Join us as we dive into the importance of finding your WHY, embracing diversity, nontraditional backgrounds in the world of AI and cybersecurity, and the power of following your intuition and listening to your gut when making career decisions.
Guest: Masha Sedova, Co-Founder & President at Elevate Security
On LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/mashasedova
Host: Dr. Rebecca Wynn
On ITSPmagazine 👉 https://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/rebecca-wynn
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Episode Description
In this podcast episode, Dr. Rebecca Wynn's guest is Masha Sedova, Co-Founder and President of Elevate Security. She is globally recognized as a top people-security expert and trainer focused on engaging people to be critical elements of secure organizations. Masha shares the importance of understanding one's purpose and motivations (knowing your "why") in order to create a meaningful impact in any field, particularly in the tech industry. She highlights the need to challenge the status quo and create an inclusive and diverse culture.
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Resources
How Great Leaders Inspire Action (Simin Sinek): https://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action
The Power of Vulnerability (Brene Brown): https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_the_power_of_vulnerability
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Dr. Rebecca Wynn: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Soulful CXO. I'm your host, Dr. Rebecca Wynn. We are pleased to have with us today, Masha Sadova. Masha is the award winning co founder and president of Elevate Security. She is globally recognized as a top people security expert and trainer focused on engaging people to be critical elements in secure organizations.
In 2021, Fast Company named her one of the most creative people in business. Prior roles include being a security executive at Salesforce, where she built and led the human risk team. Additionally, she is an IANS faculty member, a former member of the board of directors for the National Cybersecurity Alliance, a highly sought after keynote speaker, including RSA, where she's a top rated speaker, Blackhat, OWASP, and SANS, and has written numerous works.
Masha, it's so great seeing you again. Welcome to the show.
Masha Sedova: Thank you so much for having me here.
Dr. Rebecca Wynn: Your background and your family is just fantastic. Can you share with the audience how you've come [00:01:00] from a family of computer scientists that started with your grandmother?
Masha Sedova: Yeah, so I I am third generation computer science, which is a rare distinction to have.
So my grandmother was the first graduating class of computer scientists in Soviet Union in 1952. And she studied computer science before it was really, really took off into the industry that we know today. And before there was any language that she could study, it was a lot of punch cards and she taught my dad had a program who in turn taught me how to program.
And relatively early on in my studies, I realized that I wanted to take my interest in computers and apply it to computer security. So I know a lot of folks who end up stumbling into computer security, at least maybe the old guard people who have done for a few years now. But [00:02:00] I have the unique privilege of knowing relatively early on that I wanted to get into security and focus a lot of my.
My studies on the space and it comes from a love, both the mathematics and number theory and cryptography and applying that really into how we secure information data and then ultimately systems. And I've been really privileged to have incredible mentorship in my own family and coming first and foremost from my grandmother of all people.
Dr. Rebecca Wynn: So is that why you've gone through and you started a tech company and you find out that it was expected of you because you come from that lineage?
Masha Sedova: It's a great question. I started a tech company because I am an immigrant and it is a hard thing to do. And I have been programmed that hard things are where you can find gold and by gold, really deep, worthwhile life experiences.
And I'm very focused [00:03:00] on. If you want something in your life, you have to go out and you get it and you build it. And, charting uncharted waters is a theme in my life. And there's quite a few reasons why I wanted to start my own company to include making an impact and creating culture that I really wanted to see in security.
But it was very important for me to. To create to go into entrepreneurship. But I think the part that really gave me the courage to do it came from my immigrant roots.
Dr. Rebecca Wynn: That's always a hard process for a lot of people. Some people have that desire in their heart, but they really don't know how to tap into that and how to one, figure out, I would say the why that they want to do it.
And then to sit down and figure out what they need to do. Did you have good mentors around you or how did you go about even making that happen?
Masha Sedova: Yeah. [00:04:00] So there's two ways that I think about the, why I did this. So the first, the reason that I wanted to start Elevate Security at this point almost seven years ago, I saw a huge problem in the world as it related to measuring and understanding human risk and how we solve that.
So I, I was obsessed with this problem. I was really interested in, creating a solution for this space. But I wasn't sure that starting a company was going to be the way to do it. Maybe it was consulting, maybe it was starting a nonprofit, maybe it was more work as a practitioner. But I was very clear that I wanted to create an impact on the industry and I wanted the industry to think about this problem in a different way than it had.
And I wanted to look back at my career and say, We do this differently because of the work that I contributed in. And I got really into the field and I got really clear that this was one of the impacts that I really wanted to make. And then I started, once I got clear on that, I said how do I do this?
Oh maybe entrepreneurship and maybe starting company is one way. That wasn't my only why though. And [00:05:00] another core reason that I really wanted to start a company was I, think security industry has a long way to go to think about how we bring in diverse backgrounds into solving our problems.
And I studied computer security as one of the only women in the classroom, and I was a security executive as in one of the only women in the room making security decisions. And. I don't, and I, it's also worth knowing that there's very few minorities, if any, as well. I think it was very important for me to create a culture and environment, a security company that looked and felt and acted differently than what we assume to be standard status quo, which is usually Israeli backed white men, who grew up hacking their computer in their, in a basement somewhere, or for the military. And it doesn't have to look like that in order to be successful. [00:06:00] And it was really important to me to create. And not just the impact of the work that we were doing, but the way the work was being done and by whom and showcasing that hiring and supporting people from diverse backgrounds with diverse skill set is an incredibly, impactful and successful way of going about building security.
So all this is to say. I got really clear on what and the why, the why of what, why I was showing up for work, right? The kind of things I wanted to make and the impact I wanted to do. And, And then I got around to figuring out entrepreneurship and starting a company was the thing that was most important for me to, and the how that I was going to leverage to execute on this vision.
Dr. Rebecca Wynn: A lot of us start with the how, and we look at the angle, but we don't really start with knowing upfront what it is that we want to do and why [00:07:00] we want to do it. And like you said, you were open to say these are some good things I want to do. Let me go ahead and be clear on that first and then choose the avenue versus choosing the avenue and then trying to work backwards.
Masha Sedova: Yeah. Did you know? Go ahead. Yeah. I actually just came off of a conference. I was speaking at the executive women's conference on a topic of Beyond the CISO. And one of the things that I see often in this industry is that we hold up the role of CISO as the ultimate destination of our careers.
And when I actually sit down and have conversations with folks, I asked them why they want to do this. And many people haven't done the work of understanding what is my why insecurity? And we take on other people's why, right? So we take on the, fact I should get to a CISO role because then I will be seen as successful.
That is what it looks like. And if we never do the work ourselves of [00:08:00] understanding what does it mean for me to have impact? And what is my why? And when I have sat down and actually had that conversation with people, Many times the answer doesn't come out to be then I should be a CISO. There are many, avenues to making a impact in the security and in the tech space, that have, that look and feel very different than just this blanket title.
And I would encourage for folks listening to to this conversation, thinking instead of just climbing the ladder to get to this gold star of a title. May not actually be what brings you the most fulfillment. It may not be the thing that satisfy your, why. And the sooner you can get in touch with your why, the sooner you can get to building towards the thing that you actually, find most fulfilling that the work that actually lights you up.
Dr. Rebecca Wynn: I [00:09:00] agree. I've done a lot of speaking engagements and I've written a lot of works. Don't Aspire to Be a CISO because like you said, a lot of times people go through the title instead of being what is my, what I see the true authentic self. And I think a big realization is that can change over the years.
We have life events that hit us and it changes our course. And that's okay. Do you find that people that they do find their why they get tied into not being willing to listen to their inner core or whatever you want to call it, that has changed and it's okay. To make that pivotal change, you find that is a struggle for a lot of people as well.
I know I've had a rustle throughout my career with that, but do you find that as well to.
Masha Sedova: When I was doing a lot of reading around finding why one of my favorite authors and resources around this is Simon Sinek who has probably the most popular Ted talk about Start With Why, but he has a, second book called Find Your Why, which goes [00:10:00] into the research of how do you Unpack this and it's, a quick read and folks who are interested in unpacking this, but he says in his research that your why doesn't change.
That once you have the thing that's deep down in your core, that, that has shaped who you are and drives many of your decisions, whether or not you realize it. Is there, I don't necessarily agree with it and I'm a little bit on, on your side that said, no, for me, when I had a child my, my why's reoriented, still creating an impact in security is incredibly important.
As is becoming a amazing role model for my child, right? May part of it is a overlap, of, my wshy, but I would say my why is now broader and more expansive than it used to be with some major life events and life, and, having [00:11:00] children as well as death of people close to us can be really formative around shaping how we think about what we want to put out into the world.
So I do think it can change, but maybe giving a nod to the work that Simon Sinek did, maybe those events help clarify our whys in a way that maybe has been muddied in the past. Maybe we thought our why was to make money, right? Or, create be of influence. But if we've had major life events, it is influence in service of something bigger than that, and it lets us actually distill down a deeper truth in ourselves. I think there's two different schools of thought but, to take that as you will.
Dr. Rebecca Wynn: On both fences a little bit on that. It's interesting. I watched my mom die, which was a very critical event for me, and it really rocked my world.[00:12:00]
, There started being a, an opposite poll on what I need to do my work and how much I was going to career and everything else, which really energized me. People like, do you aspire to be anything? I'd love being a CISO. I don't need to be CTO, don't need to be CIO in that world.
I love being a CISO. But what it did is it's interesting how some of the things that when I was younger. 3, 4, 5 innate to me that somehow got lost in the shuffle when you go to school and all that kind of stuff started coming back to light. And now it's mirroring the 2 together. I think maybe both sides are right, but maybe nobody knows exactly how to say that directly. Is that what you find too? I know you said your child and stuff like that, but as you go through also being a woman who's trying to run a tech company, which I'm sure has a lot of challenges that you find you start mirroring the two a little bit or along those lines.
Masha Sedova: Yeah. Yeah. There's to your point [00:13:00] I think some of my earlier experiences really shaped my why and when I think about some of the things that drive me, so I'll just, I'll, I think they're they were more poignant earlier on, but they're still there. Being a woman in security really helps drive my why, because it is important for me to, be an example and a role model for those people who are coming behind me.
And I think about my actions. My successes and my failures as as my ability to pave the path for people coming behind me. Again, one of the reasons I really want to lean into entrepreneurship, there are very few women who have founded security companies. And so when I have a hard day and business isn't going great.
It's less about what does this do for me and more about the fear of what will people think about? Oh we know women can't start [00:14:00] companies, right? And it's always about breaking the mold and, when you're one of the few people who do something, a lot of people are watching and it's a lot of pressure.
And I think when I was younger I felt a lot of that pressure. I still feel a lot of that pressure, but I felt a lot of that pressure and it was a honing factor for me. It was my why to succeed in, school and to climb up ladders and get career, career titles and aspirations that have, and it really drove a lot of my ambitions because I wanted to prove to everyone watching, whether or not they actually were, that, it could be done.
And it was less about can I do it, but can women do it? I was doing it for someone for a much broader view than, than just myself as I've [00:15:00] gone up in my career. And I feel like I have proven that to some extent, both to myself, but also to the industry. My why is. It's changed a little bit.
It's gotten me to where I was, but now it is, how do I create more opportunity for people coming behind me? So now the way that why has transformed and shaped for me is I'm on the board of a nonprofit called CompTIA Spark that helps middle school kids have a variety of different backgrounds, have free access to tech education as an afterschool program.
And so how do I enable this path forward, right? And so similar the why is is still there, like the, and but it shows up in different hows, right? And, how it drives me and also in the kind of work that I'm doing on a day to day basis, because both of my life experiences [00:16:00] and the things that have shaped me but also, also what I think is the most effective way for me to, have impact on, my, on the things that drive me on, my why.
Dr. Rebecca Wynn: How do you control looking at your why then? How do you control what you say yes to and what you say no to? Cause I know that's a challenge for me and I'm sure it's a challenge for a lot of the people that, we probably say yes more than we probably should say no or maybe not right now.
How do you control that to really tying back in your point about resiliency? Because you only have, if you're not resilient yourself, you're not going to be resilient for your company and your family.
Masha Sedova: Yeah. The saying no is a hard one. I'm going to butcher it, but Steve Jobs has a wonderful quote. And success is not what you say yes to. It's the thousand things you say no to. And. That is so true. It's true in business. It's true in your career and especially true with your time. It is [00:17:00] the most finite time is the most finite resources you have and how you choose to spend it is will dictate your life, right?
It feels like a thousand small decisions, but it is exactly the things that, that your life will be made up of. A couple of things around it. There this is a, what I would summarize as, listening to your gut. Are you in your, in an intuition when something gets presented to you, whether or not it's a speaking opportunity or career opportunity or mentorship opportunity.
There's your logical brain, right? That said, is this good for my career? Is this good for my visibility? Is this good for my paycheck? All that. And then the second thing is, does it light me up? Does it fulfill something in me? Does it make me want to get out of bed? Does it make my life worth living a little bit more?
And that holds immense weight as well. And so sometimes [00:18:00] I do things. That seem on paper, like it would be a waste of like time and resource, but it brings me deep joy to do it. And that is its own fulfillment. And sometimes I do things. That is good for my career and is a stretch opportunity and I really like to make sure I do a couple of those a year and so I'll take a topic that is net new but by the time I am delivering a talk on our workshop.
I have, gone to a level of expertise on it because I love learning right and I like to put myself in uncomfortable positions because it drives me to a level of accountability. But another model, both in relation to the why and what do you say yes to and what do you say no to that I really is, a Japanese model called Ikigai, which is essentially summarizes your life purpose.
And it is the intersection of four components is, [00:19:00] what lights you up. So what do you love? What are you good at? What can you be paid for? And what does the world need? And ikigai is the intersection of those four things. And it's not to say that you're going to find everything you do can be a combination of those, but the more that you can say yes to things that really is an intersection of those it's one of, according to this Japanese philosophy, it is the formula to happiness.
Using that as a, yeah, do I say yes or no to this is important.
Dr. Rebecca Wynn: I think it's important to, I think one of the things to just cause you brought up happiness. I always ask people, what is happiness? I've been playing with that a little bit myself internally, not playing with it, struggling a little bit.
Is it really happiness or is it contentment? Is it fulfillment? I think really it's going with the flow, and I don't mean outside flow, but I mean that internal flow, which [00:20:00] really ties back into your why. Do you find that you keep looking a lot more about that internal flow as well? Because happiness is just the word transparency anymore for me.
Masha Sedova: Oh my gosh, I have. So now we're tapping into my love of behavioral science and psychology. And I have a lot to say on this. But so happiness comes from things we do for ourselves, like buying a pair of shoes or a smartphone, and it offers us a quick hit of dopamine that makes us feel good.
But when then that feeling wears off and we need more of it. And, but happiness is not the same thing as lasting fulfillment. And I, and fulfillment comes. From a, the meaning behind something, right? Off often being in service of others, something bigger than ourselves giving back has proven to be an immense [00:21:00] impact around fulfillment.
The practice of gratitude, has shown by the happiness labs. And Harvard has done a lot of research around this to be one of the best way to live a filled life is to live one with a gratitude practice, right? So happiness is actually not the way we the not the thing we should be chasing.
It is much more of a level of fulfillment. And There's a whole wonderful series of books around this called Flow by a behavioral psychologist and his work is pushed into a lot of things like gamification and game design, but his whole The theory is that, flow, which is the state of optimal fulfillment comes from the balance of when we're met with a challenge that is appropriate to our skill level.
And we get to experience a level of mastery appropriate to our skill level. [00:22:00] And if something given to us in our life that is not not challenging, we're bored. And if it is too challenging, we're anxious. But we, when we are met with a skill like if we like a sporting a thing or a work event where our skills match the challenge. That's when many people find their peak fulfillment. It's not actually the absence of work. It is the appropriate level of challenge. And as we get good at that, we need more and more challenge to match our level of skill as that moves up and finding ourselves in those kinds of states is another wonderful formula of finding more and more moments of fulfillment. Again, putting ourselves in places where we are challenged in a way that matches our skill set. And you can do so in a way that also ties back to the earlier thing I was just mentioning. Gives back, serves others, teaches, creates, creates [00:23:00] opportunity. That is a yes and, right?
You can also find deep fulfillment. By going down a really awesome black diamond right on, on your snowboard, right? That it, that also gives you a sense of freedom and flow, right? So there's a couple of pockets where you can create that, kind of, experience in your life.
Dr. Rebecca Wynn: Yeah. I think that's one thing a lot of people are struggling with right now as maybe they're leaving a toxic work environment, maybe they were laid off, maybe they're doing a career change and then being frustrated because.
Let's face it. Jobs aren't necessarily there right now. But when I talked to them, I said, what is it that you want to do and why do you want to do it? Doing things solely for a paycheck? I tell people it's that price is too high for you as a human being. So what suggestions or what words of wisdom can you give people right now who are just in a hard place that they're trying to find their next career move?
But right now it's just [00:24:00] tough.
Masha Sedova: Yeah. So I'm going to start with the realistic part of this. Sometimes you have to make decisions that puts food on the table and head and a roof over your head. And that's an, important safety Maslow's hierarchy of needs thing. And as an immigrant, I understand that, that's part one.
But it is important to, if you're making a decision like that, to not get stuck there, right? I know people who take a job because it is, they needed to, and they forget that's why they took that decision, right? It is not a stepping stone. They get stuck there, right? So understanding that right now in our economy, this is a hunkering down kind of career move right now.
And that's that might be okay but finding, I'm a perpetual optimist, maybe you could tell through my conversations here, but but finding the silver lining [00:25:00] in whatever the circumstance. Maybe it is not nearly as a demanding of a job which gives you other opportunities to spend time with your family.
Maybe if the job itself is not, it's not what you were looking for, but there are opportunities for people for you to mentor people on your team, right? If there is a way that you can still connect to the why that you're interested in putting out to the world, maybe it's the kind of, you show up for the people on your team.
Less about the job and more about, about the people, maybe the overarching mission of the organization is something you really believe in, but is there something that you can connect to if there is nothing there, then I agree that, the cost of that job might be truly too high. And and it is important to consider that, when you are completely depleted at the end of the day, you're not the kind of person that that is the best version of [00:26:00] yourself for your family, for your friends.
For your environment for the people around you, and it's going to, it's really hard for you to, move into, the place you need to. And I, I don't, there's no perfect answer for this, right? I understand people need to make decisions, but I think it's incredibly important that people think through the really broad implications of taking a job that, will cost them their soul.
Dr. Rebecca Wynn: And I think the other thing too, one, costing your soul. Really has mass effects for a long period of time. And the other thing is, taking that position or staying in that position that you know, every second of the day you hate is really taking time away that you could be with that great group of people, great company and stuff like that.
Or maybe it is starting your own company that can totally fulfill you and make you a better positive ripple effect around the world. And that's one thing I see too, when you talk about being stuck. And I think we've, the other thing is realize [00:27:00] that all of us have been in a position before, maybe not you, but most of the rest of the world have been in the position that you're like, you know what, this position is no longer.
Part of my path and I need to say goodbye so I can go ahead and move on to the better thing on my path.
Masha Sedova: No, absolutely. I've been there. I think we all have been there. Do you know how much courage it takes to create change in your life? And I am on the person who, I'm a person who lives on, the upper end of, risk.
And every career move I've made has been a terrifying leap for me. And I know when I work and talk with many of of my colleagues and friends, when they're thinking about leaving job, even when they hate, it is terrifying. The thing that comes next, the unknown is so much scarier than, the bird in the hand that we have.
But, the cost for us not making the leap is often [00:28:00] much greater then what it would take to take the leap, find out and figure it out. And. I just I want to acknowledge for anyone listening that, yeah it is a scary thing. It takes a lot of courage to make change, any kind of change in your life because uncertainty and doubt and how we're hardwired as human beings, right?
This is safe. Let's not, go out and into the dark night. That's terrifying. We don't know what we'll find there. But when you look back in your own life, when you have made that, those decisions. And then you've gone through to the other side, you did it, and you're going to be able to do it again.
And, quite often it is in those moments where wonderful things can happen, but you need to put yourself out there and walk through those doors however uncomfortable it may be because you can't move forward until you, you make that, make a decision like that to change.
Dr. Rebecca Wynn: And a lot of times people are fearful saying, Hey, but it's a career change or stuff like that.
How's that going to be seen by people [00:29:00] hiring me? You've done a career change. I've done a career change. I go ahead and I welcome to people who do a career change.
Masha Sedova: Yeah. That's exactly right. Orient their lives around how will people think of me versus what is it that, that is in me.
And I got to tell you, when I sit across and I, interview a lot of people for different roles and a lot of hats I wear. When someone sits across from me in their authenticity and owns their decisions that I left here because there was this passion and curiosity that I need to fulfill. I needed to see what there was this opportunity and I wanted to see this happen.
And when they own it, they have a clarity and ability to articulate their decisions. That's more important to me than, Oh, you made a bet and it didn't work out. Yeah. That happens to all of us. And when someone says I took a year off and I did the [00:30:00] following things happened in the year.
Like I needed to learn how to scuba dive, take care of my elderly parents. And it was an intentional choice. And in that time, I kept up with my career skills in the following ways. And I have like in doing so I've also learned about these wonderful skill sets and this is why I'm extra qualified right.
I'm owning your decisions with and showing up to them with authenticity versus saying, I'm like, I'm really afraid what people will think. So I have to do it by the book because people, what people what will people think around this? How will the system process my resume if I don't check all the boxes, right?
Showing up and one of the things that I was mentioning earlier, when we hire people for diversity with different backgrounds who don't quite fit the standard thing, has been shown to be good for business. It's good for risk management. Some of the most [00:31:00] interesting people doing work on AI penetration testing don't, aren't coming back, aren't coming from security backgrounds.
They're coming from psychology backgrounds and history because prompt engineering requires a lot of different skills that we're not used to. So especially in the frontier that we are moving into, a non traditional background and non traditional experiences might actually be the thing that you can bring to bear and sets you apart from the candidates who did play by the book, right?
And, you just never know about the skills. When you follow what intuitively feels right and lights you up, you never know the kind of skill sets that you're collecting for a future event that you may never, have known, that you're going to need those kinds of skill sets.
Dr. Rebecca Wynn: Our time has totally flown by.
What is the best way for people to reach out to you for speaking engagements and learn more about your company?
Masha Sedova: [00:32:00] Yeah. So LinkedIn is probably the easiest way to get in touch with me, Masha Sedova. You can also send me an email if you'd like Masha at elevatesecurity. com. And if folks would love to learn more about the company www.elevatesecurity.com is the best place to go do that.
Dr. Rebecca Wynn: Masha, thank you so much for being on the show. You are a soulful CXO.
Masha Sedova: Thanks so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.