Human Element

The hardest part of security leadership isn't building better detection systems; it's staying connected enough to the daily work that you can still recognize when something doesn't make sense. William Glazier , Director of Engineering - Threat Research & Machine Learning at Cequence Security , refuses to detach from the operational reality his team faces. He's still in the on-call rotation, st...

Lindsay Kaye 's career turned on a single decision: someone taught her reverse engineering despite her lack of experience, shaping her leadership philosophy around giving others similar opportunities. As VP of Threat Intelligence at HUMAN Security , she maintains hands-on technical work not as a compromise but as a strategic choice that builds credibility, prevents over-promising on timelines, and...

The best security leaders don't pretend to know everything; they build teams where admitting knowledge gaps becomes a competitive advantage. Alex Cox , Lead of Artificial Intelligence Working Group at LastPass , has spent two decades proving that vulnerability creates stronger security organizations than technical heroics ever could. His approach to leadership, forged through military service and...

Patrick Gilman , Lawyer, Partner, & Co-Head of National Security Practice at Eversheds Sutherland , points to a disconnect between how professional services firms measure success and what actually drives sustainable team performance. Instead of P&L and billable hours, Patrick focuses on whether his team receives diverse, challenging work that develops broad problem-solving capabilities acr...

Bryson Medlock 's path to Threat Intelligence Evangelism Director, CW Research Unit at ConnectWise positioned him to address what actually creates high-performing security teams: treating people as individuals, maintaining psychological safety during crises, and building systems that eliminate months of manual work. Bryson shares how his leadership philosophy draws from a bit of nerdiness, includi...

The biggest security failures don't happen because teams miss warning signs in the data; they happen because no one reported the warning signs in the first place. Jameson Ritter , Director of Behavioral Threat Assessment and Management at CPPS , discovered this truth after years responding to terrorism events and workplace violence as a law enforcement officer. His transition from the Joint Terror...

Kevin O’Connor 's decade at the NSA taught him that the path to effective security leadership runs counter to most instincts: hire people smarter than yourself, let experts drive decisions in their domains, and focus on empowering careers beyond your team rather than confirming what you already believe. As Director of Threat Research at N-able , Kevin now applies this bottom-up approach to protect...

The transition from individual contributor to manager destroys more promising security leaders than any technical challenge they'll face. Tom Cross , Head of Threat Research at GetReal , learned this while managing IBM's X-Force Research team, where his instinct to achieve goals directly conflicted with his responsibility to develop people until he harnessed that perspective. Tom reflects on why v...

The transition from technical excellence to leadership excellence often requires unlearning the habits that made you successful. T.J. Ramsey , Sr. Director of Threat Operations at Fortified Health Security , learned this lesson first in Iraq when incomplete analysis nearly endangered troops, then climbing from vulnerability analyst to director by mastering every service line he now oversees. His a...

Managing threat intelligence for 20,000 companies reveals patterns invisible to most security leaders. Alex Bovicelli , Senior Director of Threat Intelligence at Tokio Marine HCC , sees hundreds of ransomware events monthly, giving him a perspective that challenges industry assumptions about modern threats. The sophisticated attacks making headlines aren't what's devastating smaller organizations....

Scott Scher , Associate Director - Cyber Threat Intelligence, DTCC has built his career on a counterintuitive premise: effective intelligence teams provide justification for security decisions rather than predictions about future threats. This reframing shifts CTI from being blamed for "unforeseen events” towards being recognized as a core  function that builds defensible risk management framework...

Scott Small, Director of Cyber Threat Intelligence at Tidal Cyber , built his security career on self-taught technical skills while competitors relied on computer science degrees, proving that intelligence analysis fundamentals combined with relentless curiosity often produce superior threat researchers. Scott shares how his background in critical thinking and intelligence studies created stronger...

Most leaders avoid failure, but Jeremy Turner , VP of Threat Intelligence & Research at SecurityScorecard , has built his leadership philosophy around deliberately seeking challenges where failure is probable. His counterintuitive approach stems from a simple insight: advanced persistent threats succeed through persistence, not technical sophistication, so security teams must embody the same m...

In the transition from Assistant Chief to Chief, Ely Reyes learned that while you do gain authority, you also lose the safety net of upward accountability. As Director of Public Safety & Chief of Police at Cedar Hill , Ely has also learned to center on treating small problems with the same attention as major crises, recognizing that what matters in the daily work of frontline officers must als...

Kyle Wilhoit , Technical Director of Threat Research at Unit 42 Palo Alto Networks , has an approach to leading threat intelligence teams that centers on two core practices that maintain both technical excellence and organizational trust. His "scheduling curiosity" framework dedicates one hour daily to pure research exploration, allowing him to ask "what if" questions that drive breakthrough think...

The most damaging security breaches often happen not because of weak technology, but because overwhelmed human operators start cutting corners under pressure. Aamir Lakhani , Global Director of Threat Intelligence & AI at Fortinet , witnessed this firsthand when investigating a recent breach at a mature global organization that spent heavily on security but still fell victim when their SOC tea...

Most security organizations promote their best technical performers into leadership roles without any formal training, creating a pipeline of struggling managers who burn out trying to stay hands-on while scaling teams. Daniel Schwalbe , CISO & Head of Investigations, DomainTools , demonstrates why structured leadership development matters more than technical expertise when building security o...

When 90% of internet-connected systems worldwide depended on your software and a single vulnerability could crash entire sectors, crisis leadership took on existential importance. Christopher Budd , Founder & Principal at Christopher Budd Communications tells Ben that security success often means choosing between bad and worse outcomes. His experience building global incident response processe...

The most sophisticated security tools fail when leaders don't understand the business context they're supposed to protect. Michael Freeman , Head of Threat Intelligence at Armis , learned this lesson during a major security incident where his team had the intelligence from day one but missed the breach because they didn't understand what was important to the business. The most effective security l...

The transition from technical security expert to effective people leader is way more challenging than it might sound. Darren LaCasse , Director of Threat Intelligence, Detection, & Response at Elastic , learned this lesson through a management mistake that almost cost him a team member and taught him the fundamental difference between managing work output and leading human beings. His journey...

Duaine Labno , Director of Special Investigations and Threat Intelligence at TIG Risk Services, shares with Ben how his background in law enforcement shaped his leadership and approach to building elite security teams, including the application of hostage negotiation techniques often overlooked in the industry. With 26 years of experience, Duaine shares how crisis psychology sharpens threat assess...

The most effective security leaders don't abandon their technical foundation when they move into management — they transform it into strategic advantage while treating leadership itself as a discipline worthy of rigorous investigation.  On this episode of Human Element, Robert McArdle , Director FTR & Cybercrime Research at Trend Micro , tells Ben how applying analytical thinking to human psyc...

In today's security landscape, decisive leadership often matters more than technical expertise. Caleb Barlow , CEO of Cyberbit , brings a seemingly unconventional but surprisingly common perspective to security incident response, drawing from his background as an EMT and firefighter, where he learned to make consequential decisions with limited data.  His conversation with Ben on this episode of H...

In this debut conversation on Human Element, Lance James , Chief Innovations Officer & Founder of Unit 221B , joins our host Ben April , CTO of Maltego , to explore the human side of security leadership and the transformative experiences that shape effective leaders in the industry. Lance shares his unique pattern recognition abilities that span from technical systems to human behavior, explai...