Leadership

I've been in people management roles for a total of about four years, first in Jackson National Life Insurance, and more recently in Zoom Video Communications. Both at Jackson and Zoom I had a mission to oversee my team in implementing a security program. In Jackson, the team mission was essentially one of governance, risk, and compliance. My team was up to five people at times, comprising staff, interns, and external contractors. I broke key objectives into lines of effort for assignment to my resources, tracked their efforts, and ensured delivery on the goals handed down from executive leadership. An important aspect of this role was mentoring junior staff, some in adjacent teams, but particularly with our internship program. I was very happy to see some of my hires and some I recommended for other teams, go on to accept permanent positions and advance their careers.

As Manager Security Controls Validation in Zoom I had one direct report and managed external contractors for some engagements. My team was responsible for delivery of defined OKRs, toward which I again broke down project lines of effort for assignment to resources. In this case, I acted as an individual contributor as well as manager and took on a substantial part of the security testing effort.

In managing each of these teams, I was responsible for hiring and team onboarding. In overseeing my one assigned staff member at Zoom, it was also critical I help them get quickly up to speed on organizational structure as well as technical product knowledge. Later at Zoom, I also had the unhappy duty of offboarding staff when company cost cutting lead to reductions in headcount. Nonetheless, as Manager of the program, I still needed to be sure I understood where my employee had left the state of work and how I could carry it forward.

In building and managing security programs, as I was in each of these cases, I believe the essential elements are establishing the strategic vision, the mission for the team, having a clear set of timebound objectives, and clearly depicting the risks and context of issues to senior management. I make sure my team understands the importance of the mission of the company and of our own efforts. I work to establish clear paths for professional training and advancement.

Professional certifications supporting this work include: CISSP, CISM, Project+