Jared Shepard is an experienced and innovative industry leader with other twenty years of information technology, federal services, and sales experience. A U.S. Army veteran, Jared is the architect behind two successful businesses, Hypori and Intelligent Waves, and a rapidly expanding non-profit, Warriors Ethos. On this episode of Beyond Strategy, hear is thoughts on leadership, business evolution, and giving back to support others.  Jared also shares his background and why he believes non-traditional experience can make great leaders as well as employees.

Hi. Hello and welcome to Episode 7 of Beyond Strategy, an ACG National Capital Region podcast, focused on leaders that drive innovation, enhance understanding, and achieve market clearing outcomes in the National Capital Region. I am Andy McEnroe with Raymond James' defense and government investment banking team.

And I'm Jenn Wappaus of the Infinity Group at RBC Wealth Management.

Today we are excited to present to you Jared Shepard, President and CEO of Hypori. Hypori's mission is to provide secure access to data from any device anywhere. The company empowers businesses and government agencies globally to protect data within their enterprise by eliminating the edge as an attack surface and preventing data at rest or in transit outside the enterprise from being compromised.

Jared is also the Owner, Founder and Chairman of the Board for Intelligent Waves. Intelligent Waves delivers mission focused multi-domain operational expertise and innovation to government customers through high impact technology solutions in the areas of cybersecurity, data science, enterprise networking, systems engineering, software development, and platform mission support.

Jared is an experienced and innovative industry leader with over 20 years of information technology, federal services, and sales experience. He is a US army veteran who, following his time in uniform, became the lead technical planner for three Corp in the US army.

Jared deployed from 2003 to 2005 with Combined Joint Task Force 7 and Multi-National Corps-Iraq, where he helped architect the US built DOD Iraq network infrastructure. In 2006, he founded Intelligent Waves to support a critical need for JIEDDO. He personally deployed to build the first COIC into Multi-National Corps-Iraq, then built that capability into every major command in Iraq and Afghanistan. Jared grew Intelligent Waves around tactical and strategic needs for the warfighter.

In this conversation, you'll hear his views on leadership, how to balance priorities across multiple different companies, and how to "change the world through business and charity," including his own efforts in founding a charity, Warriors Ethos.

Now, here's our discussion with Jared Shepard.

We are excited to be joined today on Beyond Strategy by Jared Shepard, Owner, Founder and Chairman of Intelligent Waves, and President and CEO of Hypori. Jared, thank you for being here.

It's awesome. I appreciate you guys inviting me out to, I guess, share a little bit of my story so far.

Before we dive into what you've been building at both of your firms and your background, I'd like to start this interview with a leadership oriented question. What is the most important leadership principle that has guided you through the creation of both businesses?

My background's a little weird, very atypical, and we joked about it earlier. I was a knucklehead. I've always been good at everything I ever did in my life. When I was young, I wanted to be a jerk, and I was a good jerk, and I got myself in a lot of trouble. I ended up at one point being homeless and lived in the backseat of a car and then joining the army [inaudible 00:03:25] streets.

One of the guys who really helped me turn my life around told me that the most important thing you do in life is leave a legacy. The only way that you can leave a legacy is one of two ways, and that's through children, right? Because you can impart your morals and your values upon your children, and that carries beyond you. Of course, I was young enough at the time. I was not interested in having children. I was like, "Well, what's the other way?" He said, "Change the world."

That became impactful because I was like, "Well, I'm just a guy, how do I change the world?" He was like, "Well, you have to pick something that matters to you and then you have to do something about it. It doesn't need to be you who gets credit for it, it just needs to change."

Later in life, of course, I really realized that I was on a path to be able to have some level of effect in the world, and I told him, I said, "Man, I really owe you. How do I ever repay you for really saving me in a lot of ways, getting me off the street and help me get straight?" He said, "Well, yeah, you do, and it's an expensive repayment." I said, "Well, what is that?" He said, "Well, you're going to have to do what I did for you, and you're going have to do it when it's not convenient, when it's the worst possible time, and it takes time that you don't have to give, and it takes money or effort that you don't have to give, and you're still going to have to stop and do it because that's when it matters." That's the way I try to live my life.

Is part of that thesis what led you to the founding of Warrior Ethos?

Yeah, that's a long story on itself, how Warriors Ethos came to me. But I founded Warriors Ethos. I first was a donor to Wounded Warrior Project farther back. When I started my very first company, I literally built it in Iraq. I was working for a guy named General Ray Odierno at the time who was just a great leader, and he had a lot of great effect on my life. We're less of a world that we had lost him this last year from cancer.

He gave a speech when we opened the very first ever COIC, the Counter-IED Operational Intelligence Center in Iraq. That was how I started my company, and it was me and one employee. He gives a speech and I had this epiphany that the idea of the ultimate sacrifice is maybe narrow. I sometimes say it's BS, but that's harsh. It's the idea that dying for your country is the only ultimate sacrifice is narrow. That the ultimate sacrifice is bigger than that. It's giving some part of who you are for something greater than what you are.

That can be a limb, that can be a friend, that can be time away from your children, right? I mean, it can be lots of things, but the ultimate sacrifice I felt was a lot broader. Way back then when I was with me and one employee in this little company that I thought was going to last for about six months and I was going to try to build a Nasdaq off of, I decided, "Man, if I ever become bigger, I'll try to make a difference."

Fast forward 18 months or so, I was able to write my first $145,000 check to the Wounded Warrior Project, to which General Odierno, who was my boss and mentor in a lot of ways, he actually flew in and presented it on my behalf to them, which was amazing. Then from there, it grew.

How I started Warriors Ethos was I developed a mantra which the mantra was not to focus on the injury, but to focus on what was next. I would ask a very emotional question of wounded soldiers and veterans and say, "Okay, I get it, you were hurt, but what's next?" That always elicited a very emotional response from family members, from the veteran, from everybody else like that, and that became my passion, which was helping people with what's next. That's how Warriors Ethos started. Now it's almost 10 years into it now. It's been definitely a labor of passion.

Pulling that thread a little bit, how does what you do with Intelligent Waves and Hypori and the development of those two companies generally relate to that thesis or that mission statement, if you will, of what you've put out here with both Warrior Ethos and what you noted to us here in the opening.

I guess I go back to that idea of change the world, but the thing... Like I tell my employees all the time, I've been telling them for years and years and years, I've never fired somebody for trying to do the right thing, right? I fired people for doing things for money, and for doing the wrong thing and other things that are obvious, right? But never for trying to do the right thing. I guess my guiding ethos that I tell people is just do right, do right always. My first mentor, what he told me was, a lot of times, it won't be when it's convenient or easy. It's just when it's important.

That's interesting. We've come-

Yeah, sorry. We diverged already.

We did. We went in real deep right away. How do you think your leadership style has changed over time?

In some ways, not at all, but in a lot of ways, completely. I think I've always been who I am and I've tried to stay true to that, which is passionate and loyal and that kind of a thing. The military, the infantry, combat arms, taught me the fundamentals of leadership. I was a wayward kid when I was young for a lot of reasons, most of them my fault, and I really needed a guiding light, a guiding compass, a baseline, which became the morals and ethics that the military teaches, that the army teaches, especially as a leader, and those responsibilities.

That became the baseline for what I later became. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm learning every day. I was running Intelligent Waves for 16 years before I spun Hypori. I thought I knew everything there was about small, medium sized business, spun out Hypori and tried to raise a round of funding and then realized I really don't know shit.

Speaking of that, how do you juggle both firms right now? Give us a little background on that. You spun out, you're running two firms plus Warriors Ethos. How do you do all this?

And a family and kids and... I always joke. People ask me that. Like, "How do you run two businesses, a nonprofit, and have three kids at home?" I say, "Well, you start in the opposite order." I start with the three kids and I isolate time for them and then I can work on everything else with what time is left. It doesn't mean I give them as much time as I would like. I would love to give them more time. But I do dedicate and isolate time for my wife and my kids because they're the most important thing I do.

But one of the things I had to learn was I can't run a services company and a product company together because one will try to eat the other. That's really what happened. My product company tried to kill Intelligent Waves because I was sucking everything out of Intelligent Waves to try to build what is now Hypori.

I brought in Tony Crescenzo to run Intelligent Waves for me, who has been a great mentor and a great leader of the org. He came and told me, he said, "Hey, once you hired me to come in and be the president," he's like, "I know..." When I started that, I still retained the CEO title. He said, "But really, I'm going to make it easy for you. You have two choices at that point, once I join the company and you want me to come and take care of this."

It's like, "Okay, what's that?" He's like, "I believe in your morals, your values, and your direction, and you have to believe that I'm going to represent those as best as I possibly can and keep the culture that you built, which culture is really one of the only things that a CEO truly owns in an organization." He said, "The other choice you have is whether you're going to fire me or keep me." He was like, "Other than that, the rest of the decisions are mine." That was hard to hear, but-

Did you go into that situation thinking that's what you'd be hearing?

No, not at all. But it was probably the best thing I could have ever heard, right? It was because it forced me to make the leadership and emotional and personal decision, that I had to make that decision to walk away as the day to day leader of an organization so that I could be successful to be the day to day leader of another organization, or I would have just been the unsuccessful leader of two. You just can't do that, right? You have to be able to give something your focus to make it work, to make it right.

You brought up a good point about culture and the culture that you build in the companies. But as you run each of these businesses, what's the most important metric or statistic or thing that you focus on to measure success?

Yeah, it's an easy one. Impact. That's the way I live my life. It's the way I tell my employees to live their lives. The most important thing we can ever do is just have an impact. How you measure impact, that depends. Some people measure impact by money. I believe money is just a tool for impact, not in the measurement of impact. Intelligent Waves doesn't have to make hundreds of millions of dollars to be impactful. It has to change the mission. It has to be impactful for their customers. It has to do things that change the way or improve the way in which the mission is executed. That's impactful, right? Money just happens to be a side effect.

Let's take a step back and talk about the development of Hypori and Intelligent Waves. First, Hypori inside of Intelligent Waves and then the split out. You mentioned the realization you had that the product business was going to eat the services business. Walk our audience through the origin though, of why you decided to start a product business inside of a successful services business, and how separately both can continue to pursue their independent missions.

Sure. Man, talk about almost a couple of decades worth of learning experiences. But starting as a services company, then turning into a VAR, then turning into an integrated services company, and then a product integrated services company, and then back out again, we had tried a lot of different things as ways in which ultimately to have that impact, right? How do you deliver impact to a customer?

That's a hard thing to make a decision to do because being a VAR doesn't really deliver impact, but it generates revenue. Revenue has value because it enables you to do other things that can deliver impact, right? How Hypori came to be was in Intelligent Waves, we were trying to get at a very bespoke solution for the special operations and intelligence community, which was the idea of getting at a denied space operations capability. How can you go into a place that you're not supposed to be, where you could be arrested or shot for being there, if you get caught with something you're not supposed to have, and bring nothing with you?

Buy a cell phone off the local host nation market, and be able to following a little bit of procedure, securely command and control, in a environment where it could be problematic if you get captured to be there, right? That was a hard problem, but it's a hard problem for a very small customer set.

As we continued to explore that, that was how I ended up encountering what is now Hypori, what was actually then Hypori as well, but was a startup that had challenges going to market for a number of reasons, timing, and strategy, et cetera. I was able actually to step in and buy out the IP, and I hired six of the original developers who were really the thought behind what became what was Hypori. We solved this one very small, bespoke solution, and in the process we realized, "Man, we're sitting on something way bigger. From an impact standpoint, this isn't just this little problem that it solves. It's a much bigger problem for the world that it solves. All right, let's throw more at this and see what can happen."

Eventually, we got to the point where, I think in fairness, I was bleeding Intelligent Waves dry to try to fund Hypori, to build Hypori. Neither one were going to be successful the way that I was approaching that because I was just eating both of them to do it.

A mentor of mine stepped aside and said, "Hey, if you think it's really that good of idea, you should be able to do it with somebody else's money." That was an epiphany. I've had a long life of epiphanies, but that was one of my epiphanies. I was like, "What do you mean?" He said, "Well, if it's really going to be that successful, you should be able to do it with somebody else's money. You shouldn't have to do it with your own money." That was what ended up leading to the genesis of us spinning Hypori out and going and raising money, which in itself is a complete half hour discussion of learning lessons.

I imagine, for sure, taking a step to the left here though, how do you sell the vision for both businesses? We mentioned culture, and culture is probably part of vision here, but what is your pitch to either attract talent to Intelligent Waves from a services perspective, or, as you just alluded to, attract capital to fund an emerging technology company?

Well, it's actually beautiful that you said it that way, because I would argue that the only thing a CEO really owns in a company is vision and culture, right? Everything else belongs to your employees, it belongs to your team, it belongs to the organization, it belongs to the mechanism of the business. Vision and culture belongs to the CEO.

The vision of Intelligent Waves is we have always been, and strive to always be, a disruptive technology firm. The idea that we're not a butts in seats company, we weren't looking for cheap, low cost labor. We were looking for disruptive thought leaders to come and help and solve really difficult problems for the government. It's not hard to break in and build on that, but I think Intelligent Waves has done a really good job at doing that.

How would you describe, in one word or phrase, what you've established in the industry, or how the industry may be set another way, would describe Jared Shepard?

Well, I would say lucky.

How?

Well, a lot of people would tell me. Yeah, [inaudible 00:16:42], "Hey, look, I'm just really lucky to be here." People go, "No, you worked hard." I'm like, "Well, janitors work hard. That doesn't make them successful in life." I don't know in one word. That would be tough.

It could be a phrase.

I mean, I would come back to, I hope when history looks at me, when my children look at me, I hope that they can use the word impactful because that's what I strive to be. I mean, that's what I hope it would be.

Part of our podcast is also imparting lessons to our audience, as many of our listeners are aspiring leaders, maybe executives of businesses involved in finance and accounting in some form or fashion. You mentioned earlier in our discussion how you dedicate time to your family and then ensure there's also time for your business. What piece of advice would you give someone who may be trying to strive to create that same kind of balance in their life between either family and work obligations or nonprofit and work obligations or just obligations at large?

Yeah, I get approached by a lot of people who are just really emerging into their own careers professionally and say, "I want to give back." They got 50 bucks in their wallet, they want to give away 25 of it. I go back to that guy that saved me and helped me get off the streets and really helped me, convinced me to change things in the world.

When I wanted to make a difference, he told me something that, again, was impactful that I've carried for a long time. His name is John Patterson, and he's helped me a lot. But he said, "You don't give the shirt off your back to someone else." I said, "Well, why?" His answer was, "Well, because there'd be two cold assholes." I'm like, "Well, what does that mean? I mean, that means you don't help people?" He said, "No." He said, "You work hard enough that you can be successful enough that you can buy a whole bunch of shirts for a whole bunch of people, and that's what scales." When it comes to that prioritization of impact is, you have to first be successful before you can start trying to allocate your time and energy into giving, because then you have a larger base to give to. That was what we tried to accomplish.

When you think of the future for Jared Shepard and your respective companies, is there organic growth in both companies' future? Is it inorganic growth? Are you looking to add a third company to the portfolio? What's next?

My wife would probably [inaudible 00:19:05] me if I added a third company.

Let's not do that. Let's not go there.

But all companies have to organically grow. If you're not focused on how to organically grow, then you're not really trying to build a business, you're just buying businesses. You have to organically grow. Now, that doesn't mean the M&A is not an option. Especially as you start to grow at scale, M&A almost always becomes an option in which you can bolt on other capabilities, shortfalls, specific solutions that you need, or a complementary thing.

Intelligent Waves is doing great at its growth side of the house. Of course, I don't manage that on a day to day basis any longer. But watching and getting in to participate and seeing the impact that they're having with the customers and where that growth is coming from, I think they're going to probably grow another 30% in the next 12 months or so, which is an amazing growth for a services company.

Hypori has been growing 100% year over year or more. It's funny. My first investor, a guy named Ray Lane, he was a guy that helped build Oracle from scratch, runs Great Point Venture. He built Oracle from 4,500 people to 45,000 people. He wrote the first check for what is now Beyond Meat. I mean, very, very successful investor, but more importantly, a very, very successful operator.

That operations experience, when I first came and pitched to him, he said, "Well, what do you think it's going to be?" I said, "Well, I want to build a billion dollar plus company." He laughed at me and I took offense. I was like, "Well, I really think it is." He's like, "Jared, take a deep breath. Relax." He's like, "I think you're undershooting." He's like, "I think you could be way bigger than that." Oh, crap. Of course, that means... Oh, crap, that's a lot of work I'm going to have to do, right?

Yeah.

Yes, growth is always critical. It's the one universal measurement of success across the board, whether it's organic, inorganic, external, bolt on, whatever it happens to be. All businesses eventually are looked at based upon growth. The stock market looks at it that way, so does everybody else.

As we progress towards the end of our time today, we would want to pivot towards life lessons that can be additive to the audience. What's one life lesson that your career has taught you that you think everyone should learn at some point in their career?

Most of us should be our own worst critics, right? That's not necessarily the lesson, but the lesson is that when we look at ourselves in the mirror, what we see is not what everybody else sees. It's really easy for us to doubt ourselves or to believe that we are somehow less capable or delivering less than what we really are.

Now, of course, the dangerous thing is to be on the other side and to think you're more than you really are. But I think it's important to believe in yourself. Like with Hypori, if you had told me that I was going to be disruptive in Google and Microsoft and AWS when I first spun, I'd have said that's just way too big of a fight and I'm not ready to do that. But here we are, and we are, and we're going to become more so. Now that I'm up in the fight up to my neck, I'm like, "Hey, let's do it."

Believe in yourself, do more, be more, because you can. You just absolutely can. The way that you do that more so than anything else is surround yourself with people who are better than you. You have to do that from a civility standpoint, from the way that you look at yourself standpoint, but also know that if you're the smartest guy in the room, then you're the only guy that walks out of the room with nothing, right? Everybody else walks out with something, but you don't. It's way better to be in a room full of people who are all smarter than you, because then you're the one that walks out with the most because you take away from every one of those people who gave something to you.

That's a great point. You've received a lot of awards for entrepreneurship, leadership. Your firms received cybersecurity excellence awards. Your companies have been voted top 10 place for a veteran to work. We end our interviews with the most imperative question. What's the most important thing that our audience should know about Jared Shepard?

Anything I've ever done has not been done by me. It's been done by other people. I'm privileged and blessed to be surrounded by people who are amazing, who have helped me build everything that I've ever accomplished. When we get those awards, they give them to Jared Shepard or they give them to the company, but that's really not. They give them to the team. I love that my name has become synonymous, not with me, but with so many people who are so smart and so capable, and we wouldn't be here without them. This is not the Jared Shepard show, this is the Intelligent Wave show, the Hypori show, the Warriors Ethos show, the show of selfless hardworking, just outstanding people.

If our audience wants to get involved with Warrior Ethos, what's the best way for them to do it?

Yeah, man, that would be awesome, because we need it. We always need the help. For those who don't know, Warriors Ethos focuses on helping veterans in transition out of the military to be successful. Because the one thing that we absolutely need with a continuously declining percentage of our population that support or that participate in service in our country is we need to make sure that we have that representation, whether it's in politics or in business or just successful families, right?

We need to make sure that once you've served your country, that you get out and you can do something else successful. Your service to your country shouldn't be the apex of your life, right? It should just be one more step to a great life. Helping people be successful in transition is critical. That's what Warriors Ethos focuses on. You could reach out to us. Go to www.warriorsethos.org, which is warriors with an S, W-A-R-R-I-O-R-S-E-T-H-O-S.org, and click volunteer. We're always looking for help.

We're looking for three fundamental things. Resources, obviously money is the easy one because that helps us provide resumes, it helps us do that kind of work. But we also need help with... We need volunteers, we need mentors, we need coaches, we need people who are willing to help others.

Then the most important of the three that I always talk about is hire veterans. Go out of your way to hire a veteran, right? Go and analyze, especially those of you who are on the phone that are listening to the podcast that are in the CFO role or in a financial role or in a HR role. Go and look at your processes and ask yourself, do you make an exception for somebody who's served their country but maybe doesn't have the college degree, right?

What about somebody who's served seven, eight years in the military? Is that an equal equivalent to a bachelor's degree? I tell you, I'd compare almost anybody who's served eight years against anybody who's coming out of college, but most HR processes don't account for that, right? Look at that internal thing. Have that reflection as a business and figure out... Because I hear businesses say all time, "I want to hire veterans." Great. But what are you doing, right? Have you adapted your process to accommodate for veterans, to recognize veterans, to recognize that service, and the experiences that come from it? That's what I definitely ask for.

Jared Shepard, Founder of Warriors Ethos, President and CEO of Hypori, Owner, Founder and Chairman of the Board for Intelligent Waves. Thank you so much for joining us today.

It was awesome. I appreciate you guys listen to me ramble.

Special thanks to Jared Shepard for joining us on this episode of Beyond Strategy. I really took away a lot from this interview, Jen. The fact that he noted, you've got to believe in yourself, you've got to surround yourself with people better than you, and have those aspirational goals to really reach forward and grow a company. They really resonated with me, and I think they'll resonate here with the broader National Capital Region business community.

Absolutely, and having a mission and a purpose. It was really great of Jared to share his experience with us.

Well, if you like this podcast, we hope that you'll subscribe to Beyond Strategy, an ACG National Capital Region podcast focused on the leaders that drive innovation, enhance understanding, and achieve market clearing outcomes. Subscribe wherever you get your podcast. For Jen Wappaus, I am Andy McEnroe, thanking you for joining us and hoping that you'll join us once again next time.