusses how prioritizing employee experience and leveraging IT can enhance collaboration and boost productivity. Throughout the conversation, Kimberly highlights the significance of a cohesive strategy and effective teamwork in driving impactful digital transformation.
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Guest Bio:
Kim leads the Enterprise Technology and Operations organization at Trellix. Under her leadership, Kim’s teams develop and execute a technology strategy that drives efficiency, flexibility, and transformation across the business to advance Trellix's vision. With more than 25 years of industry experience, Kim brings her extensive background guiding teams to drive innovation. Prior to Trellix, she was Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Iron Mountain, leading teams across product development and innovation, and CIO at Nielsen, focused on customer value and increased cybersecurity outcomes. She holds a B.S. from Tufts University and currently serves on the Board of Directors for Quotient Technology.
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Guest Quote
“I'm a big fan and a passionate advocate for really looking at platforms and architecture. It's not just how cool a screen looks or what the latest app is on the phone. It's what's the underlying architecture and where are there open architectures where I know I'll be able to integrate and bring in data and the processes across those platforms. Because the best position I can be in for the organization is to know that I have the flexibility to change out parts and pieces as the business changes.”
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Time stamps:
*(00:00) Episode Start
*(00:45) Kimberly's career journey
*(02:31) CIO vs. CISO: Why they should work together
*(12:32) How to build an impactful digital foundation
*(26:14) Employee experience and technology integration
*(35:08) Learnings from leading digital transformation
*(39:15) Future of GenAI in cybersecurity
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Links:
Ian Faison: [00:00:00] In the ever evolving world of business, a revolution is underway. Welcome to Hyperconnected Journeys, where the future of success begins right now. I'm your host, Ian Faison, and I'm joined by my co host and industry leader, Raj Porchester, to guide you through the intricacies of network transformation.
We're here to be your compass in the realm of network transformation, in a world that's customer centric and interconnect. Join us on unleashing the power of hyperconnectivity. Welcome to Hyperconnected Journeys. I'm Ian Faison, CEO of Caspian Studios, and As always by my co host Raj. Raj, how are you? Good, Ian.
Brilliant. How are you doing? I'm just, I'm living the dream. You know, I got, I got no complaints. Uh, and we have a special guest today. Uh, Kimberly, how are you?
Kimberly Anstett: Doing great. Thanks, Ian. Thrilled to be here with you and Raj today.
Ian Faison: Same here, Kim. Brilliant to meet you. Yeah, and we're going to dig all into Kimberly's [00:01:00] background today, uh, doing a couple really cool digital transformations at other companies and then now a really unique challenge here at, uh, at Trellix.
Well, challenge, but in the best type of way. Um, so tell us a little bit about your current role, uh, at Trellix.
Kimberly Anstett: Perfect. So I joined Trellox about two years ago. Um, really excited to be here. Um, for me, it's the perfect next step for what I, what I have been doing. So I've been in technology for over 25 years, uh, the first half of my career.
Was spent very much in product engineering, delivering solutions and technology and products for customers across various industries. Uh, spent the most time at Nielsen where definitely fell in love and built a lot of muscle around data and, uh, working in the media space as well as consumer packaged goods.
That set me up, um, for a position of the CIO role, actually. So I made a move from the CTO world and product [00:02:00] and went into the CIO role to really help unlock what it would mean in terms of true technology enablement. And, and really that did that first step of digital transformation for the employee experience, worked at Nielsen in that role for about five years, and then went to Iron Mountain, uh, and worked with their digital transformation.
And so. When Trellix came around, it was perfect for me in terms of my passion for technology, as well as transformation, um, but even more so in security, which had been something that I'd worked on for many years. And so to work now for the cybersecurity software firm, to be customer zero and get to really be the best voice of a customer in terms of what our product should do and how Trellix, just, you know, was the ideal spot to make that move.
Ian Faison: I know there's a bit of sort of, uh, there's always different ways to think about it. How do you think about, you know, the relationship between You know, CAO and CISO and something that you, I know of, have honed over the years in both those type [00:03:00] of roles.
Kimberly Anstett: That's such a great question, and it's something I am really passionate about.
It was at Nielsen where we built our first cybersecurity organization. While we had security, for many years, Nielsen was not, um, necessarily, you know, the most digital, uh, of forms in terms of the solutions that we, we, we sent out to our customers. And so I get to hire our first CISO and build a cybersecurity program.
And, uh, it was absolutely fantastic. I, I feel like when the two are together, Uh, you can move very quickly because there's aligned goals, um, and, you know, just organizationally, you don't, you don't feel those barriers. When I moved to Iron Mountain, the CISO role and CIO role were actually separated under different organizations.
And, um, while I first felt a little uncomfortable about that and wondered, you know, how effective we could be, what I found that it was also a very, You know, very successful model and allowed me actually to become more connected into the business and what our [00:04:00] customer needs were as we were, um, very, uh, tied into both, uh, the public sector, healthcare, financial services, and the government, the governance and regulation that came with it.
But what, but what we learned there that I Trellix. So regardless of the model, it's about bringing that IT and IS strategy together. When it's the technology strategy for the enterprise, that really is the vehicle for a security, um, strategy as well. Everyone, you know, it just makes sense. It clicks and everybody works together much more effectively versus having two different strategies.
So for me, they're both critically important roles, uh, having built products for customers for years. I, I absolutely fell in love with working for the enterprise and the opportunity that I get as a technologist to bring better, faster, more agile and digital capabilities to our employees so that we can ultimately deliver to customers and whatever those products and services may be.[00:05:00]
Ian Faison: And how important, you know, coming into this new role is, uh, connectivity and, uh, and thinking about, you know, business objectives.
Kimberly Anstett: Um, it's been, it's been super interesting, um, here at Trellix. Uh, this is the first experience I've had where we brought two fantastic companies and enterprises, large companies together.
Uh, Trellix is the formation of, uh, what I believe is the best cybersecurity platform, bringing together what McAfee Enterprise had delivered for many years and FireEye. And so having that. Full breadth of security portfolio, I believe is, you know, the first company that will truly bring extended detection and response XDR to our customers.
And so, connectivity is so important, obviously from a, you know, how our solutions work together, how our teams, our global teams, um, in, you know, dozens of countries all around the world, um, work together, but, but also our solutions themselves, [00:06:00] how our, uh, endpoint technology and our security operations technology and our data loss protection technology that came from two different companies that we've now brought into one portfolio.
Um, there were, you know, multiple data centers. Um, there are multiple cloud implementations. And so we spent time right up front putting the right centers of excellence in place, both from an infrastructure, Um, uh, perspective on prem within data centers, but also obviously in cloud, um, and in multiple clouds.
So the connectivity, the architecture, the strategy, um, and the team to execute was, uh, a real foundational item that if we didn't get that right, you know, people couldn't do their work and our customers certainly weren't going to get the solutions they needed. I've also found that the most, you know, a critical element of it, not only putting the time in and establishing that foundation, But also doing it with the right partners.
It's really important to, uh, have that partner strategy to [00:07:00] be able to deliver quickly, um, and to be able to understand, you know, what others are doing across the market. I think it's great with, you know, the conversations that you lead and the different, uh, you know, technology leaders to be able to understand what others are doing, what best practices, you know, what challenges or failures people ran into.
That's a huge part of getting that right. Uh, you know, kind of connectivity being one piece, but a real foundational piece.
Ian Faison: Raj, I don't know if you have any follow ups there. I think I have a hundred.
Yeah, so, you know, the first question, uh, Kim, that I have for you is, uh, you know, you spoke about, uh, the difference when the CISO was aligned and when the CISO was different, right? Uh, in a different group. Um, you know, what are the advantages and disadvantages of, of this?
As you see, I'm very intrigued with that perspective because, uh, you know, from my side, what I see when, when I go and speak to organizations [00:08:00] where the CISO has a different, uh, It's sitting in a different org structure. Is that, uh, you know, the KRA is being different. Sometimes there'll be friction. Now you said, you know, in Iron Mountain, it worked out well.
Uh, you know, how did, did it happen and, and how did you come together? It's very interesting, uh, from that perspective. I'm sure the listeners would love to know that.
Kimberly Anstett: And I do think it's really important, um, for sure for the folks who sit within the CISO organization, the folks who sit within the CIO organization, um, they, they feel it most, but really the entire organization is, is better or worse off depending on how the model is in place and how, um, you know, the relationships and the culture work.
And I, I didn't really understand that until I was at Iron Mountain. Um, and, and, um, And here at Trellix, the organization is back together with Asiso as part of my organization. But, but what I really learned at Iron Mountain was how important it is to [00:09:00] understand the full breadth of, of your security strategy, whether it be in your compliance and governance, um, your interaction with, you know, uh, the different, um, you know, parts of your portfolio, customer base.
Right? Healthcare being quite different than we had in public sector, different than, you know, some of the technology customers we supported. Um, also the actual, you know, technology itself, it's, it's so important for a CISO. The CISO gets up every day and, you know, kind of has a bullseye on the back or maybe the feeling of it in terms of all the different, you know, threat actors and, and, uh, the ways, you know, that your organization could be targeted.
Um, They sit in the position where more and more of the organization is opened up to make things simple and fast, hybrid work. But they're the ones who, you know, the job is to protect the organization and make sure nothing goes wrong. And it's a little bit of, obviously, a vulnerable position. On the CIO side, um, You have the responsibility, but also to some [00:10:00] degree the control to make the decisions of how open an enterprise is or how people work.
And so when those sit separately and they aren't aligned or, or haven't invested the time to align, it can be extremely frustrating on both sides because the CIO may feel, um, there's limitations and you can't serve the business because of What policy and security, you know, process is in place. And so it's quite easy for the two to, to be, you know, at odds.
But when it comes together, when you just spend the time to build the relationship and to think equally about the business you're serving, because both are. All about enabling the business, you know, it's protecting the business, but enabling the business. And when you build that strategy together and you make technology decisions together, you know, it's a little humbling because it may not be the fastest for a CIO to do certain things that the CISO really wants.
But when you give on both sides and you align, It just all of a sudden creates this amazing feeling [00:11:00] of relief and it opens up speed to really get to what the business needs. And it sounds, you know, I would have never thought about the time and investment to make because we're all part of the same company.
It's like, of course we would, you know, be aligned and we're working towards the same, we're talking to the same business leaders, but we were having different conversations because we were different organizations and we were being approached as separate. You know, I need something from Kim over here. I need something from the CISO over there.
We, we made it our, our, you know, our method and our approach to go forward. Once we saw some of those, you know, gaps or, uh, areas of friction, we made it a point to say to the organization, we have an IT and IS strategy together, and we refresh it each year and we have quarterly reviews. And when you have, when you are looking to engage and say, how does technology enable me?
It's not just a CIO technology conversation. It's a conversation. It's a technology, secure technology. It's the reliable technology. It's got the protections and we do it together. CIO and CISO. I can't say, you know, [00:12:00] it's always brilliant and seamless, but it really was a mindset shift that, that I wouldn't have Realized before, um, because I had, how I had been organized.
Um, and it really is something that I find is powerful. And as I talk to, you know, colleagues or, or customers today, I encourage whatever your model is, you really invest in that relationship at the highest level, but also throughout the organization.
So it's about relationship. Culture and the mindset, right?
These are the three main things that, uh, comes together. Brilliant. Thank you so much. Yeah.
Kimberly Anstett: The technology implementation itself is easy once you get through all of that people stuff.
Ian Faison: And, uh, you know, you, you mentioned foundations being important. Um, you know, how do you think about, you know, the, the zipping up of these two companies and building a digital foundation between two, you know, seemingly, seemingly You know, similar ish companies obviously coming together, but uh, but every, the no [00:13:00] two companies are actually that similar once you get under the hood.
Kimberly Anstett: Absolutely. Absolutely. It's, they're, they're different culturally, they're different in terms of the technology used, um, the partners used and, and it is, it was really important to us not to fall into the trap of, you know, which one feels either. Bigger or cleaner or easier. A lot of times it's about, you know, what feels easier to do.
Um, it, it's important to think about what are we trying to do? And, and I think about digital, digital transformation that, you know, people have been talking about for years, but, um, you know, it's meant different things. And for me at the core of it is how do we make things easier? How do we really get all that technology has to offer so that we can work much more quickly in the agile world, in the world where Business dynamics are, you know, like we've never seen before because there are connections and information and data that's possible to be able to make different decisions, uh, whether it's your customers [00:14:00] that you're serving or within the business, that's where digital really hits the spot.
And that's where digital really, I think, makes sense to people when you look at. What does digital mean? Number, for me, number one, it's the employee experience. How can I create the environment that regardless of where my employees sit, you know, 10 years ago, definitely had employees all around the world.
Um, but today, you know, hybrid workforce, And, and really, you know, being able to enable the employees wherever they are, however they're working on, whatever they're working on, that employee experience is all, you know, where it needs to be when you have the right digital strategy, along with employee experience.
It's how quickly you can change, which is, you know, going to allow you to show up and serve and improve that employee experience. But that agility is so important. And for me, part of that is. The, the time you put in to make sure your, your strategy and your rural architecture work. It's not what [00:15:00] solution do I need for finance?
What solution do I need for sales? What solution do I need for this operations team? I have seen, and I've been part of, you know, discussions with vendors and looking at certain software solutions where we've said, you know, this is the best solution. This is best in class. This is what everybody uses for this or that.
Um, And, and what we found is, you know, six months down the line after implementation, someone somewhere is frustrated because sales and finance are looking at different data or they are unable to get certain insights because those systems aren't connected. So I, I believe strongly in the connected architecture and architecture that works.
And when you think about it with data at the core, data has to flow across systems. When you get that right, that speed and agility come. And for me, those, those are, you know, the really key elements about that employee experience, it's about an enterprise strategy for your platforms and how they are, you know, how they interact, how they're integrated and how that foundation of data underneath, underneath all of [00:16:00] it is really, I believe, you know, the secret sauce and, and, uh, you know, the magic that makes it all happen.
Ian Faison: How long approximately did it, has the process take, well I guess is it, I guess there's no ever an end date, but like how long has the process taken?
Kimberly Anstett: So I would definitely say, um, you know, the job is never done, which is why I've been in technology for this long. I love the continuous change. Um, I love the evolution of technology and the evolution of business and, and that's why I ended up in the CIO role and haven't, you know, moved away from it because you always have something new to solve.
Um, But for Trellix, um, putting, I would say, you know, putting a, um, a circle around, you know, some form of done in terms of, did we, you know, get through the phase where we actually operate the way, you know, we set out to do? Um, I would say, uh, in my first, Six months in the company, we took a major step [00:17:00] to separate from the companies that we had been part of.
So, uh, that's always interesting, whether you're doing M& A and you're acquiring a company and bringing it in or, uh, you know, pulling a piece out of a company or bringing up, uh, um, you know, two companies together, like we did here at Trellix. That happened in the first six months. Um, you know, and, and I didn't step in from the very beginning, but, uh, part of that meant putting that enterprise.
Platform structure in place. So, um, you know, our finance system, our human capital management system for all of the employees, things like payroll and benefits, um, as well as our sales, you know, our commercial platform for how we do our marketing, um, and, and all of our, you know, commercial engagement with our customers.
That was a six month, uh, step along with that was some of the infrastructure elements that come along, whether it was, um, Our data centers and making sure we had, uh, the visibility, things like, you know, it's, it doesn't sound as exciting, but things like asset management and, um, and the [00:18:00] connectivity between, you know, these, um, you know, infrastructure, uh, assets that had come from two different companies, as well as that cloud connectivity and building out that architecture and, um, and, and the guardrails for how all of our employees would interact and our products running in, um, AWS as a primary partner, it was important to work directly with them and set that up for, you know, what was two different companies and two different sets of standards to what would be one Trellix.
And then the last piece that happened in the six months, I wouldn't call it done, but what we did was set up our data strategy and the work to, um, understanding catalog where data was, whether it was around. Our products and, uh, the telemetry that told us, you know, where our products were, what our customers were doing, uh, things like being able to update and, um, you know, um, maximize how our, uh, advanced research center works for threat intelligence, which is so important in the security company.
Um, those foundational elements, [00:19:00] um, of what we do. Where the data was, how the data was being used, and what, um, needed to evolve with our data in terms of bringing these two companies together. That's what we went into, into a phase two. Um, so after the first six months of setting ourselves up, uh, the, the next year, I would say, um, with, Incremental value being delivered throughout the year.
But the next year was really focused on what we call our enterprise data platform and bringing it all together. It's not just a data lake. It's about how we govern data. It's about how we, um, integrate data, how we harmonize and cleanse data, how we, um, have, have the ability to continue to evolve the data in terms of, you know, again, where we're going with our products and, uh, our customer base.
And then the other piece that came with it was really opening up the AI, um, which was great timing with everything over the last year that we've seen with generative AI, but that was to me, you know, the next phase that I would say took about a year. Um, and, and now we're at the, you know, we're in the phase of really [00:20:00] looking at how do you, uh, just create that, that model and cycle and framework for what comes new from the business.
So it's that next step of maturity to really operate based on that foundation that we put in place.
Ian Faison: Raj, you know, how, uh, how are you thinking about, you know, the term digital foundation for enterprises?
Good question. Uh, you know, Kim talked about, uh, you know, how she's trying to bring everything together, right?
And, and in my mind, that's, that's a fabric. Uh, Kim, if I may use that word, right? And, and that's what we have been seeing from, uh, our clients world over, that everybody is talking about how the fabric comes together, how the digital fabric comes together, right? And the reason for that is that, uh, when you think about our ecosystem at this point of time, it's, it's hyper connected.
Right, meaning that [00:21:00] everything is connected to everything else, uh, and it's not only internal but also external, meaning that, you know, when you go to your customers, when you go to your partners, uh, you will have a hyper connected ecosystem, which in today's state is extremely or heavily technology dependent.
Right. And, and that's where, you know, somebody like Kim would, would be, uh, looking at the right infra, the right application and the right application and the right infra may not be the best of the best. Right. And, and she talked about it in terms of, you know, uh, the best of the systems may not be the right system for the business.
And that's where, you know, uh, businesses need the right infra, applications, et cetera, et cetera, to bring this together. Now, when you think about the complexity of all this coming together, you know, think about connectivity, collaboration, cloud, edge, [00:22:00] IoT, et cetera. All this has incredible level of complexities when they come together.
And then, you know, uh, you know, from, from Trellix perspective, I'm assuming that, you know, you didn't have a lot of legacy, but when you think about maybe Iron Mountain, which had, you know, uh, uh, huge, uh, you know, Uh, legacy per se, you know, good and bad. The legacy also comes in with processes, with systems, which becomes, you know, another hurdle, if I may use that word.
And, and that's where, you know, skill shortages and all come together, right? Now, when we think about a fabric, you know, telecommunications talks about digital fabric. What we think about is that how do we bring the platforms, the solutions, the tools, all of them together and make it simple for somebody like him, right?
So that, you know, at the end of the day, she can go back and say, okay, for me, the [00:23:00] highest priority is employee experience. I want to deliver that, make it simple for me, right? So that's, that's what digital fabric in, in our mind is.
Kimberly Anstett: I love, I love how you talk about, um, you know, it. The complexity, there's always different complexities in each, in each situation.
What I found at Trellix was to your point, it wasn't a major change management from a people in process, because I, one of the great aspects was I came in to build Trellix and bring together assets from two different companies, whereas in the past, as you mentioned, Iron Mountain, but also at Nielsen. We went through that change together as an organization and human nature is, you know, don't move my cheese.
I'm doing my job. I've, I've learned to do it really well. Um, you're going to do what, you know, and, um, and, and that's hard. That change management, I would say is probably, you know, one of two most complex, uh, role, Parts of the role for a CIO change management and adoption and, [00:24:00] uh, the integration, you know, across the systems and the processes.
That's, that's really the big deal. Um, and, and we have to look for ways to minimize both. Um, you know, not necessarily. The technology itself, but a big part of change management adoption for me is what I love about Agile, bringing people, the users, into the program right from day one. Um, in all three companies, actually, I went through a migration from Microsoft Office 365 into Google Workspace and for collaboration.
Each was, was different. Um, but with all three, what we did was we brought the, you know, folks from finance who loved Excel, folks, uh, from, um, the legal department who had to worry about, you know, documents and contracts and red lines, um, every aspect of the organization we brought in a leader right from day one and provided hands on demos.
And had them with us through the whole program. And it made the adoption so much better because there were champions. Those change champions within the business. It wasn't, you know, IT [00:25:00] pushing something out to the organization. So that was one element of it. The other is really about the technology architecture.
And I'm a big fan and a passionate advocate for really looking at platforms and architecture. It's not just, you know, how cool a screen looks or what, you know, the latest app is on the phone. It's what's the underlying architecture. And where are there open architectures where I know I'll be able to integrate and bring in data, um, and the processes across those platforms, because the best position I can be in for the organization is to know that I have the flexibility to change out parts and pieces.
You know, as the business changes. If I have, you know, a multi year effort, my goodness, I can't even imagine anymore, you know, now it's about, you know, multi quarter, but years ago, if you had a multi year effort to be able to bring value to the business, you know, they're going to find someone else to do it.
So you really need to be set up, um, with that, you know, with that plan, that architecture and the framework where [00:26:00] you know, um, you know, Technology change is the easy part.
Ian Faison: You mentioned one of my favorite words, uh, which is employee experience, uh, because I just, I always, I am always tickled by the fact that if you were to sit back and talk to a CIO 20 years ago and you're like, hey, by the way, you're also in charge of employee experience, they'd be like, excuse me, what?
Kimberly Anstett: Exactly. What does that mean?
Ian Faison: Like I don't even know what that means. Yeah. Um, but, but you mentioned, you mentioned that that being, you know, a, a key part of this, uh, you know, especially in your new role as, you know, zipping, zipping the two companies together. And, uh, Yeah, how do you think about workforce enablement, uh, to, you know, for enhanced productivity?
Kimberly Anstett: It's something that is, is really near and dear, um, after building products for customers for, for several years, being able to come into, you know, what people are referring to as back office and, and talk about user experience. Um, like you said, people are like, what do [00:27:00] you mean? You know, we did, On the, on the client facing side, we did usability testing, we did, you know, agile and engaged with, with user groups and got feedback.
You do it on the enterprise side and everybody looks at you like you're crazy because, you know, we roll out SAP, we roll out Salesforce and they're going to use it, right? This is an enterprise tool, they have to, that's the job. Um, so I didn't coin the term, but as people, you know, began talking about employee experience, it just really stuck with me and, uh, it became.
Probably key or top priority at each of the companies I've been with, because when we get the employee experience, right, when someone doesn't feel friction or, you know, my hope is when they feel like joy and actually enjoy the tools they're using, everything is better, right? We're productive. We're, we feel good.
We're satisfying our customers. Um, and so it is really important. So I look for products and tools and capabilities that are more like what we use at home. You know, my, my philosophy is. As much as we've seen, um, technology, you know, there are [00:28:00] new apps every day or there are upgrades in our, in our personal world as consumers, we should have that same experience in the enterprise.
Now, it can't be exactly the same because we have to worry about security. We have to worry about how, you know, thousands of people potentially operate together. Whereas at home, you know, I may have to, you know, sync and, and use some of the same tooling as my kids if I want to, you know, know what's going on in their world.
Um, at work, it's a requirement that, That we work together. And so it's not a completely open ended conversation about what tech, but we should have that same feeling of technology that works, technology that is continuously being upgraded and new features and functionalities coming out. That, you know, cool feeling you get when there's, you know, something new in Spotify or, you know, what's being offered by your favorite app.
You should feel that at work. And I really believe it. And when that happens, it just brings You know, it brings, like I said, you know, ultimately joy, um, that makes the day job a lot better and, uh, teams, you know, not worried about, you know, did this work today or I [00:29:00] couldn't get into the system or this locked up.
That shouldn't be part of the conversation. We all are far too busy in the business, you know, needs change every day. So that employee experience, you don't want, you want to get to the point where people actually aren't talking about it because it's just working.
And Kim, can you give an example of something like this?
I'm very intrigued, you know, I've heard about employee experience in terms of making it easy, but employee experience in terms of converting it to joy, uh, you know, I'm, I'm hearing it for the first time. Can you give some? You know, people
Kimberly Anstett: don't usually, they don't usually say that when they think about IT.
I can tell you, I, uh, I've moved into a role or joined a company. Um, there was one session that I was invited to and it was a segment of the business. One of the functions was having in all hands and there were probably about 400 people included and they did a word cloud, um, exercise where they asked the folks as they were kicking off the new year, what are you excited about?
[00:30:00] Um, what do you think is going to be our biggest path to success? They also asked, what do you, Most concerned about, or, or what are you most, uh, um, you know, uh, where, where do we have the most pain, um, that gets in the way of our success. And in this word cloud, I kept seeing it. And I said to someone, I'm like, why is everybody so upset with it?
The person was literally laughing, looked at me and they said, that's you. That's it. Wow. Okay. I'm like, that's how we feel. Um, so that's, that's the anti joy. Right. Um, and that's just. You know, how it's been for decades. So part of the challenge in the job is changing perception and, and getting people to open up and work with my organization and not, you know, fear or roll the eyes, you know, when we want to get together and talk about, you know, creating business value.
Um, and, and that's, That's a little bit of an uphill climb. Um, and so, you know, I mentioned the workplace collaboration. That's, that's a big one for me. And I tell other CIOs, when you [00:31:00] get that right, and you know, I don't want to say advocate for, you know, one technology or another, but when you put something new in place and you've taken the organization along with it, whether it's your, again, commercial system or your workplace collaboration, but if you find that one program where.
It's been done collaboratively, and you have people in, you know, whether it's your daily stand ups or your week by week, you know, um, program reviews, and they're really part of the journey and defining and, um, helping configure. That does lead to joy because they're proud of what they did to influence what the entire organization will benefit from.
And so that's a major element of it. And it's not a technology challenge to solve. It's a, you know, uh, a, a partnership, it's a relationship like we talked about. It's that model, um, for internal enterprise technology that when we Do that right. All of a sudden, you know, people, people look at you [00:32:00] differently, and they see something more as a muscle and a benefit, you know, versus a constraint and a frustration.
And that to me is what businesses will really thrive with. When businesses, everyone throughout the business, regardless of what function, Look at IT, look at it, look at, you know, they're enabling technology organization and say, we need to do, you know, X, Y, and Z, we should bring folks from there into the organ, into the conversation, because we'll ultimately get to the best process, or best solution by having that muscle, you know, part of our ultimate success, that you.
To me, it is a huge piece of it. You know, we, I can't imagine living my life without technology, right? Trying to get to somewhere, even if it's somewhere I've been multiple times, you know, I rely on my map or my car speaking to me, same, you know, here in, at work, in the enterprise, um, that, that's my dream day.
That, you know, people look at it in the same way because at that point, businesses, you [00:33:00] know, they're capable of anything. And really a lot of the businesses that were born post cloud, um, grow up that way. You know, they don't, they don't have as many of the challenges in terms of culture or adoption because technology has been the foundation, but there are, you know, crazy amounts of business where, you know, you've got decades of, this is the way we've worked.
And, and, um, need to change. Everybody agrees we need to change, but as soon as you start changing it, people get very uncomfortable. And to me, you know, that's what digital transformation is all about.
Excellent. So you talked about two very important things. One is co innovation with the users and second is bringing in champions.
And, and, uh, you know, ensuring that they also speak about it. Yeah, that's, that's like, very interesting. Thank you.
Kimberly Anstett: Very, very important. And, uh, you can feel the change when you get those things, right. Even, even for [00:34:00] with one program, you know, really focused, do it right in one program and the word spreads, right.
And people start to think and act differently. And that's what matters because you know, organization, when you think about it, knows how another organization works. Yeah. Every, you know, every aspect of it, every detail, unless you're part of it, you just don't know. So I was lucky probably my first move into the CIO role that some of the work was with the engineering teams that I came out of.
And I remember being on the other side, being frustrated about, you know, why do I have to wait? You know, back then, before cloud, why do I have to wait weeks for a server or an environment? How can I innovate and move with speed when I have to wait for an ID or a access, you know, to some information. And so as I moved on to the enterprise side, I was able to take some of that, you know, mind share and experience and help the team understand because they couldn't possibly understand.
So you really need those advocates and champions in there and, and they're the best to solution with you. And sometimes that's hard for the technologists who think, [00:35:00] who knows this better than I know this? You know, they don't understand technology. Well, you know, I say to the technologists, you know, Or the, you know, on the enterprise IT side, you don't know everything about that part of the business.
So let's, you know, let's just do it together. I mean, it, it seems, you know, silly and small and so obvious, but unfortunately it's not. How most areas work.
Ian Faison: Agreed. Yeah. Very interesting. I'm curious, you know, after, after sort of going through this, this entire process, um, what's like, what would be, you know, maybe one of the things that surprised you most about this or something that maybe you didn't see coming?
Kimberly Anstett: It's a great question. Um, I, I, you know, I'd be lying if I didn't say we learn every single time. You know, as I said, I've done three workplace collaboration, you know, suite migrations and all three were, had learnings. You know, fortunately, there were many aspects that were the same that led to success, but there were also learnings.
Um, I would say in this latest, [00:36:00] um, position that I'm in with Trellix, um, One of, one of the learnings that, that I believe is, you know, is a positive learning. Um, but you know, the best learnings don't feel good at, at the time they happen. You know, sure. For me, or for me, it's just me, but for me, you know, those most painful or, you know, hard and, and really kind of like have to, you know, muscle through situations.
Those are the environments and the, the programs or the implementations where. I absolutely learned the most because you can't forget it. Right. You know, you think about, and you, and you should, you should think about like why did we feel that pain and what happened and how do we get to a better place? Um, I would say here at Trellix, it was the first time for me, um, Working in a situation where, you know, double carve out two companies, um, fantastic brands, fantastic people, engineers, product, coming together to form a new company.
I, I personally [00:37:00] underestimated, um, what that would mean, not necessarily. You know, to some degree, in some of the technology, um, and I say that because it was more about the debates and the decisions, um, because people are, are personally passionate about, you know, one side or the other, um, but more of the, the learning came just from, again, the cultural aspects of, you know, what is our identity?
Who are we now as a combined unit when so many, both, you know, the people and the tooling and technology and platforms live separately, you know, their whole lives in most cases, um, coming together, it was interesting, um, and an aha moment for me on how often, um, Things just took longer or, um, things were missed because we didn't really spend the time to recognize and reflect on what it was before we focused first on how do we bring it together?
You know, I jumped in with, we've [00:38:00] got some things to do and, you know, I've moved data center technology to cloud and I've built a data platform and I've, um, you know, uh, implemented, you know, the financial system or the commercial system and, uh, You know, I don't say it like, you know, I, I know everything, but, but I had the confidence of the technology tasks that need to be done.
Um, and in reflection, uh, and, and for the future companies I work with, I will spend more time to really understand and dig in and, um, look for, You know, what those individuals, um, you know, understood and what they were passionate about and what they were feel, you know, worried about as well as, you know, what unique capabilities do we have within the systems or unique implementation, rather than simplify, standardize, integrate, go, uh, I want to do more to understand, you know, why the nuance.
And, and, and look for, you know, the good [00:39:00] in the nuance versus look for how do I simplify and standardize?
Ian Faison: Well, they chose the right CAO. I'll tell you that much.
Yeah, I'm sure. Question Kim, and, um, you know, uh, this may be a kinda, uh, Uh, bit of a cliched question, but then, uh, you know, I want to know your view on this, right?
You know, we have, we have had AI for a long time, but with Gen AI coming in, right? This tacit knowledge that you're talking about, at which, which you're building, Do you think this, this kind of a tacit knowledge will ever be, uh, with something like a GNI tool, maybe, you know, five, ten years down the line?
Uh, or You know, I,
Kimberly Anstett: I, I am fascinated by it. I think it's, it's, it's a great question, but, but I will definitely admit, you know, these are very early days. And I am, you know, looking to learn, um, the downside of, of being in the role that I absolutely love [00:40:00] is not being able to really get my hands on and, and, and work with it the way, you know, I see some of my team doing.
I'm, I'm, I'm jealous. It's like really cool. Um, But, but I'm realizing we are learning, um, you know, do I believe years down the line and maybe not too many years down the line, um, will, will we rely on, you know, people and their experience, um, in the same way, you know, as a technologist, I'm hopeful, um, and my expectation is that the technology will make it even easier and maybe get rid of some of the, you know, the friction, the debate, the emotion that happens because.
You know, we work with humans. As a technologist, it would be great to see some of that simplified. Um, but as a person and as a, a people leader and, uh, someone who has built, uh, much of my career on spending as much time on talent and leadership development as I have on technology, uh, I don't ever want to see the day where, you know, I'm [00:41:00] not having that, that human dialogue.
Um, and, and maybe, you know, my kids will deal with that day, but, but, uh, I'm hopeful I don't have to deal with that day where, you know, I don't have someone who, um, has been working in an area and, uh, either built their career around it or, you know, they were the ones who, you know, um, were awarded, you know, something one year because of the great innovation that they did.
Um, I, I don't want to, uh, be in a position where I won't need their information, you know, because I want to go do the job faster and I'm glad I don't have to worry about it. That experience, I think that the humans have and, and what we bring to it in terms of, Our emotion, our emotional reaction to, you know, a business, uh, business requirement, a crisis, a customer conversation.
I'm hopeful that I don't ever lose, you know, the, uh, the ability to learn and, uh, experience those aspects of the job.
You know, I'll give you an example. I was, uh, uh, I was actually meeting a few very senior leaders yesterday, [00:42:00] and one of them were from Louis Vuitton. And, uh, you know, He, he talked about a very interesting thing that, uh, even today, they have a team which touches the bags.
It's handmade, right? Uh, what he was saying is that, can he do it, uh, in a machine? The answer is yes, they can, right? Uh, but, uh, you know, they continue to do it with, with those human hands because one, um, They feel, and even their customers feel, that the bags are different. It's not machine made, there's a, you know, hand imprint on top of it, and, and it's, it's different, right?
So, you know, I don't know how do I put it from that perspective, but I agree with you. And also, the reason why I asked this, I was very surprised about a report that I recently read [00:43:00] from Deloitte. When you think about Gen AI, uh, one of the things that I'm seeing is that, uh, the report talked about that, you know, Gen AI has the maximum number of use cases in cybersecurity.
You know, I thought it would be something else, but it's, it's in the area of cybersecurity. And I was like amazed by thinking, you know, how did cybersecurity come on the top of the list? I would, I would imagine, you know, productivity, customer experience, you know, finance. You know, there are a lot of repetitive works which are there.
Uh, why not that, but why this? You know, so, uh, it's interesting because, you know, cybersecurity for me is, is a lot of tacit knowledge, a lot of, you know, complexity, a lot of thinking ahead, uh, rather than, you know, the repetitive work, which, which can have, uh, you know, the X or the delta X thought about by the Gen AI tool, right?
So, yeah. .
Kimberly Anstett: I love that Bo, both of, both of [00:44:00] those points. Number one, um, I, I can totally relate and I'm gonna use that story if I didn't talk to Louis Vuitton. Um, a as a buyer, I can totally relate to. There are some things that I look for that I want that personal touch. I like, I like the uniqueness that comes from something that hasn't just been, you know, cranked out in the thousands or the millions by a machine.
So I think that's, you know, great for people to continue to, um, relate to. You know, when we think about what does AI mean, um, and then, and your points around security, um, for me, the, the initial, you know, artificial intelligence that I had any exposure to was absolutely in cyber security and was very grateful for those first products that came out that were able to, um, not only give me visibility into what's happening within my enterprise, but actually take action, you know, um, endpoint detection and response.
Yeah. That's a beautiful thing. Not just because I, you know, sell it today. Um, I felt it, you know, as a user [00:45:00] before I ever, you know, became to Trellix. And it makes sense to me because it's about, you know, the, the volumes of data, um, and, and the nuance of what, um, a threat actor can do. And in that sense, I love that machines can do what they do and, uh, they just get better and smarter every day.
That it's hard for humans, it's hard for someone's security operations center to keep up with that. And so a big piece of, you know, why I'm at Trellix and what we sell for Trellix is the simplicity or the relief that we can provide to CISOs. And they're cyber teams because I've seen in the CIO role, whether they were reporting into me, which in several occasions they were, or I sat side by side with them, you know, there's, there's burnout, there's exhaustion.
There's, you know, that the weight that's on their shoulders to protect the organization, to be able to react and know what to do, um, many times with false positives, right? Of, you know, You know, you, you, you see something, you have to react. [00:46:00] It's your job. And you go through all kinds of efforts to find out it was nothing, which is fantastic.
And that, you know, it's that moment of feeling like, Oh, good. It wasn't an issue. But then you think about the cycles that you put in. And, uh, for me, that is, is absolutely what. AI and generative AI, you know, ultimately will bring to security, uh, analysts and cyber cyber operation centers is, you know, the ability to, um, you know, worry about the most critical elements and real and, um, you know, leave no alert behind.
The only way we can leave no alert behind is to have AI and gen AI make that job so much better in cyber.
And breathe easier, right?
Kimberly Anstett: Absolutely.
Ian Faison: I love
Kimberly Anstett: that part of it, for sure.
Ian Faison: We all need to breathe a little easier. Uh, and thank goodness we have Trellix. Number one in EDR, number one in NDR, and number one in XDR.
Um, Kim, it's been wonderful having you on the show. For our listeners, you can go check out, uh, trellix. com [00:47:00] Uh, and, uh, and learn all about that. Uh, Kim, any final thoughts? Anything to plug?
Kimberly Anstett: Just thank you. Thank you, Ian, Raj. It's been a great conversation. We'd love to do it again in the future, but thank you for all that you're doing to, uh, you know, spread the word and, and bring us together as a community.
The more we interact, the more we, you know, learn from each other, the better off everyone's going to be.
Thank you.
Ian Faison: You're great. Take care. Thank you for joining us on Hyperconnected Journeys, where we explore the minds of technology innovators, future proofing their digital infrastructure. Go ahead and leave us a comment to share your thoughts on today's episode.
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