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Why building trust in business is critical for sustainable growth: A conversation with Billy Spears, CISO at Teradata
This episode features an interview with Billy Spears, CISO at Teradata. Teradata is the connected multi-cloud data platform for enterprise analytics, solving data challenges from start to scale. Billy has more than 25 years of industry experience. He is an award-winning technology executive, author, speaker, and podcast host. He is also an adjunct professor of cybersecurity at Webster University. Prior to joining Teradata, Billy served as CISO at Alteryx. On this episode, Billy and host Andy Schneider discuss harnessing AI for better business intelligence while managing the risk posed by it, the push and pull of growing trust, and how to use security to drive the business forward.
Key Quotes
*”I don't want any of the listeners to listen to this and go, ‘Wow, Billy said whatever about generative AI.’ I think there's a lot of pros there. You know, creativity, innovation, what you use it for, right? The sky's the limit. And we have to do a really good job of making sure that whatever you're using it for has protections around it because it's a new capability. So we have to have some protections to make sure that we don't go in with a blind eye and create more risk as a result.”
*”You can also use [AI] for better business intelligence. When you start thinking about, ‘How do I get to the root of what I'm trying to solve in security?’ You have all of this data that comes in. How do you consume that data with any sort of consistency and then deliver out the maybe anomalous results or the spikes of risk at the appropriate point of time? And this is the future for us. You don't have unlimited humans that throw out the problem. So you're going to need to use technology or augment that technology to solve the need.”
*”A few things that we can do to continue to shape and evolve as a business leader. One, understand your business. Two, be able to read the financial sheets and understand what things like ARR and ACV and TCV are. Because when you're on calls with salespeople asking you for things, those are the kind of terms they're gonna use. Be able to translate the business and financial terms into your security portfolio and be able to tie your outcomes to business objectives, meaning it's not just about the security stuff you can deliver, but how does the security drive the business forward, whether it's through protections and mitigation outcomes, or whether it's from driving new business to your business by building trust and thinking about resiliency.”
*”The great security leaders that I run into in the business, they're also business enablers. And so there's lots of ways of doing that. Security acts as a business enabler by first protecting our assets. Second, building trust. We need to support digital transformation all around the business, which is constantly occurring anyway.”
*“I'm sure the audience is gonna look at their phone or devices or take their EarPods out and say, 'What did he just say?' But the way that you grow trust is you extend trust. In our business, we talk about a zero trust environment, meaning we wanna validate or verify before we allow things through. In human interaction, if you want to gain trust, you have to extend trust first.”
Time Stamps
[1:34] Understanding the current and emerging threat landscape
[3:00] Is phishing becoming more prevalent?
[5:19] What threat does generative AI propose to security?
[7:26] How can you harness AI for better security?
[9:33] How can CISOs be business enablers?
[11:44] When is something “secure enough”?
[13:14] What makes a great security leader?
[15:26] How do you build trust?
[17:40] How can you better give and accept criticism as a security leader?
[21:22] What has been Billy’s biggest learning of his career?
[25:02] What advice would Billy give someone wanting to enter the cybersecurity industry?
[28:57] What does the future of security look like?
Links
Connect with Billy on LinkedIn
Learn more about Teradata
This podcast is brought to you by Lacework, the leading data-driven cloud-native application protection platform. Lacework is trusted by nearly 1,000 global innovators to secure the cloud from build to run. Lacework delivers true end-to-end protection, empowering customers to prioritize risks, find known and unknown threats faster, achieve continuous cloud compliance, and work smarter–not harder–all from one unified platform. Learn more at Lacework.com.
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This episode features an interview with Billy Spears, CISO at Teradata. Teradata is the connected multi-cloud data platform for enterprise analytics, solving data challenges from start to scale. Billy has more than 25 years of industry experience. He is an award-winning technology executive, author, speaker, and podcast host. He is also an adjunct professor of cybersecurity at Webster University. Prior to joining Teradata, Billy served as CISO at Alteryx. On this episode, Billy and host Andy Schneider discuss harnessing AI for better business intelligence while managing the risk posed by it, the push and pull of growing trust, and how to use security to drive the business forward.
Key Quotes
*”I don't want any of the listeners to listen to this and go, ‘Wow, Billy said whatever about generative AI.’ I think there's a lot of pros there. You know, creativity, innovation, what you use it for, right? The sky's the limit. And we have to do a really good job of making sure that whatever you're using it for has protections around it because it's a new capability. So we have to have some protections to make sure that we don't go in with a blind eye and create more risk as a result.”
*”You can also use [AI] for better business intelligence. When you start thinking about, ‘How do I get to the root of what I'm trying to solve in security?’ You have all of this data that comes in. How do you consume that data with any sort of consistency and then deliver out the maybe anomalous results or the spikes of risk at the appropriate point of time? And this is the future for us. You don't have unlimited humans that throw out the problem. So you're going to need to use technology or augment that technology to solve the need.”
*”A few things that we can do to continue to shape and evolve as a business leader. One, understand your business. Two, be able to read the financial sheets and understand what things like ARR and ACV and TCV are. Because when you're on calls with salespeople asking you for things, those are the kind of terms they're gonna use. Be able to translate the business and financial terms into your security portfolio and be able to tie your outcomes to business objectives, meaning it's not just about the security stuff you can deliver, but how does the security drive the business forward, whether it's through protections and mitigation outcomes, or whether it's from driving new business to your business by building trust and thinking about resiliency.”
*”The great security leaders that I run into in the business, they're also business enablers. And so there's lots of ways of doing that. Security acts as a business enabler by first protecting our assets. Second, building trust. We need to support digital transformation all around the business, which is constantly occurring anyway.”
*“I'm sure the audience is gonna look at their phone or devices or take their EarPods out and say, 'What did he just say?' But the way that you grow trust is you extend trust. In our business, we talk about a zero trust environment, meaning we wanna validate or verify before we allow things through. In human interaction, if you want to gain trust, you have to extend trust first.”
Time Stamps
[1:34] Understanding the current and emerging threat landscape
[3:00] Is phishing becoming more prevalent?
[5:19] What threat does generative AI propose to security?
[7:26] How can you harness AI for better security?
[9:33] How can CISOs be business enablers?
[11:44] When is something “secure enough”?
[13:14] What makes a great security leader?
[15:26] How do you build trust?
[17:40] How can you better give and accept criticism as a security leader?
[21:22] What has been Billy’s biggest learning of his career?
[25:02] What advice would Billy give someone wanting to enter the cybersecurity industry?
[28:57] What does the future of security look like?
Links
Connect with Billy on LinkedIn
Learn more about Teradata
This podcast is brought to you by Lacework, the leading data-driven cloud-native application protection platform. Lacework is trusted by nearly 1,000 global innovators to secure the cloud from build to run. Lacework delivers true end-to-end protection, empowering customers to prioritize risks, find known and unknown threats faster, achieve continuous cloud compliance, and work smarter–not harder–all from one unified platform. Learn more at Lacework.com.