Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing

Episode Summary:

Gary Survis is an operating partner at Insight Partnerswho has spent years on both sides of the table, as an operator and as a board member evaluating CMOs. He joins Gianna and Charles on CyberCMO Confidential to talk about what investors want from marketing leaders and why most CMOs miss it. The conversation covers board meetings, CMO interviews, eighteen-month tenure, and why the CMO role is horizontal by nature and what happens when you treat it like it isn’t.

About Gary:

Gary Survis is an Operating Partner at Insight Partners, where he works with portfolio companies on marketing strategy and go-to-market. He has held CMO roles across multiple technology companies and brings both an operator and investor perspective to marketing leadership.

CyberMarketing Con 2026:

CyberMarketing Con is back November 15th through 18th in Austin, Texas, and virtually. 700+ cybersecurity marketers, 4 days of sessions, workshops, and networking built for go-to-market teams in cybersecurity. Tracks for product marketing, field marketing, CMOs, and founders and CEOs.

👉https://cybermarketingconference.com

Subscribe & Review: 👉 Enjoyed this one? Drop us a quick ⭐ rating or review; it helps more cyber marketers find the show.

📩 Questions, feedback, or want to be a guest? Email: podcast@cybersecuritymarketingsociety.com

Follow the Host:

•

Gianna Whitver on LinkedIn

•

Charles Gold on LinkedIn

Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing. You can join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, on our main LinkedIn page, our Instagram page, or our podcast LinkedIn page.

See you on the next episode!

Episode Summary:

Every year, DataTribe reviews hundreds of early-stage cybersecurity startup submissions for the DataTribe Challenge. Leo Scott, Managing Director and Chief Innovation Officer, sees the market shift before most people do.

He joins Gianna ahead of the Cyber Innovation Conference October 26th and 27th in Washington, DC, to talk through this year’s five finalists. The submissions are full of AI. Leo finds the companies one level down more interesting, solving what AI is changing about how attacks happen, how humans get tricked, and how agents get out of control. That is where the 2026 class points.

If you want to see them pitch live, the conference is October 26th and 27th in Washington, DC, at http://cyberinnovationconference.com.

About Leo:

Leo Scott is the Managing Director and Chief Innovation Officer at DataTribe, a seed-stage startup foundry focused on early-stage cybersecurity and data science companies in the Washington, DC area. He began his career as a software engineer at the start of Web 1.0 and has since co-founded and built three companies, all of which have been acquired: Clara Vista by CMGI in 1999, Incando/Pickle.com by Scripps Networks in 2007, and BrightContext by WealthEngine in 2014. He holds a BS in electrical and computer engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and an MS in computer science from George Washington University.

Links & Resources:

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Leo Scott onLinkedIn

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DataTribe

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Cyber Innovation Conference 2026 - October 26-27, Washington DC

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DataTribe Challenge

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OpenNHP - the open source protocol LayerV is built on

Cyber Innovation Conference:

The Cyber Innovation Conference is happening October 26th and 27th in Washington, D.C. CISOs, founders, and active investors in one room, with sponsor slots purposefully capped. Society members get 10% off your sponsorship when you mention Cybersecurity Marketing Society or CMS at sign-up.

👉https://cyberinnovationconference.com/sponsorshttps://www.cyberinnovationconference.com/sponsors

CyberMarketing Con 2026:

CyberMarketing Con is back November 15th through 18th in Austin, Texas, and virtually. 700+ cybersecurity marketers, 4 days of sessions, workshops, and networking built for go-to-market teams in cybersecurity. Tracks for product marketing, field marketing, CMOs, and founders and CEOs. Get your ticket before prices go up on October 26th.

👉https://cybermarketingconference.com

Subscribe & Review:

👉 Enjoyed this one? Drop us a quick ⭐ rating or review; it helps more cyber marketers find the show.

📩 Questions, feedback, or want to be a guest? Email: podcast@cybersecuritymarketingsociety.com

Follow the Host:

•

Gianna Whitver on LinkedIn

Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing. You can join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, on our main LinkedIn page, our Instagram page, or our podcast LinkedIn page.

See you on the next episode!

Episode Summary:

Tracey Moon is a multi-time CMO and currently leads marketing at BlackCloak, a company that protects executives and their families in their personal lives to prevent corporate breaches. She joined Gianna and Charles on CyberCMO Confidential to talk about why she inserts herself into every part of the business, how she builds credibility before she rolls out her real plan, and why she calls her approach UMA: Unsolicited Moon Advice.

About Tracey:

Tracey Moon is the Chief Marketing Officer at BlackCloak, a digital executive protection company. She has held CMO roles at Cybersixgill, Verodin, and Mandiant, and has spent her career helping growth-stage cybersecurity companies scale through organizational alignment and go-to-market strategy. She holds an MBA from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.

Links & Resources:

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Tracey Moon onLinkedIn

•

BlackCloak

•

Center for Ecosystem Recovery: the nonprofit Tracey mentioned for living shorelines

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CliftonStrengths: the strengths assessment Tracey referenced

•

Asana: project management tool her team runs on

Cyber Innovation Conference:

The Cyber Innovation Conference is happening October 26th and 27th in Washington, D.C. CISOs, founders, and active investors in one room, with sponsor slots purposefully capped. Society members get 10% off your sponsorship when you mention Cybersecurity Marketing Society or CMS at sign-up.

👉https://cyberinnovationconference.com/sponsorshttps://www.cyberinnovationconference.com/sponsors

CyberMarketing Con 2026:

CyberMarketing Con is back November 15th through 18th in Austin, Texas, and virtually. 700+ cybersecurity marketers, 4 days of sessions, workshops, and networking built for go-to-market teams in cybersecurity. Tracks for product marketing, field marketing, CMOs, and founders and CEOs.

👉https://cybermarketingconference.com

Subscribe & Review:

👉 Enjoyed this one? Drop us a quick ⭐ rating or review; it helps more cyber marketers find the show.

📩 Questions, feedback, or want to be a guest? Email: podcast@cybersecuritymarketingsociety.com

Follow the Host:

•

Gianna Whitver on LinkedIn

•

Charled Gold on LinkedIn

Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing. You can join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, on our main LinkedIn page, our Instagram page, or our podcast LinkedIn page.

See you on the next episode!

Episode Summary:

Gianna and Maria are together on the pod to talk about CyberMarketingCon 2026, happening November 15th through 18th in Austin, Texas.

The theme this year is Create Your Own Adventure. They talk about sessions, tracks, career stories from past conferences, the buddy program, the WhatsApp group, and why Maria is starting a petition to rename customer marketing to community building. She will have a clipboard.

There is also a sloth named Chompers. And Maria has a co-founder discount code for anyone who DMs her.

Cyber Innovation Conference:

The Cyber Innovation Conference is happening October 26th and 27th in Washington, D.C. CISOs, founders, and active investors in one room, with sponsor slots purposefully capped. Society members get 10% off your sponsorship when you mention Cybersecurity Marketing Society or CMS at sign-up.

👉https://cyberinnovationconference.com/sponsorshttps://www.cyberinnovationconference.com/sponsors

CyberMarketing Con 2026:CyberMarketing Con is back November 15th through 18th in Austin, Texas, and virtually. 700+ cybersecurity marketers, 4 days of sessions, workshops, and networking built for go-to-market teams in cybersecurity. Tracks for product marketing, field marketing, CMOs, and founders and CEOs. Get your ticket before prices go up on October 1st.

👉https://cybermarketingconference.com

Subscribe & Review:

👉 Enjoyed this one? Drop us a quick ⭐ rating or review; it helps more cyber marketers find the show.

📩 Questions, feedback, or want to be a guest? Email: podcast@cybersecuritymarketingsociety.com

Follow the Host:

•

Gianna Whitver on LinkedIn

Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing. You can join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, on our main LinkedIn page, our Instagram page, or our podcast LinkedIn page.

See you on the next episode!

Episode Summary:

Lenin Alevski is an AI Security Engineer at Google who spent a week building a text-based cybersecurity survival game in his spare time. Accidental CISO puts you in the seat of the first security hire at a company where everything is on fire, and every fraught and heart-pounding decision leads to one of eight endings.

He sat down with Gianna to talk about how the game came together, why spec-driven development matters more than vibe coding alone, and what 12,000 players and zero marketing budget taught him about building indie cyber games.

About Lenin:

Lenin Alevski is an AI Security Engineer at Google, where he focuses on threat modeling and security for AI systems and integrations. Before Google, he held security engineering roles at MinIO, OneLogin, and Websec México, where he worked across application security, cloud security, penetration testing, and identity and access management. In his spare time, he is an open-source contributor and the creator of Accidental CISO, a free text-based cybersecurity survival game.

Links & Resources:

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Lenin Alevski onLinkedIn

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Lenin's website

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Lenin's GitHub

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Accidental CISO game

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Recon Village: where Lenin's DEF CON talks are published

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Malware Village: DEF CON village where Lenin presented

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AppSec Village: DEF CON village where Lenin presented

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Superpowers: spec-driven development plugin Lenin recommended

•

Playwright: testing tool mentioned

Cyber Innovation Conference:

The Cyber Innovation Conference is happening October 26th and 27th in Washington, D.C. CISOs, founders, and active investors in one room, with sponsor slots purposefully capped. Society members get 10% off your sponsorship when you mention Cybersecurity Marketing Society or CMS at sign-up.

👉https://cyberinnovationconference.com/sponsorshttps://www.cyberinnovationconference.com/sponsors

CyberMarketing Con 2026:

CyberMarketing Con is back November 15th through 18th in Austin, Texas, and virtually. 700+ cybersecurity marketers, 4 days of sessions, workshops, and networking built for go-to-market teams in cybersecurity. Tracks for product marketing, field marketing, CMOs, and founders and CEOs. Get your ticket before prices go up on October 1st.

👉https://cybermarketingconference.com

Subscribe & Review: 👉 Enjoyed this one? Drop us a quick ⭐ rating or review; it helps more cyber marketers find the show.

📩 Questions, feedback, or want to be a guest? Email: podcast@cybersecuritymarketingsociety.com

Follow the Host:

•

Gianna Whitver on LinkedIn

Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing. You can join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, on our main LinkedIn page, our Instagram page, or our podcast LinkedIn page.

See you on the next episode!

Episode Summary:

Gianna sits down with Vab Dwivedi, VP of Digital Experience at CrowdStrike, Sandra Liu, a cybersecurity creator with over 200,000 LinkedIn followers, and Eric Becker, Enterprise Account Director at LinkedIn. They covered the CrowdStrike and Sandra Liu creator campaign, why LinkedIn reaches cybersecurity buyers differently than any other platform, how Vab thinks about measurement when the buying journey isn't linear, and why content quality will always matter more than volume.

About the Panelists:

Vab Dwivedi is the VP of Digital Experience at CrowdStrike, where he leads digital marketing strategy. Before CrowdStrike, he spent nearly 20 years in consumer marketing, most recently at Yeti.

Sandra Liu is a cybersecurity creator known as WithSandra, with over 200,000 followers on LinkedIn. She creates cybersecurity education and news content for audiences ranging from beginners to senior security professionals, drawing on her background as a security analyst.

Eric Becker is an Enterprise Account Director at LinkedIn, where he works with brands on creator and video strategies, including thought leader ads, BrandLink, and creator discovery.

Links & Resources:

•

Vab Dwivedi onLinkedIn

•

Sandra Liu onLinkedIn

•

Eric Becker onLinkedIn

Cyber Innovation Conference:

The Cyber Innovation Conference is happening October 26th and 27th in Washington, D.C. CISOs, founders, and active investors in one room, with sponsor slots purposefully capped. Society members get 10% off your sponsorship when you mention Cybersecurity Marketing Society or CMS at sign-up.

👉https://cyberinnovationconference.com/sponsorshttps://www.cyberinnovationconference.com/sponsors

CyberMarketing Con 2026:

CyberMarketing Con is back November 15th through 18th in Austin, Texas, and virtually. 700+ cybersecurity marketers, 4 days of sessions, workshops, and networking built for go-to-market teams in cybersecurity. Tracks for product marketing, field marketing, CMOs, and founders and CEOs. Get your ticket before prices go up on October 1st.

👉https://cybermarketingconference.com

Subscribe & Review:

👉 Enjoyed this one? Drop us a quick ⭐ rating or review; it helps more cyber marketers find the show.

📩 Questions, feedback, or want to be a guest? Email: podcast@cybersecuritymarketingsociety.com

Follow the Host:

•

Gianna Whitver on LinkedIn

Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing. You can join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, on our main LinkedIn page, our Instagram page, or our podcast LinkedIn page.

See you on the next episode!

Episode Summary:

When David Politis sits down with Gianna and Charles on CyberCMO Confidential, you’re getting something rare: A CEO who loves marketing telling you exactly what he thinks when he watches CMOs operate. Why the CRO wins if you let them, why he stops listening the moment someone says they have a playbook, why the best CMOs he ever wanted to hire became CEOs. And what one engineer just built for 2,000 accounts that made him realize most companies are nowhere near what is now possible.

About David:

David Politis is the Multi-time Founder, Current CEO Coach, Founder, Not Another CEO Podcast. He founded and led BetterCloud, sold it to Vista Equity Partners for about $750 million, and was part of the early team at Cloud Sherpas, which Accenture acquired. He now advises founders and executives on go-to-market, fundraising, and company building.

Links & Resources:

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David Politis onLinkedIn

•

Not Another CEO Podcast

•

Not Another CEO Substack

•

BetterCloud

•

Clay: go-to-market automation tool mentioned

•

Lovable: AI app builder mentioned

Subscribe & Review:

👉 Enjoyed this one? Drop us a quick ⭐ rating or review; it helps more cyber marketers find the show.

📩 Questions, feedback, or want to be a guest? Email: podcast@cybersecuritymarketingsociety.com

Follow the Host:

•

Gianna Whitver on LinkedIn

•

Charles Gold on LinkedIn

Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing. You can join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, on our main LinkedIn page, our Instagram page, or our podcast LinkedIn page.

See you on the next episode!

Episode Summary:

Yael Grauer won a Pulitzer and got laid off in the same year. She is a freelance investigative reporter covering cybersecurity, privacy, and surveillance. She sat down with Gianna to talk about what companies get wrong when journalists come knocking, why lying in that moment makes everything worse, and what it looks like from the other side of every pitch, every breach response, and every "no comment" that ends up in a story anyway.

About Yael:

Yael Grauer is a freelance investigative reporter covering cybersecurity, privacy, surveillance, and tech accountability. She has written for Wired, Ars Technica, The Atlantic, The Intercept, The Verge, and others. She previously worked at Consumer Reports as Program Manager for Cybersecurity Research, where she managed Security Planner, a free digital safety guide. She is part of the team behind a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation into global surveillance technology conducted with The Associated Press.

Links & Resources:

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Yael Grauer onLinkedIn

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YaelWrites

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Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation - AP global surveillance investigation Yael contributed to

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Consumer Reports Security Planner

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This Week in Security - Yael's favorite weekly newsletter

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404 Media

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Privacy Guides

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Tate's Online Safety Substack

•

Law Dork

•

Discernible

•

EFF Blog

•

ProPublica

•

MIT Technology Review

•

No Starch Press - publisher of the investigative skills book Yael is writing

Subscribe & Review:

👉 Enjoyed this one? Drop us a quick ⭐ rating or review; it helps more cyber marketers find the show.

📩 Questions, feedback, or want to be a guest? Email: podcast@cybersecuritymarketingsociety.com

Follow the Host:

•

Gianna Whitver on LinkedIn

Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing. You can join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, on our main LinkedIn page, our Instagram page, or our podcast LinkedIn page.

See you on the next episode!

Episode Summary:

Brian Reed has been a CMO six times. He's also watched AI flatten marketing for the past two years and has said so out loud, including in a manifesto he published called AI is Flattening Marketing: Cue the Return of Mad Men.

On this CyberCMO Confidential episode, Brian, Gianna, and Charles Gold get into why storytelling and community are the two things AI cannot commoditize. Brian also talks about how he built a “crusty OT guy” persona to validate messaging authenticity, and what community-driven marketing looks like when your buyers wear steel-toe boots and aren’t online very often.

About Brian:

Brian Reed is the Chief Marketing Officer at Corsha, an early-stage OT security company focused on securing machine-to-machine communications in industrial environments. He is a six-time CMO and CPO with over 30 years of experience in enterprise software and cybersecurity, with a background spanning mobile security, DevSecOps, and now operational technology. Before Corsha, Brian served as CMO at Appdome and NowSecure.

Links & Resources:

•

Brian Reed onLinkedIn

•

Brian’s LinkedIn article: AI is Flattening Marketing. Cue the Return of Mad Men.

•

Corsha

Subscribe & Review:

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📩 Questions, feedback, or want to be a guest? Email: podcast@cybersecuritymarketingsociety.com

Follow the Host:

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Gianna Whitver on LinkedIn

•

Charles Gold on LinkedIn

Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing. You can join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, on our main LinkedIn page, our Instagram page, or our podcast LinkedIn page.

See you on the next episode!

Episode Summary:

Gemma Goldstein had a quiet Thursday in the office, a domain someone spotted for sale, and an idea. A few short weeks later, Check Point's Exposure Management team had a browser-based arcade game live at exposuremanagement.ai with 11,000 players and a leaderboard.

The game launched as part of a broader campaign, and MQLs went up 100% that month. Gemma is careful not to credit the game alone. She and Gianna cover how the campaign came together across multiple channels, what she would do differently now, and how vibe coding an ROI calculator in an hour replaced a project quoted as taking weeks.

About Gemma: Gemma Goldstein is Head of Growth for Exposure Management at Check Point, a role she carried over from Cyberint after they were acquired in 2024. Before Cyberint, she spent three years at Envy, a B2B digital marketing agency focused on cybersecurity. Her background spans SEO, paid media, content, and creative strategy.

Links & Resources:

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Gemma Goldstein onLinkedIn

•

Check Point Exposure Management

•

https://exposuremanagement.ai - the game

•

Sprout Social - employee advocacy tool mentioned

•

Tom Orbach onLinkedIn - mentioned as an inspiration for fun B2B marketing

Subscribe & Review:

👉 Enjoyed this one? Drop us a quick ⭐ rating or review; it helps more cyber marketers find the show.

📩 Questions, feedback, or want to be a guest? Email: podcast@cybersecuritymarketingsociety.com

Follow the Host:

•

Gianna Whitver on LinkedIn

Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing. You can join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, on our main LinkedIn page, our Instagram page, or our podcast LinkedIn page.

See you on the next episode!

Episode Summary:

Patrick Gorman started making YouTube videos during COVID to study for a certification with friends. He now has over 100,000 subscribers and runs a pentesting firm called ISP Security.

This is a replay of our Behind the Cyber Creator AMA series. Patrick and Gianna talk about how he built his audience, why having followers doesn’t automatically mean having clients, and what he learned the hard way about being a public figure in cybersecurity.

About Patrick:

Patrick Gorman is the founder of ISP Security and the creator behind Infosec Pat, a YouTube channel with over 100,000 subscribers. He has over 15 years of experience in IT and offensive security, with a background in penetration testing, network security, and digital forensics.

Links & Resources:

• Patrick Gorman onLinkedIn

• ISP Security

• Infosec Pat

• Infosec Pat on YouTube

• Hack The Box

• Keith Barker on YouTube - mentioned by Patrick as a big influence

• CBT Nuggets - where Patrick first found Keith Barker

Subscribe & Review: 👉 Enjoyed this one? Drop us a quick ⭐ rating or review; it helps more cyber marketers find the show.

📩 Questions, feedback, or want to be a guest? Email: podcast@cybersecuritymarketingsociety.com

Follow the Host:

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Gianna Whitver on LinkedIn

Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing. You can join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, on our main LinkedIn page, our Instagram page, or our podcast LinkedIn page.

See you on the next episode!

Episode Summary:

Kelly O'Dwyer Manuel has been building analyst relations (AR) programs for a long time, and her first question is always the same when starting from scratch: what are you actually trying to accomplish?

She joins Gianna and Andy T to talk through what AR looks like for a small team with a small budget, why most companies pay for analyst relationships before they are ready, and what a first year program should realistically look like.

About Kelly:

Kelly O'Dwyer Manuel is a communications and analyst relations leader with experience across cybersecurity, semiconductors, and enterprise software. She currently leads AR at NXP Semiconductors and has built programs at companies of all sizes, from startups to large public companies. Her background spans PR, AR, and corporate communications, with deep expertise in identity and access management and security.

Links & Resources:

•

Kelly O'Dwyer Manuel onLinkedIn

•

NXP Semiconductors

•

The Futurum Group

•

Moor Insights & Strategy

•

The Knowledge Capital Group

•

Venture in Security by Ross Haleliuk

Subscribe & Review:

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📩 Questions, feedback, or want to be a guest? Email: podcast@cybersecuritymarketingsociety.com

Follow the Host:

•

Gianna Whitver on LinkedIn

Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing. You can join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, on our main LinkedIn page, our Instagram page, or our podcast LinkedIn page.

See you on the next episode!

Episode Summary:

Jake Milstein ran newsrooms at CBS, NBC, Fox, and ABC affiliates for 25 years. He has five Emmys and strong feelings about the phrase "in today's evolving threat landscape."

It turns out 25 years of writing for people with a remote in their hand is excellent training for cybersecurity marketing. He sits down with Gianna and Charles on CyberCMO Confidential to talk about why "learn more" is a moron tease, what writing a broadcast tease has to do with your website copy, and why he now writes two versions of every press release. One for journalists. One for the LLMs that are doing the reading anyway.

Gianna finally presents Jake with his very own handmade Cybersecurity Marketing Society award, which he has been lobbying for throughout the episode.

About Jake:

Jake Milstein is the VP of Growth and Corporate Marketing at Contrast Security. Before cybersecurity, he spent 25 years running newsrooms and newscasts at CBS, NBC, Fox, and ABC affiliates across the US. He previously served as CMO and Chief Revenue Officer at Critical Insight, an MDR and cybersecurity services company.

Links & Resources:

•

Jake Milstein onLinkedIn

•

Contrast Security

•

Latio: the analyst firm whose Runtime Innovator award Jake mentioned

Subscribe & Review:

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📩 Questions, feedback, or want to be a guest? Email: podcast@cybersecuritymarketingsociety.com

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Gianna Whitver on LinkedIn

•

Charles Gold on LinkedIn

Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing. You can join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, on our main LinkedIn page, our Instagram page, or our podcast LinkedIn page.

See you on the next episode!

Episode Summary:

Jason Rebholz read a blog post about MCPs and saw the whole trajectory of AI security play out in front of him. Twenty years of incident response experience told him we were about to make the same mistakes…just faster. He started Evoke Security the same way he has approached every problem since: get ahead of the issues before the damage is done!

He joins Gianna to talk about what a real CISO and marketing partnership looks like, how he built a threat research publication program at Corvus Insurance that helped brokers sell policies and kept policyholders safer, and what he has carried over from that into building Evoke Security.

About Jason:

Jason Rebholz is the founder and CEO of Evoke Security. Before starting Evoke, he spent over 20 years in cybersecurity, including time as CISO at Corvus Insurance, where he built a threat research and marketing program to help brokers and policyholders stay ahead of attacks. His background is in incident response.

Links & Resources:

•

Jason Rebholz onLinkedIn

•

Evoke Security

•

Evoke Security Blog

Subscribe & Review: 👉 Enjoyed this one? Drop us a quick ⭐ rating or review, it helps more cyber marketers find the show.

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Gianna Whitver on LinkedIn

Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing. You can join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, on our main LinkedIn page, our Instagram page, or our podcast LinkedIn page.

See you on the next episode!

Episode Summary:

Shahar Bahat is the CEO and co-founder of Pluto Security. With every employee now building things using tools like Cursor, Claude Code, Lovable, and n8n, security teams have no visibility into any of those layers. That is the problem Pluto is solving.

She sat down with Gianna to talk about what she saw at RSAC 2026, the shift from shadow AI to mandated AI, and how to build a security product when the tools your customers use change every four months.

About Shahar:

Shahar Bahat is the CEO and co-founder of Pluto Security, a company focused on securing the new ways employees build and create using AI tools. Before Pluto, she built experience across startups and enterprise security, and Pluto Security was part of the AWS-CrowdStrike-NVIDIA Cyber Accelerator program.

Links & Resources:

•

Shahar Bahat onLinkedIn

•

Pluto Security

Subscribe & Review:

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📩 Questions, feedback, or want to be a guest? Email: podcast@cybersecuritymarketingsociety.com

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Gianna Whitver on LinkedIn

Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing. You can join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, on our main LinkedIn page, our Instagram page, or our podcast LinkedIn page.

See you on the next episode!

Episode Summary:

Most CMOs come up through marketing. Ash Parikh came up through engineering and sales, and he thinks that is exactly why he does the job differently.

He joins Gianna and Charles on CyberCMO Confidential as the CMO of Absolute Security to talk about what 25 years of carrying a bag, presenting to boards, and running marketing at some of the biggest names in cybersecurity taught him. He’s banned MQLs, replaced them with handraisers built on real intent signals, and has strong opinions on why most marketers are not ready for a buying process that is growing harder to see every year.

About Ash:

Ash Parikh is the Chief Marketing Officer at Absolute Security. He has held CMO roles at Trellix, Druva, and Informatica, where he was part of the company's IPO. He started his career in engineering and sales before moving into marketing, and has spent over 25 years building go-to-market engines across cybersecurity, data, and enterprise software.

Links & Resources:

•

Ash Parikh onLinkedIn

•

Absolute Security

Subscribe & Review:

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Gianna Whitver on LinkedIn

Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing. You can join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, on our main LinkedIn page, our Instagram page, or our podcast LinkedIn page.

See you on the next episode!

Episode Summary:

JP Bourget sold a SOAR company, named his next one after cycling and blue teaming, got Fat Mike from NOFX to show up at his RSAC event, then took him to DEFCON, where he ended up in a DJ booth at Caesars Palace with Steve Aoki.

Somewhere in between all of that, he built Blue Cycle into one of roughly 130 security service providers recognized by Microsoft out of 400,000 partners worldwide.

He joins Gianna to talk about AI readiness, what happens when companies turn on Copilot before cleaning up years of data permission sprawl, and how he gamed the Microsoft partner ecosystem in under a year.

About JP:

JP Bourget is the CEO of Blue Cycle, a cybersecurity firm specializing in AI readiness, Microsoft security, security data pipelines, and API integrations. He is also an entrepreneur-in-residence at Lytical Ventures and a mentor at Upstate Venture Connect. Before Blue Cycle, he co-founded Syncurity, an early SOAR company that was acquired by Swimlane.

Links & Resources:

• JP Bourget on⁠ LinkedIn⁠
• ⁠Blue Cycle⁠
• ⁠Lytical Ventures⁠
• ⁠The Punk Rock Museum⁠
• ⁠Upstate Venture Connect⁠
• ⁠Cribl⁠
• ⁠Swimlane
• Polaris

Subscribe & Review:

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Gianna Whitver on LinkedIn

Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing. You can join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, on our main LinkedIn page, our Instagram page, or our podcast LinkedIn page.

See you on the next episode!

Episode Summary:

CyberGlobal is the world's first cybersecurity franchise, with Madalina Petrea heading up marketing there. What does it mean to run marketing at a cyber franchise? Supporting 27+ franchise owners across the US, Europe, Africa, and Asia who sell cybersecurity services to small businesses in their local markets.

She joins Gianna to talk about what it takes to build that from the ground up. Her team handles everything for new franchisees in the first 90 days, including websites, LinkedIn profiles, content, and templates, so they can focus on learning the business. Her biggest challenge right now? Designing a system at 27 locations that still works at 200.

They also get into why paid ads worked in Dubai and Italy but not in Boston, and why SEO has become one of their most important growth channels, including showing up in AI search tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity.

About Madalina:

Madalina Petrea is the Head of Marketing at CyberGlobal, the world's first cybersecurity franchise. She leads a centralized marketing team that functions as an internal agency for franchise owners across the US, Europe, Africa, and Asia. Her background spans marketing for SaaS and software development companies, and she has been building CyberGlobal's marketing infrastructure from the ground up since mid-2024.

Links & Resources:

• Madalina Petrea onLinkedIn
• CyberGlobal
• HubSpot
• Jira
• Screaming Frog
• Semrush

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📩 Questions, feedback, or want to be a guest? Email: podcast@cybersecuritymarketingsociety.com

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•

Gianna Whitver on LinkedIn

Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing. You can join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, on our main LinkedIn page, our Instagram page, or our podcast LinkedIn page.

See you on the next episode!

Episode Summary:

Content syndication has earned a mixed reputation among cybersecurity marketers.

Too often, programs generate large volumes of leads but little measurable pipeline. Sales teams question lead quality, marketing teams question whether the right buyers are being reached, and both sides wonder whether the investment was worth it.

Steve Piper has been in cybersecurity marketing for over 30 years and has heard every version of "we tried content syndication and it didn't work." His response is always the same: you need to set clear expectations on what content syndication programs do internally, ask content syndication vendors the right questions and build protections into your contract, and build nurture programs for the leads created from content syndication.

On this episode, Steve sat down with Gianna to talk about what content syndication is, what a good program looks like, and what to get into your contract before signing to make sure that you have success!

New to CyberEdge? They have a summer promotion running through August 31st. First-time customers get 25% off their first campaign with a minimum of 300 leads, and every campaign gets 10% bonus leads. Visithttps://www.cyberedgegroup.com to get started.

About Steve:

Steve Piper is the Founder and CEO of CyberEdge Group, the largest marketing and research

firm dedicated to serving cybersecurity marketing teams. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of Security Buzz, a leading cybersecurity news website.

Steve is a CISSP-certified analyst, author, and speaker with more than 30 years of experience.

When he's not helping cybersecurity marketers drive growth, Steve enjoys playing poker and boating along the Intracoastal Waterway in Fort Lauderdale.

Links & Resources:

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Steve Piper onLinkedIn

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CyberEdge Group

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Security Buzz

•

CyberEdge Pricing Guide

Subscribe & Review:👉 Enjoyed this one? Drop us a quick ⭐ rating or review, it helps more cyber marketers find the show.

📩 Questions, feedback, or want to be a guest? Email: podcast@cybersecuritymarketingsociety.com

Follow the Host:

•

Gianna Whitver on LinkedIn

Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing. You can join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, on our main LinkedIn page, our Instagram page, or our podcast LinkedIn page.

See you on the next episode!

Episode Summary:

Phillip Wylie has been in cybersecurity for over 28 years and is now one of the most recognized names in offensive security as a speaker, podcaster, and evangelist. What most people don't know is that he started as a pro wrestler and powerlifter before finding his way into IT and eventually pentesting. How cool is that?

This episode is a replay of our Behind the Cyber Creator webinar series, where Gianna sits down with some of cybersecurity's most influential voices to hear how they built their presence, what it looks like behind the scenes, and what brands should know about working with them.

Phillip's path from shy powerlifter to someone who recorded 89 podcast episodes in a single year is worth hearing in full. He gets into the reps it took (heh, see our weightlifting humor?), how he thinks about working with brands, and why learning to say no was one of the hardest lessons.

About Phillip:

Phillip Wylie is a penetration tester, keynote speaker, podcast host, and cybersecurity evangelist with over 28 years of experience in IT and cybersecurity. He is the founder of The Pwn School Project, a free ethical hacking education initiative, and the co-author of The Pentester Blueprint: Starting a Career as an Ethical Hacker. He hosts the Phillip Wylie Show and is currently Chief Security Evangelist at Suzu Labs.

Links & Resources:

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Phillip Wylie on LinkedIn

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ThePhillip Wylie Show

Subscribe & Review: 👉 Enjoyed this one? Drop us a quick ⭐ rating or review, it helps more cyber marketers find the show.

📩 Questions, feedback, or want to be a guest? Email: podcast@cybersecuritymarketingsociety.com

Follow the Host:

•

Gianna Whitver on LinkedIn

Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing. You can join the Cybersecurity Marketing Society on our website, on our main LinkedIn page, our Instagram page, or our podcast LinkedIn page.

See you on the next episode!