Great Chapter

I read a lot and all the best books I have read have had great chapters end only to have another chapter pick off where that one ended and take things to new heights.

At 11:59 tonight my chapter at Sophos, by acquisition Rook Security, comes to an end. At 12:00 am a new chapter with GoSecure begins.

Firstly, I would like to acknowledge all of the people that I had the absolute pleasure of getting to know and work with during the Rook Security chapter. Man we went through a lot together guys and it was an awesome ride. I love all of you guys and will cherish the time we spent together. There are four people in particular I want to give special thanks to. Eric Kokonas you are an amazing marketing genius and friend. Your support, mentorship and friendship truly helped me break through many walls. Mat Gangwer and Tom Gorup, man I can never put into words how amazing it was gleaning so much technical knowledge from the two of you. You guys indulged the sales guy that always had questions that sales guys should not be asking and pointed me in the right direction to further my education and knowledge. J.J Thompson, you took a risk on a guy with no cybersecurity experience on his resume, but saw my passion for this in our first meeting and went against protocol and hired me on the spot. The desire to make sure that you never regretted that decision was an integral part of the fuel behind my work ethic.

I am not eloquent enough to truly be able to express the gratitude I feel to Sophos as an organization for the last 19 months, but I will try.

This is a special organization, that has its true value in the people and the way they support each other. Most times when you are part of an acquisition, you spend a good amount of time trying to figure out where you fit in within the new organization. Very early on Greg Rosenberg and Jason Clark made it perfectly clear to me that it was up to me to help shape that. That level of support was not only refreshing but gave me confidence to be fearless in my pursuits to add value to the organization.

I vividly remember one day where I woke up at 4 am to do a presentation for a team in Europe. I followed that up with meetings and presentations with teams and customers in North and South America during the day. In the evening I had two presentations with Teams in Australia and a meeting with a customer in Hong Kong. At around 11 pm I was alerted to a company that was in the middle of a security incident somewhere else in the world and jumped on a call with them to help them understand the nature of their situation and what assistance Sophos could provide.

The reason I vividly remember that day was because I felt so privileged to have been in that situation. You can go an entire lifetime and not work with people outside of your own country, but here I am having the opportunity to engage with people in a meaningful way on almost every continent on this planet in less than 24 hours.

But what made this even more special for me was the fact that under Joe Levy's leadership Sophos has truly created a world class MDR offering that I had the benefit of helping so many people across the world learn the value of. It's easy to speak passionately about something you truly believe in. They say when you do something you love it doesn't feel like work, but I would add, when you believe in something you are working on, if feels like a calling.

There was a moment when I was in the Belgium, stand on a stage as one of the keynote speakers at a conference for some of Sophos's biggest partners in the Benelux Region where I felt a bit overwhelmed with gratitude. Here I am less than 5 years into my transition into the cybersecurity industry being respected enough to be granted such an opportunity. There are very few things in this world that builds more confidence and drives a person to want to be better at their craft than that level of support.

And that is a microcosm of the kind of support I got from everyone at Sophos. In less than 2 years I was able to gain 10 years worth of experience thanks to this organization.

But alas, this great chapter must end for the new one to build upon it. I will relax during that 1 minute of break between companies and then its time to get to work.

I am certain there will be challenges in my new role with GoSecure, but the challenges that I have been part of overcoming over the past few years has helped strengthen my desire for facing them head on with pure confidence and will power.

I want to thank everyone that I have had the opportunity of working with over the years at Rook and Sophos and look forward to our continued relationship in this new chapter.

P.S It was only fitting that I wrote this while listening to "Time to say goodbye" By Sarah Brightman & Andrea Bocelli on repeat.