Executive Spotlight: Q&A with Chief Public Policy Officer, Tom Gann

I’m back at it again with another round of our executive blog series. This week I had the privilege to speak with Tom Gann, our Chief Public Policy officer and he had some interesting things to say on the cyber security issues that are shaping public policy dialogue in Washington DC and other capitals around the world, and much much more.

Teaching tennis. I know that teaching tennis is not an event, it’s a sport. For me it was a business at a young age that helped to change my life.

I grew up in Palo Alto, CA, when the town was middle-class. I went to Gunn High School when the school was very good at tennis – they had 10 undefeated seasons. My parents were kind enough to pay for tennis lessons and while I was only a so-so tennis player, my tennis coach thought that I would be a good teacher. And so, starting in the 11^th grade, I began teaching tennis for a tennis shop in Menlo Park called the Better Backhand. Then later, when I was at Stanford, I started my own business teaching lessons on private tennis courts which helped me pay for school and a car.

Through this experience, I learned how to become a professional and most importantly, how to relate to people while helping them learn something valuable. I am amazed that many of the things I learned from teaching tennis still guide me today: treating people well, empowering them, and striving to get things done that matter.

The reality today, and likely in the future, is that the bad guys have and will continue to have the advantage. Bad guys need to be right one time to get into a government or company environment. The good guys, playing defense, need to be right every time. This reality is made more challenging by the fact that today’s typical new, best-in-class cyber security solution is often out of date in two years because the bad guys are great at innovating. At the same time, unfortunately, many organizations are too slow or too distracted to ensure all their cyber security solutions work effectively together.

The threats from nation states, criminal organizations, and terrorist groups is only getting bigger as time goes on – meaning our challenge continually grows, shifts, and evolves. Today, these actors are perfecting a wide range of ransomware strategies to blackmail all types of organizations in the public and private sectors.

Responsible governments and citizens need to demand real change, they need to push non-compliant nation states to commit to a basic level of fair play. The public and private sectors also need to work together to create a firewall against these bad actors who use ransomware to achieve such strategic objectives as profit and intimidation.

Everyone is moving to the cloud – private and public sector organizations as well as folks at home. This trend makes sense because the cloud is cost effective, reliable, and highly secure. However, the key in this shift is to make sure that government agencies have the flexibility to rapidly work with private sector experts – the data center, the enterprise software, and the cyber security leaders – to ensure long term success. Too often, I have seen government agencies use outdated procurement rules and processes that bog down progress. This often results in cloud and data center deployments, particularly when government agencies host these infrastructures, being completed with last generation solutions.

At the same time, outdated contracting rules can limit the ability of agencies to field the most up to date cyber security solutions. This challenge is becoming a bigger deal as agencies deploy multiple cloud solutions. These many cloud implementations create targets of opportunity for hackers who exploit security gaps between and among clouds, meaning agencies need to be proactive to ensure that their move to the cloud is safe and effective. Policymakers need to step up to the plate and modernize procurement rules and processes. Such support will help government agencies work quicker and more effectively to serve our citizens who demand first-class service from their government.

It is all about trust. Without trust you have noting. Working with the government, a company, or your neighbor down the street is the same – it all depends on trust. This means doing what you say you will do and working to overdeliver on your commitments.