Are you able to briefly describe your profession journey and what led you to your present position as VP of Product and Utility Safety?
I began within the tech world again when website hosting was taking off earlier than “The Cloud” or “Safety Engineering” existed, when people used to run website hosting corporations from their very own storage. I even had a FreeBSD 4.11 server with very fundamental specs and a 300+ days uptime that I leveraged to promote website hosting providers. My first tech roles have been working in Knowledge Facilities in Houston, Texas whereas I used to be nonetheless in school. Over time, I moved by totally different positions in help, high quality assurance, community, improvement, and finally into what’s now referred to as safety engineering; offering me with expertise that spans throughout your complete OSI (Open Techniques Interconnection) mannequin, from silicon to cloud, from layer 1 to layer 7.
I’ve been lucky to work at some wonderful corporations in a number of tech hubs that uncovered me to Silicon Valley, Analysis Triangle Park and the Pacific Northwest: EV1Servers, cPanel, Hewlett Packard, Microsoft, F5 Networks, Amazon, and now GoDaddy. I gained deep expertise in a number of safety realms together with however not restricted to incident response, community safety, safe improvement lifecycle, and even cyberlaw (was a authorized extern at F5)!
One of many turning factors in my profession was working in Microsoft’s Reliable Computing (TwC) group — it actually sparked my long-term concentrate on constructing safe merchandise. From there, I helped rise up product safety organizations from infancy for each Amazon FinTech and Bodily Shops together with securing Pc Imaginative and prescient and Machine Studying applied sciences like Simply Stroll Out and Amazon One earlier than becoming a member of GoDaddy. Collaborating within the safety trade additionally helped me community and develop further expertise. I at all times take pleasure in attending and talking at safety conferences when possible equivalent to BSides (Scotland), DefCon (Vegas), SysCan (Singapore), EkoParty (Argentina), ISDFS (Romania) amongst others as a result of they’ve additionally helped formed my profession in product safety whereas networking with fellow passionate safety professionals.
What’s essentially the most difficult but rewarding factor that you have labored on at GoDaddy?
Constructing the BISO (Enterprise Data Safety Officer) Program from the bottom up. This initiative was totally new, and our CISO positioned their belief in me by offering the chance, help, and steering to form this system from begin to end, together with overseeing hiring, designing the organizational construction, and setting the strategic route. I consider in coaching-first management, so my focus was on hiring and growing robust, autonomous BISO leaders who may accomplice intently with enterprise and engineering leaders and their groups. Watching the BISOs thrive and drive actual impression has been probably the most fulfilling components of my position.
I’ve loved seeing the expansion and improvement of every BISO, with totally different tenures and maturity ranges as they develop their packages. I proceed to assist develop the BISO group specializing in parity and continuity relating to the safety posture of every enterprise and engineering group. I just lately hosted a BISO Summit at my house in Austin, Texas. Bringing collectively a number of administrators and distinguished engineers created an atmosphere for partaking conversations and strategic planning. These discussions have been instrumental in shaping our targets and defining our OKRs.
How do you steadiness safety with product usability and pace to market?
Safety can’t exist in a silo. I see it as a enterprise enabler, not only a gate. My background spans throughout enterprise, cybersecurity, and legislation (I maintain a BBA Pc Data Techniques, MBA in Finance, MS in Digital Forensics/Cybersecurity, and a JD with a spotlight in Mental Property and Cyberlaw). Subsequently, I method issues with a large lens, balancing the myriads of enterprise and engineering views when making selections that require steadiness between the enterprise and safety leaders because it involves product launches. I would discover a DBA in worldwide enterprise on the Worldwide College of Monaco as my subsequent instructional journey.
When safety is embedded early within the improvement cycle and aligned with enterprise targets, it enhances innovation as an alternative of slowing it down. Shifting Left into the event lifecycle has been a sport changer for our group together with innovation through Synthetic Intelligence.
How do you method motivating your group members to succeed in their full potential?
I take a servant management method — I work for my group not the opposite means round. I make it a precedence to construct relationships with every group member, no matter position or title. I ask for suggestions yearly from the entire group and preserve my door open for something — whether or not it is a technical escalation or one thing affecting group morale. My objective is to assist them take away obstacles and create a welcoming and accommodating house for his or her finest work.
I’m right here to assist my group develop and allow them to tackle challenges with the appropriate help.
The most important praise for me is when a former direct worker follows me and desires to hitch me at my new firm or group, which has occur fairly a couple of instances over time.
I additionally leverage the GoDaddy morale mechanisms out there to me equivalent to GoDaddy On a regular basis Champions Factors, Enjoyable Fund and the Collect Occasion framework. I used to be lucky to host each the 2023 Houston and Dallas collect occasions with a 90s theme that my spouse helped me arrange and beautify in a few resort presidential suites, which allowed me to attach with fellow co-workers and even GoDaddy workers from different divisions in a face-to-face informal atmosphere.
What tendencies or applied sciences are you most enthusiastic about sooner or later?
Professionally, I’m enthusiastic about the place cybersecurity intersects with synthetic intelligence and crypto currencies and/or blockchain. These areas are evolving quick and provide large potential for each danger and innovation. I’m presently exploring blockchain analysis and investments in Tallin, Estonia.
On a private degree, I’ve at all times been fascinated by mechanical methods and automotive tech — I really like tinkering, reverse engineering, and determining how issues work from the within out for any sort of auto whether or not land, air or water. That curiosity spills over into my work in safety. “Automobile Hacking” was a development that bought my consideration that intersected each of my know-how passions. I wish to analysis the safety mechanisms and controls round Unique Vehicles, Yachts and Non-public Jets.
What do you take pleasure in doing outdoors of labor?
My hobbies often fall round 5 main matters: Cultural Touring, Empirical Cooking, Life Hacking, DIY-ing and Unique Automotive Rallying.
Cultural Touring is an enormous a part of my life — not only for enjoyable, however to attach with totally different cultures by language, meals, and native traditions, dwelling versus visiting. I see myself as a worldwide citizen: I used to be born in Monterrey, Mexico, maintain twin citizenship with Mexico and the U.S., and have residency in Portugal in addition to Monaco, plus e-residency in Estonia. I plan to proceed including further residencies and passports, South Korea can also be a possible candidate, I suppose I watched means too many James Bond 007 films.
I communicate Spanish and English, together with conversational Portuguese, Italian, French and German, discovered Cyrillic and Hangul alphabets as a pastime – and dabble in a couple of different languages as properly. It actually helps once I’m on the street, whether or not for enterprise or private adventures. It actually turns out to be useful if you end up street tripping by rural areas throughout Europe or once you simply wish to have a particular reference to people worldwide in their very own native tongue.
Empirical Cooking: as a part of cultural exploration, I take pleasure in cooking totally different cuisines with my household as I be taught concerning the tradition of various international locations – and even attempt to be taught a bit little bit of historical past and a few frequent phrases as a part of the expertise. I’ve culinarily traveled all continents.
Life Hacking: discovering a great deal is a novel ardour – having fun with every little thing life has to supply at an reasonably priced charge. I’ve my fair proportion of extraordinarily reasonably priced presidential suite, personal jet, unique automotive and yacht experiences with very minimal price.
DIY-ing: I take pleasure in enjoying round with energy instruments and have designed and constructed nearly all of the furnishings in my Texas house, in addition to different house enhancements equivalent to flooring, board and batten accent partitions, and fake fireplaces.
Unique Automotive Rallying / Van Life: I’m additionally a automotive fanatic. My most up-to-date journey? A 30,000 KM street journey from Porto, Portugal to Oslo, Norway with a number of stops alongside the best way together with the German Autobahn. It was a kind of once-in-a-lifetime experiences that mixed my love for driving with exploring new cultures. I additionally traveled with my household for a bit over a 12 months all through the USA visiting each state of the continental US – empirically making an attempt out a hybrid glam model of “VanLife”.
Micro-Influencer: And sure – I sustain with social media tendencies too. You may even catch me testing out new Meta platforms, posting a humorous reel in Instagram, or the occasional embarrassing TikTok dance. It retains me related to rising tech… and it’s a enjoyable method to unwind. I’m additionally an empirical micro-influencer with helps me perceive the house as a content material creator and small enterprise proprietor. Plus, it provides me the chance to share bits and items of my hobbies with buddies, household and followers. Be at liberty to observe me on Instagram: frugxyz
Household: I’m so lucky that my spouse and son share the identical hobbies. We get to discover the world collectively, sharing very related passions in life. Moreover, they’ve additionally pursued careers in cybersecurity.
Remaining Ideas
I’ve at all times believed that curiosity, empathy, and steady studying are core to robust management — particularly in safety engineering. The extra we perceive folks, know-how, and enterprise, the higher we will construct methods which are safe, usable, and impactful.
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