March 23, 2022

Leveraging Employee Strengths for Cyber Roles w/ Nick Vigier

by Cyber Ranch

Listen Now

test
00:00:00

Show Notes

There are numerous personality tests available to help identify personality traits, but many of them have very little scientific validity or reliability.  Such tests often aspire to explain what you are good at and what you are bad at, and miss the mark. In this episode, Allan is joined by his friend and owner of Rising Tide Security, Nick Vigier, to explore CliftonStrengths – a personality measurement that focuses less on ability, and more upon your predilections - what energizes you, and what and drains you - and with a pretty good degree of scientific validity and reliability. Nick and Allan explore what makes CliftonStrengths different from the other personality assessments and how Nick leverages that information to better understand his team and colleagues, and to help folks find the right role in cybersecurity. The two sit down to dissect Allan’s own assessment results to identify his top 5 energizers, as well as his top energy drainers. And lastly, Nick shares why he favors the idea of personality development plans vs professional development plans in the workplace. 

 

Guest Bio:

Nick Vigier is the Owner of Rising Tide Security and former CISO at ID.me, DigitalOcean, and former CIO at Gemini. Nick is a technology and security leader focused on innovation to drive business results. In his 18 years of security leadership, he has focused on building high performance teams to ensure security is a business driver rather than a cost center. His focus on all areas of security ranging from physical security to risk management through to application security, infrastructure security, and operations gives him a unique perspective on how security can positively impact an organization. 

 

Links:

Stay in touch with Nick Vigier on LinkedIn and Twitter. Take the CliftonStrengths assessment here

Follow Allan Alford on LinkedIn and Twitter

Purchase a Cyber Ranch Podcast T-Shirt at the Hacker Valley Store

Learn more about Hacker Valley Studio and The Cyber Ranch Podcast

Sponsored by our good friends at  Axonius

Read more

Recent Episodes

March 22, 2023
by Cyber Ranch

This episode is a story about an entire vendor encounter gone horribly wrong.  Allan is joined by Paul Moreno, VP of InfoSec at Catawii, formerly SVP of Cybersecurity at Adyen, investor and advisor.  Paul found a cybersecurity vendor.  Paul found goo...

March 15, 2023
by Cyber Ranch

Join Allan and Dr. Mike Brass (whose degree is in archaeology!) as they jointly explore the technical side of the house vs. the GRC side of the house, noting that GRC can be a great path to CISO. Hear Mike's journey from IT technician to GRC to CISO....

March 8, 2023
by Cyber Ranch

We have this idea that we can be perfect.  And we know that idea is unsound.  So we settle for imperfection.  But are we doing that purposefully?  Do we have a conscious plan for embracing imperfection?  How can we, as cyber professionals, embrace ou...

March 1, 2023
by Cyber Ranch

In this episode, Allan is joined by Omkhar Arasaratnam, a force in the industry and an expert in the intersection of software and security (you may remember Omkhar from an earlier show about supply chain security). They challenge each other to a game...

February 22, 2023
by Cyber Ranch

Join Allan, Shaun Marion (CISO of McDonald's) and ChatGPT itself for a lively conversation about the implications of this new tool, AI in general, and nuances about ChatGPT's usage. Even after controls were put into place to prevent ChatGPT from help...

February 15, 2023
by Cyber Ranch

How important are communications after your company has been breached?  They can make or break customer perception, and the perception of the world.  Bad communications are perceived as bad intent. Joining Allan this week is Heather Noggle, owner of ...

February 8, 2023
by Cyber Ranch

Do you want to be a CISO one day?  Are you a CISO today who wants to strengthen your ties into the rest of the business?  The Business Information Security Officer (BISO) role is one you should explore. The role can vary quite a bit, as you will hear...

February 1, 2023
by Cyber Ranch

Joining Allan today are two folks who are passionate about leadership – not just practicing good leadership, but instilling good leadership in future generations.  Joey Rachid is CISO in the ecommerce and financial services industry, is on advisory b...

January 25, 2023
by Cyber Ranch

This week Allan is joined by Nipun Gupta, and industry veteran who has been a consultant, practitioner, vendor, advisor and investor. The topic is "What are we really protecting in cyber?" and the nuances of that question are explored in depth - as w...

January 18, 2023
by Cyber Ranch

This week, Allan is joined by Peter Schawacker, CEO @ Nearshore Cyber, former CISO, advisor to MSPs, etc.  Another one of Allan's illustrious guests with 25 years in cyber.  (https://www.linkedin.com/in/schawacker/).  The topic started as all that th...