Dennis Keane's inspiring story of how his thirst for learning led him to make a daring suggestion to his boss, which paved the way to his current position of VP and CIO of Red Wing Shoes. For more info find us online at https://www.aerocominc.com

Mike Madden went from digging holes at a construction job to becoming a top IT executive for Cardno, one of the largest environmental development companies in the world. For more info find us online at https://www.aerocominc.com

Are you doing the same job now, that you knew you wanted to do when you were 18? I know I’m not. I wanted to be a doctor, and well... I’m not a doctor. Dennis Leber had the same problem. As you’ll hear, Dennis didn’t find his true career calling until he was in his mid-thirties. Now, he’s the CISO for the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, and absolutely lives Cyber Security. For more information visit Https://www.aerocominc.com

Have you ever told someone: “I’m only hard on you because I know you have the potential to do great things.” If you ask Doug Saunders, he’d tell you to keep it up. Whether it was his Grandfather, the owner of the company, or his mentor, Doug had many people in his life who were very hard on him… and he thinks it’s been a big reason why he’s become a successful IT leader. He was also an NHL official and once coached with the current Manager of the New York Yankees, Aaron Boone. https://www.aerocominc.com

Have you ever been interviewing for a job, and had the person across the table give you some strong, constructive criticism about your qualifications? Well, that happened to Tom Sweet, very early in his career. Tom is now the VP of Cloud Services for GM Financial, but that criticism was so profound that he still remembers it today, and uses it to help him mentor people on his team. Here’s Tom’s story… and just a quick item to point out: Tom’s opinion’s are his own and not those of his employer, GM Financial. For more info visit https://www.aerocominc.com

Way back in 1993, Vishal Gupta was a young, extremely talented computer scientist, who actually created one of the first search engines, that used Artificial Intelligence. The only problem was that he didn’t know the potential of it, and walked away from his invention. As you’ll hear, that missed opportunity awakened Vishal to the importance of having knowledge in more areas than just science and technology. He was inspired to learn more about business and people, and that “aha” moment has lead to an extremely successful career in IT. For more information visit https://www.aerocominc.com

A while back, I sat down with Ryan Johnson, who at the time was the head of IT for Keap, a fantastic CRM and marketing automation software company. Since that time, Ryan has continued his career climb and is now the VP of Operations for Keap. We first published this episode back in January, but I think it’s worth revisiting. I especially love how his humility and honesty have played a key role in his career success. Here’s Ryan’s story. For more information visit https://www.aerocominc.com

As you’ll hear, Ron Herardian, Senior Director of Technology at Capgemini, and long time IT startup veteran, learned, at a young age, to be comfortable with change. And being comfortable with change (and loving computers), were good traits to have if you lived in Silicon Valley in the late 80’s and you were trying to get your first job out of college. Sorry in advance if you hear a few garbled audio glitches. We had a small audio issue on this recording. For more info visit http://www.aerocominc.com

As a CISO, you have to be the strategic leader of Information Security with your organization... that’ so obvious. But what isn’t obvious is that in order to lead effectively, you have to work well with the other C-levels within your company and also the board of directors. That last part, in particular, is the number one thing Nikk Gilbert, long-time global CISO, and current CISO for Cherokee Nation Businesses, attributes to his success. For more information visit https://www.aerocominc.com

Jeff Brandt got his first CIO role at a law firm, around 25 years ago. So, that would make him probably around retirement age, with kids that have families of their own, etc. ... right? Well, not quite. See, he was only around 30 years old when he got that first CIO role. Crazy, right? For more information visit https://www.aerocominc.com