Jahn Karsybaev is the CIO at myBasePay - a small startup that raised $60 million in funding and are on their way to closing the year at $50 million in revenue. In today's episode, Assurance IT's co-founder Luigi Tiano asks Jahn about the following topics:

1. The difficulty attracting IT talent as a startup & how Jahn works around that
2. Defining cyber resilience
3. Tips on implementing digital transformation & debunking myths around it
4. Jahn's best tip to staying up-to-date with the tech industry (we're stealing this one)
5. What keep's Jahn up at night
6. What Jahn looks for in a company that potentially acquires myBasePay

Resources: 

Watch the episode: https://youtu.be/2wlSQeXbPHQ

Jahn Karsybaev’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jahnibek/

myBasePay: https://www.mybasepay.com/

The book about Business experiments Jahn referred to: https://amzn.to/3dyyHN4

Luigi Tiano’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/luigitiano/

Assurance IT Website: http://www.assuranceit.ca/

About Jahn Karsybaev: 

Jahn Karsybaev is a Technology Executive who has led IT teams for Fortune 500 companies. He is currently a Co-Founder and CIO at myBasePay.

Jahn has co-founded, launched, successfully sold as well as successfully failed several start-ups. He is an Angel Investor and sits on Boards of several tech startups. He loves teaching angel investing, growth hacking & fundraising for startups.

Fund-raising is one of Jahn's strengths and passions. Cumulatively, he has successfully raised close to $70MM for the startups he has launched or advised on.

About 10 Questions to Cyber Resilience: 

Twice per month, learn about how IT leaders are strengthening their cyber security practices. Every episode comprises of 10 questions that get you one step closer to cyber resilience. Subscribe to stay up-to-date with hot topics in cyber security. 

About Assurance IT: 

Assurance IT (www.assuranceit.ca) specializes in data protection and data privacy for the mid-market in Canada, since 2011. The Montreal-based company’s unique approach to helping customers become cyber resilient is called the PPR Methodology which stands for Prepare, Protect and Recover. Based on industry best practices, the PPR Methodology is an easier way to achieve cyber security and compliance objectives.

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Jahn, so tell me a

little bit about your startup,

and how the idea came to be.

So tell us about, you know, what

you're doing today so our audience

can learn about what you do.

Yeah,

absolutely Luigi and thanks

so much for this opportunity

to talk to you on the podcast.

Essentially MyBasePay, we are

an employee of record platform

for the staffing and the talent

acquisition industry, where we

act as a back office provider, the

technology platform to be able to

efficiently onboard candidates,

process the time sheets, one

of the biggest advantages,

also payroll funding that we

provide to the staffing firms.

And I can expand on that

later as we go along.

Essentially we're less

than three years old.

We've launched earlier this year.

We've venture- backed.

We've had a massive round preceed

that we raised 60 million and we

we're on track to process 50

million, in revenue so far this

year, and it's, you know, most of

our clients are here in US, but

we're starting to go outside of the

market, internationally as well.

And yeah, you know, it's

been an exciting journey for

the past couple of years.

Fantastic.

That's great.

Congratulations.

You know, it's not always

easy, getting funding and

that's amazing for you guys.

And, from what I understand,

you are obviously the CIO there.

Right.

So taking on the CIO position

for, for a startup, especially,

you know, in this industry, can

you maybe talk about some of

those challenges that you face

as a CIO, given the climate,

given the environment today, with

everything that's going on in

the industry and in the world,

talk about, you know, some of

the challenges you may have.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

And it's, you know, it's an ongoing

journey and I've been part of, you

know, all my life, an entrepreneur

I've been in a corporate sector

as well as many startups that

have launched successfully

failed and had that experience

of both sides of the equation.

Startup, you know, is just

something that I truly enjoy

the challenge to be able to

build something from ground up,

that technologies by trade and.

To have great co-founders with me

that are more business oriented,

more sales, more marketing.

So we compliment each other from

that perspective and taking on

the role kind of as a co-founder

and the technology lead for a

startup as such in this very nichey

space was definitely a challenge.

And most of the challenges.

That I've faced is all around

the talent, especially in this

highly competitive market these

days with just a world shifting

to completely virtual environment

and hybrid, and being able to

attract the top talent and retain,

for startups that adds another

layer of complexity, because we

don't necessarily have that brand

that attracts the, you know,

the best tech talent, at least

so that's been one of the biggest

challenges, which it's still a

challenge even to this day, to be

able to build a world class team.

It's something that's at top of my

mind as an executive 24 7, whether

I'm actively recruiting or not.

Every single person I talk to

is always an opportunity to see,

you know, is this a person that

can potentially join our team?

And are we, are we the

right fit for them as well?

So that's, that's been one of the

biggest challenges as the CEO of

a startup, but obviously there's

a lot of other complexities

when it comes to launching the

platform fully in the cloud as

well in the virtual environments.

And I'm excited to talk

to you about some of the

cybersecurity measures.

That's, you know, it's an ongoing

threat It's an ongoing risk

that we always have to carefully

measure and look out for and

we invest heavily into that.

So that's, you know, definitely

another challenge that I

would highlight as part of,

kind of that journey of a

startup.

Yeah, no, I like

what you're saying and, you

actually touched upon a question

that I was gonna come back to

later, so I, I might ask it to

now because it , it's kind of in

line with what you just mentioned.

It staffing and

talent and skill set.

That's obviously a

challenge that we see in

our, in our business here.

We're obviously in the

cybersecurity space, cyber

resilience, and, you know, we

help our customers sometimes

even , find individuals, which

is obviously a huge challenge.

So what's your best advice

for dealing with this

iT staffing shortage.

I mean, you're going

through it right now.

What would you, you

know, give us advice.

And

talent acquisition for me.

It's , it's not the

term that I like to use.

It's not necessarily you acquire

the talent, it's you attract the

talent at the end of the day.

And it's really also an opportunity

for those who may be interested

in joining my company in general.

. Is this the right environment for

them , am I the type of leader that

will really help them grow to that

next level where they want to be?

So it's always the mental model

that I have to keep in mind

, whenever we go through interviews

or whenever we go through some of

the head hunting exercises it's

really to be able to understand

and align our objectives and

the, and the priorities for

them as a professional and

for us as an organization.

So that's been working really well.

In a sense to have those meaningful

conversations with the candidates

and say, here's where, who we are.

Here's where we go in

as an organization.

Here's where we want to be.

Here's our values.

Here's what we're all about

and give them an opportunity

to also speak from their

perspective in terms of.

What are some of the

things that make them tick?

What are some of the things that

they would love to accomplish

in near term and longer term?

And here's how I can, as a leader.

Here's how I can help you

get to that next level.

Obviously, always understanding

that you're not gonna be

probably with us forever.

That's right.

That goes into the context of, you

know, retaining the top talent.

Of course I would love for all

of our team members to stick us

forever, but that's the reality,

you know, everyone needs to grow.

Everyone needs to move

on and realizing that.

And in the process, essentially

identifying opportunities for your

employees, for your coworkers and

peers, to be able to capitalize

and take on those opportunities,

create an environment of, you

know, experimentation, innovation.

We're really big on

that as a culture.

One of my favorite books is, by

my former professor , at Harvard

business school is Stefan Thomke

toy's experimentation matters and

experimentation works where he

talks a lot about the models of

fostering, a culture of innovation

through experimentation, where

everyone is empowered to be

able to take on the experiments.

To be that mini CEO of their

project, of their, you know,

initiative that the China launch.

So those, I know it's a very

loaded answer to your question

in the sense our strategies to

attract and retain top talent.

But those are some of the

mental models that really

help me succeed kind of in, in

that space.

No, what you said

there really resonates, cuz , I

think the fact of being very

transparent with the employee

in front of you or the potential

employee in front of you,

and finding how you can help

that person and articulating.

Has helped me in the past

find or attract talent.

Cause I think you said like finding

talent is not the difficult part.

It's how do you attract them

and how do you retain them?

You know?

And the talent that is

actually gonna be a good

fit for your, business.

Sometimes you see something

on paper that may look good.

And then when you bring

them in, you start.

Having that conversation, you

realize that you cannot help them.

And that, that becomes a problem

cuz then you can't retain them.

And so I like that answer.

And also, to your comment about

the book that I'd like to, maybe we

can share that in the comments once

we publish this, but that sounds

like a really interesting book.

Yeah.

So I'll definitely

ask you for that.

So that's a good answer.

Thank you.

It's really in depth.

It's interesting.

Definitely gonna use that

some of those techniques and

some of those thoughts thought

processes when we're looking

or trying to attract talent.

So I appreciate that.

Let's move on to kind of

the, the next step, which,

or the next topic here, which

is gonna be talking around

security and, cyber resilience.

So cyber resilience is a term

that we're hearing more and

more often in our industry.

When you hear that, term,

what does it mean to you?

And that's

a, that's a great term.

And I love just the overall sound

of that, , we are resilient overall

from a technology perspective,

you know, and another layer of

complexity from the cybersecurity

standpoint, because it's an

ongoing threat and , those threats

are becoming a lot more complex

in nature to be able to detect

and react to that, which leads

me to the point of reacting.

It's essentially, cyber resilience

for me, starts with people,

with people at the organization.

And it's part of that cultural

definition in terms of, are

we all aligned in terms of

the vision as an organization

and to be able to essentially

proactively identify those

potential risks and technology

is always gonna be there.

Technology will always help

identify those potential risks

from a software perspective

and things like that.

But at the end of the day,

it's all on the actual users.

It's all on the employees and the

people who use the system to be

able, to have that alignment in

the sense that here's some of the

things that we don't want to happen

to our organization when it comes

to potential risks and threats.

And identify those procedures,

those policies, and being able to

have that ongoing training as well.

And to show examples of some of the

things that are potential threats.

To me, those are

very important to me.

That's kind of the definition of

the resilience aspect of that.

And it just, it definitely needs

to be part of the cultural DNA

of the organization because

you know, we can implement

all the tools in the world.

We can implement all of the

software in the world that can

help us become more resilient from

the cybersecurity perspective.

But.

If the users are not brought

in, if your employees are

not brought in to the whole

aspect of how to use that and,

what are the potential risks?

I think that just, it

creates a lot more room for

error from that standpoint.

So those are just some of

my thoughts when it comes

to resilience in the special

and the cybersecurity space.

Yeah,

I agree with you.

It has to be a cultural thing.

It has to be a people thing.

We keep hearing, it's a stat that

it may be overused or become a

cliche stat, but, 80 or 90% of the

attacks are due to human error.

Right.

So if you're able

to kind of mitigate.

That large portion of the risk,

then you can have a really

more resilient, or how can I

say this, but you know, more

resilient organization, right?

Yeah.

So, yeah, I agree with you

a hundred percent on that.

And, again, sometimes we

overlook the easy stuff.

We really overlook the easy

stuff, which is just educating

the users, getting them familiar

with what an attack could

potentially look like and just

making people more vigilant.

Right.

So definitely on board with that

and that's one of the things it's

in the DNA of the enterprise.

It should be anyway.

And unfortunately, what I'm

seeing on my side is, it becomes

the part of the DNA only after

something really bad happens.

Right, which is

late, which is late.

Right, right.

So okay.

Now I like that answer.

I had a couple of questions.

I'm gonna shift them

around here because you

mentioned cyber resilience.

And now we hear a lot about digital

transformation and it's been a

term that's been obviously been

used for the last decade, right.

Or even the last 20 years, but,

we're in this constant flux.

Right.

So what does digital

transformation mean to you?

Given you're a CIO today in 2022.

What does that mean to.

And that's a

great question and so relevant

to the current times, especially

in the current market conditions,

with everything that we're

dealing with, especially on our

technology side, where executives

on the business side and the

investors and things like that.

Everyone wants digital

transformation.

Everyone wants for that to occur.

But.

Not to sound like a broken record,

but from the standpoint, and that

kind of ties to what I've briefly

talked about from a resilience

standpoint, digital transformation

is all about people transformation.

It definitely starts with the

buy-in at organizations you know,

at every level within the company.

Because we can implement all of

the systems in the world, but if

our internal users or external

stakeholders, if they're not

bought in to why at the end

of the day we're doing this,

what is the ultimate benefit

that we trying to achieve?

What is that state of, you know,

just overall environment that we

are trying to operate in and why

are we taking on such initiative

To transform ourselves digitally

in this specific context.

I think that's a lot of, potential

room for error where executives

fall into that trap, that when it

comes to digital transformation,

the very first step is to jump

into straight, you know, Not

analyzing or planning, but

into actual building where

you want, you know, as a human

nature, we want to jump in and

try to identify potential, the

software or the technology stack

that we want to choose, or the

implementation partners that we

want to work together with, but

taking a step back a little bit

and really understanding the.

Objectives and focus more on

the people transformation side.

I think to me that's a lot

more important than going

through the actual quote

unquote digital transformation.

So those are just some of

the thoughts that really tied

together from standpoint of

successful digital transformations

that I've been part of.

And those are some of the

ingredients that I had

seen that really played

integral part in that

okay.

Interesting.

So, it's more of a people

transformation versus

digital transformation.

You can't have digital if

the people are not bought in.

Exactly.

Exactly.

I hear that

very, very interesting.

Okay.

I like that answer so obviously,

given your role and you've done

this several times before, as

you've mentioned, There's obviously

a spark or something that kicks

off a digital transformation

now, who needs to sponsor that.

And I think you've touched a little

bit on it earlier, but what leads

to that digital transformation?

How does the company get started?

Like, there's a lot of

companies that we deal with

who are traditional, you

know, paper, heavy, backend,

heavy process, heavy, what's

that spark that says, yes, we

want to transform digitally.

You know, what does the

company do to get started?

Yeah,

that's a great question.

And it ties back to the points

I was making around building

and fostering the culture

of innovation, where you as

an executive team, or as an

executive, you have to walk the

walk where you're not just, you

know, drafting, fancy mission

statements on the website

and talk about all the great

values that we're all about.

It's more around what are some

of the principles that we have

to adhere to when it comes to

building the culture of innovation

at every single level of the

company where, you know, when we

think of innovation, we always

think of something grandiose.

We think of something, you

know, transformation wise, those

usually the synonyms that come

to mind, but innovation usually

comes in all shapes of form where

it could be just a simple, you

know, improvement to an internal

process, which can definitely be a

spark to a potential digital

transformation where you

identify little areas for

improvement and then need

to tie together to something

that's a lot bigger at stake.

And how does that tie to

the overall organizational

mission for us as a company?

So those are just some of

the things that really could

potentially be a trigger when

it comes to creating those

opportunities for transformation

and really foster that

environment for experimentation,

continuous innovation.

And that really ties together back

to just the overall culture as an

organization that we continuously

transform ourselves, we

continuously transform our systems.

We continuously

transform our processes.

So those are the thoughts

that I have when it comes to

just some of the triggers that

can potentially lead to those

transformation initiatives.

Good.

Interesting.

Yeah.

And I see how you, how you

bring it back to the people

and then responsibility factor.

I like that people still need

to, play an important role and

they need to drive the, the

the awareness and they need

to be the champions of change.

So I appreciate that.

And, I see it and hear it often.

So as an IT executive.

Obviously as you are, how

do IT managers, how do IT

executives prepare for the

tech changes that are, we say

around the corner, but they're

constantly around the corner.

So, how do you keep yourself

sharp and how do you, because

what I've seen in the past

is sometimes you go through a

transformation and, the delay of

transformation sometimes ends up

putting you behind

in the next step.

So how do you keep yourself fresh

and how do you feel that you're not

leaving stuff on the table when you

go into this, the tech changes or

transformation that we talk about?

I love that

question because it's definitely

at the top of my mind, you know,

all the time as a technology

executive, how do I, I either,

you know, disrupt the industry

myself or I'm gonna be disrupted.

And it's something at the

end of the day that I.

At least make a conscious priority

to pay a lot of attention to how

do we stay ahead of the curve?

You know, everyone and everything

has an exploration date.

And in terms of research and being

able to stay ahead of some of

the trends that we're observing.

Yes, that's important.

But for me, the

biggest, biggest source.

To be able to stay ahead of the

curve to really understand what

are the things that going on

in my industry or going on, at

least in my sector is networking

and really surrounding myself

with individuals that possess

different strengths that I'm,

you know, maybe I'm missing as an

executive or they are operating

in different environments

or the different industries.

But still in technology.

So I invest heavily into

spending a lot of time

with peers in my industry.

I'm part of a lot of the groups,

executive committees, and other C

level technology executives, where

we spend significant amount of

our time sharing some of the best

practices, sharing some of the case

studies, especially those that are

not successful because it's very

easy to talk about some of the

things that we had accomplished

and here's all of the great.

Things that we've achieved,

but when it comes to failures

I don't necessarily view

those as failures view those

as opportunities to learn.

So being able to surround yourself

with people like that and create

a safe environment, to be able

to share those lessons learned

to me, that's a great source

of information and inspiration

to be able to identify those

trends, to identify those

opportunities, to innovate

continuously, transform yourself.

And look for

opportunities to disrupt

I like what you

said, you're either disrupting

or being disrupted earlier.

I like that.

Yeah.

So it's good.

And in the words of the famous

entertainer from your neck

of the woods Pitbull, you

never lose, you learn right.

Right, right.

So I like that.

hahahahaha yeah.

You know what?

I mean, if you can learn from

a situation where you may not

have succeeded and you know,

take from it and move on.

And I think that's

what life is all about.

So it's about experiences and

making things better the next time.

Around

100%.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, having fear

to fail basically.

Again, I'm using cliches here,

but you miss a hundred percent

of the shots you never take.

Right.

So

exactly.

And that's kind of what we

also, I try to instill that

as part of our culture, even

at the startup levels, because

there's no such thing as bad

news, it's either great news

or the opportunities to learn.

Exactly.

So those

are just some of the

mental models that really

help.

Awesome.

I like that.

Gonna switch gears a little bit.

Just talk a little bit more about

security cause obviously that's

probably top of mind for you.

Ransomware attacks are obviously,

continuously on the rise.

It's no secret.

Would you say that that's probably

the most worrisome thing when it

comes to thinking about security?

What keeps you up at night?

Obviously besides everything else

in your job, but when it comes to

security and security perimeter

in your organization, what's the

top of mind for you right now?

Yeah, 100%.

You nailed it on the head with

a ransomware attacks and us

handling financial information

adds another layer of urgency.

At least for me, because we

handling the payroll information.

We basically are in charge.

Making sure that people

get paid on time.

People get paid, accurate

amounts and proper taxes are

being deducted and all of the

compliance aspects of that.

So that's at the top of the list.

It's absolutely, that's something

that keeps all of us at night

and with everything that's going

on in the world these days with

invasion in Ukraine and all of

the cyber attacks that we read

about in the news on daily basis.

Those are some of the things that

definitely worry me as a technology

lead within my organization.

But for me, the most

important aspect of that is

how do we essentially put

ourselves ahead of the curve?

We're not so reactive in

nature, but more proactive.

And to be able to identify weaker

areas within our organization,

whether that's an area within

the code, or it's an area

within the actual operations

where we need to invest more,

whether that's training security

patches, or custom updates to

the deployments, things like that

are always at top of the mind.

And we, as a company, as a startup,

that's the beauty of a startup

where we can move a lot quicker.

We can be a lot more nimble, but at

the same time, we want to lay the

right foundation because when we

grow and when we become enterprise

level, those things that are gonna

matter a lot, because we're not

gonna be able to move as quickly

as we were when we were a startup.

But if we're raise the

right foundation in terms of

identifying the proper and

documentation on policies and

procedures and what are some of

the things that we need to do.

Proactively.

That's the keyword that

we love to highlight.

So that, as you said earlier,

you know, the cybersecurity

becomes the top priority when

something actually bad happens.

So we definitely realize

that we definitely respect

that and we try to stay as

proactive as possible to,

minimize the risk.

Got it.

And I like what you're saying

about being nimble, cuz as a small

organization startup obviously you

wanna be nimble and I like what you

said about building a path to being

enterprise level, but you also

want to have something that scales

early on because once you grow

and you're growing rapidly, if you

don't have a foundation that can

scale you find yourself having to

redo a lot of that work and effort.

And I see sometimes it happens

where scale can happen overnight

in some organizations where they

just blow up and then they have to

rework a lot of the stuff and then

leaves a lot of risk, you know,

there's opens up for risk issues.

And they just have to a

lot of effort duplication.

You're obviously addressing

that early on, which is

great to see in here.

So congrats on that again.

I had another question about

ransomware attacks and this is

more of a bigger question that

may not impact you directly,

but given your expertise, I

wanted to throw it out there.

You said something important

about smaller enterprises being

nimble and can react quicker and

you wanna be proactive, but we

have a lot of organizations in

the US or in Canada here in north

America and across the world

for that matter, that are larger

in nature that don't operate

as quick, or can't be nimble.

As you mentioned, and obviously

they host a lot of critical

infrastructure and these

critical infrastructures, utility

organizations and other businesses.

And I don't wanna be specific cuz

I don't wanna point anyone out,

but there's a lot of critical

infrastructure out there that has

a lot of operational technology.

Embedded in its day to day.

And now it's bleeding into

the IT and that becomes a huge

target for ransomware attacks.

Do you have any

thoughts about that?

Is that something that you think

about in your day to day or what

have you done in the past that

kind of mitigate some of that?

Just your thoughts on ransomware

attacks specifically on

critical infrastructure.

Yeah,

100%.

Early in my career, when I spent

my time in enterprise, especially

in the corporate sector, I

definitely saw how complex that

is, especially when you have so

many different systems integrated

which definitely opens up a lot

more opportunity for risk because

compatibility becomes the number

one priority at that stage in

terms of being able to integrate,

especially if you're growing

through acquisitions and mergers

and things like that, you have to

take into account the opportunities

to be able to effectively

integrate external systems with

something that's already in place.

So those things become

of utmost importance.

And as an organization, The

technology is no longer a service

provider within the organization.

Technology is a strategic partner.

So the C level executives in

technology, whether you CTO

SVP of technology or CIO it's

definitely, you have a seat

at the table as part of the

strategy to be able to in

identify investment opportunities.

To put not only the financial

in the budget, but also the

resources to partner with human

resources or just the overall

operations and create that

sense of urgency early on.

So that.

As you and I kind of had this

vibe of the overall conversation

to be essentially very proactive

and focus also on the people

aspect of the cybersecurity.

It's oftentimes overlooked

because it's very easy to point

out and say, this is the flaw

in the security patch or the

code that you had deployed.

But.

End of the day, there's a lot, a

lot more complex problems at the

root cause of that, where I've

seen an enterprise of companies

over various size, typically

that involves some type of user

behavior where the non proper

training has been executed or non

proper policies and checks in the

process have been implemented.

So those are just some of the

things and thoughts that I have

in my head when it comes to just

the overall ransomware attacks,

how to prevent at organizations of

various size.

Like that

answer, Jahn, I'm gonna

go back and replay it.

Cuz you said a lot of

good stuff in there.

appreciate that, John.

Very good answer.

Okay.

I actually have one more question

which is more of a philosophical

or a hypothetical question.

Maybe you can answer, maybe you

can't but you know, obviously

you're happy where you are.

I don't wanna, I don't wanna

say anything, but if you

ended up getting acquired

for a gazillion dollars or

something really good happened.

And now you had to keep

the same role, but you were

gonna transplant yourself

into a new company as a CIO.

What would you look for in that

company for you to go there?

What's important for you as a CIO

outside of where you are today?

That's an easy

answer for me because I spend a

lot of time thinking about that.

And at the end of the day, it's

really to be in a position to help

others because I've had a lot of

people that helped me along the

journey and continuously they do.

I have a lot of mentors that

have a lot of people that kind

of created that springboard

for me to be able to go to the

next level where I want to be.

So really at this stage of my

career, it's really to be able to.

Pay, you know paid back at the end

of the day to some of the people

that are coming up the ranks.

So trying to get, maybe break

into technology in general.

We definitely need a lot more

diversity in technology, whether

that's gender racial or whatever

the other orientation is.

I agree.

I think we

definitely need a lot of that.

So as a technology executive,

having been on different sides

of the equation for me, if I was

to take on another opportunity

is an environment where I can

be as effective and value, add

as possible to be able to help

others to get to that next,

to grow as an individual, to

grow as a professional, when

it comes to technology space.

Amazing answer, Jahn.

Lucky organization to

have Jahn inside there

or lead that's for sure.

Hahahaha

too

kind Luigi easy.

You're too kind.

No, well, listen,

I mean, it's obvious that you're

people first and you know what?

You can't have an organization

without good people.

So that's important.

I like how you you've methodically

thought out what you're doing

and what you're gonna be doing.

So, which is great.

That's important

as a leader, right?

Cause you have so many things

going on that you wanna be able

to prioritize, compartmentalize

certain things and then

kind of execute them right.

With the right team.

So, which is great.

Yep.

Jahn I don't have

any more questions for you

specifically, cuz you've given

me a lot to chew on, frankly.

I'm gonna replay some

of those answers cuz I

wanna learn from them.

Do you have any questions for me?

Well, obviously,

you know, you being a thought

leader in cybersecurity space

just want to get your 2 cents

on some of the trends that

really excite you these days.

What are some of the

things that you personally

very passionate about?

Yeah.

Well, that's actually

a good question.

So for myself and my colleagues,

it's really data protection

and protection from the onset

of how the data's handled

within the organization and the

privacy that goes along with

it because data right now means

a lot and it's very valuable.

And I think we've taken it

for granted in terms of what

it can do for organization

how we can help them evolve,

become better how to use it.

In an analytical situation

to solve problems.

So there's that aspect of the data.

There's the aspect of

the privacy of the data.

So when you're working with

clients with suppliers, you

wanna make sure that you're

hosting and housing that data

and manipulating that data in a

way that doesn't get compromised.

Cuz I think that's very important.

We deal with a lot of cyber

insurance conversations or

situations and the data management.

Conversation or data management

topic comes to play often.

So you wanna make sure that you're

highly vigilant when it comes to

manipulating data, whether it's in

a small form, large form structured

or unstructured you wanna make sure

that you're handling with the white

glove and I can't state that enough

as being an important aspect of it.

So again, data protection, data

privacy for me is top of mind.

And it's all part of the whole

protecting enterprise because

ultimately the data is probably

the most valuable thing outside

of your people, of course, you

know, within the enterprise.

So that sets for me has become

top of mind and it's become

top of mind the last couple of

years, but now it resonates more

when you're talking to clients

and customers and suppliers.

So that's my 2 cents.

And if I can save anyone, to

your point earlier, if there's

anybody in IT who's looking to

get into the game or get into IT

I think that's an area where we're

gonna need more talent for sure.

A lot more talent in that space.

Yeah.

We have absolutely.

And that's probably one of the

areas that probably has negative

unemployment when it comes to

cybersecurity and data management,

I think you nailed it on the head.

Yeah,

Well, Jahn, I promised that we

were gonna make this efficient

and fun and I think we've

achieved both those objectives.

So I thank you very much

for taking the time today.

We're definitely gonna, you

know, enjoy putting this up on

the podcast for all our viewers

and listeners I hope to stay

in touch great individual.

When I'm in the 3 0 5 or in the

south Florida area, I give you a

call, grab a coffee or something.

Absolutely

Luigi and I really

appreciate the opportunity.

I'm definitely gonna stay

in touch and looking forward

to our next conversation.

All right, Jahn.

Thank you very much.

Have yourself a good afternoon.

Thanks so much.

Take care.

Okay.

Bye.

Bye.

Thank you for listening to

10 Questions to Cyber Resilience

brought to you by Assurance IT.

Assurance IT is in the

cybersecurity space, specializing

in data protection and compliance

since 2011, they primarily help

mid-sized enterprises in Canada.

If you have questions

about protecting your data,

reach out to us direct.

At info@assuranceit.ca