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The 909Exec PodcastHosted by Den Jones, CEO of 909Cyber, this podcast dives into real-world leadership with insights from top execs across industries. From startups to global giants, Den brings wit, wisdom, and his signature Scottish flair to every episode—helping you lead smarter, grow faster, and avoid the pitfalls.
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- 1 weeks ago52 min
Episode 68: From Burnout to Breakthrough: Leading with Energy, Security, and Purpose with Eric Reiners
In this episode, Den Jones sits down with Eric Reiners, CTO of Aprive, executive coach, and author of The Energy Edge, for a wide-ranging conversation on technical leadership, executive burnout, personal security, and the enterprise future of AI. Eric shares the raw story of collapsing from exhaustion during a cybersecurity incident and how that transformed his approach to leadership, health, and purpose.-> Introduction and Guest OverviewDen introduces Eric, who outlines his roles at Aprive and Be Well Mind.Key quote: "We're digital bodyguards for executives. Think of us as applying enterprise-grade technology to the individual and the family."-> From Farm Kid to Silicon ValleyRaised on a farm, Eric taught himself to code on a Commodore 64. After studying physics and musical acoustics, he moved to San Francisco in 1999 to become a C++ developer.Key quote: "I found out that you can make money as a programmer. I didn't even know that really."-> Transitioning from Contributor to ManagerEric reflects on struggling as a manager for three years by clinging to technical work until a mentor helped him master delegation.Key quote: "People need autonomy... You're responsible for growing that team faster than the business needs them to."-> Burnout, Morale, and LoyaltyA discussion on post-layoff morale, highlighting four drivers of motivation: autonomy, curiosity, mastery, and purpose.Key quote: "Having low standards is condescending. If you don't expect a lot from your team, you're not going to get a lot."-> Managing Chronic StressEric likens unresolved stress to buzzing electrical wires, warning against long-term accumulation.Key quote: "Biology will always win in the end... if you keep doing that, it's going to accumulate."-> Leaving Rapid7 for EntrepreneurshipRealizing his motivation had faded, Eric transitioned to coaching, completing 850+ free sessions that built the foundation for Be Well Mind.Key quote: "I was successful on paper but miserable inside."-> Aprive: Security Beyond the PerimeterAprive targets the security vulnerabilities created when executives leave corporate networks and use personal devices.Key quote: "The corporate perimeter stops and you go on vacation... and occasionally you need to transact business."-> "The Energy Edge" BookEric introduces his book covering nine science-backed practices to manage stress and decision fatigue.Key quote: "I wish I would've had this before I responded to my first security incident."-> Stress as a Signal, Not an EnemyChallenging work-life balance tropes, they discuss how passion and stress intertwine.Key quote: "The term work-life balance pisses me off a little bit because if you're passionate about something... you're going to fall asleep thinking about it."-> Deep Work and Meeting CultureTactics for team productivity, including "No Meeting Fridays" and purging recurring calendar invites.Key quote: "There's no research that backs up the idea that working longer hours makes you more productive."-> AI, Executive Readiness, and ROIExamining the gap between AI hype and real ROI, including shadow AI usage and token costs.Key quote: "If they don't have a policy, that just means everybody's using AI in shadow versions."-> Closing AdviceFinal guidance for high-stress leadership.Key quote: "Your body is telling you something and you can listen and learn from it... you are not alone."
- 4 weeks ago40 min
Episode 67: From Family Scam to Community Shield: How One CISO's Personal Crisis Sparked a Mission to Protect Everyone with Alex East
When cybersecurity veteran Alex East discovered his father-in-law had lost tens of thousands to a lottery scam, it sparked a mission beyond corporate security. Join host Den Jones as he explores East's journey from protecting Fortune 500 companies to writing books that shield seniors, children, and small businesses from cyber threats. This conversation reveals how personal experience can drive meaningful change in cybersecurity education and community protection.EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:[00:02:49] - Career Evolution and AI's ImpactDiscussion of how sales engineering roles have evolved from scripted demos to technical implementationsKey quote: "I think with AI now, it's a lot more nebulous. You can do exactly the same thing in one LLM as another one and get a completely different output."[00:08:03] - The AI Visibility ProblemCISOs struggling with unknown AI applications in their environmentsKey quote: "They don't know what AI applications people are using in their environments. They don't know if it's good or if it's bad."[00:13:21] - The Personal Crisis That Changed EverythingHow a doubled phone bill revealed father-in-law's lottery scam victimizationKey quote: "He'd lost tens of thousands of dollars to this lottery scam. So that was when my wife said, 'Look, you've spent the better part of 30 years protecting corporations from being breached. What about something for the ordinary people?'"[00:15:55] - Community Impact Through Book GivingGave away 4,000 copies of first book to maximize reachKey quote: "Some people come up and they say, 'Oh, we bought this book for my dad.' And soon after he'd read it, he actually received a phone call from someone pretending to be from Medicaid. And because he'd read your book, he said, 'No, I'm going to verify this before I do anything.'"[00:21:34] - Publishing Lessons LearnedImportance of professional editing and copyright protectionKey quote: "Finding an editor that does that is more of a collaborator is super helpful. Unless you are a career author, which I'm not, that is a massive thing."[00:25:07] - Upcoming AI Scam Survival GuideNew book targeting AI-enabled scams across all demographicsKey quote: "Now with AI, they can attack small businesses at scale with a minimum of effort. And now they're the biggest target there is out there."[00:28:39] - The Password Security ParadoxAdvocating for physical password storage over digital managersKey quote: "The most secure way of storing passwords is in one of these. You write them all down, you keep them locked in your drawer, and you rotate them every three months. And that's the most secure way. It's a hundred percent unhackable."[00:33:04] - Conference Innovation vs. Bandwagon JumpingWhat excites and frustrates at cybersecurity conferencesKey quote: "All you have to do is show me how you save me time, save me money, keep me safe. That's it. Show me those three things and I'll pay whatever it is."[00:39:15] - Final Wisdom for CISOsEssential advice for handling AI in organizationsKey quote: "In the world that we are right now, get a handle on AI before AI runs amuck. Get guardrails around it, know what you've got, know what it's used for, and put bubble wrap around it."
- Aug 9, 202659 min
Episode 66: From Chemical Engineering to Cybersecurity: Building Veriom and Breaking Into Silicon Valley Nuria Manuel
DESCRIPTIONJoin Den Jones as he sits down with Nuria Manuel, co-founder and CEO of Veriom. From her origins in Angola and a background in chemical engineering to building a platform that maps architectural weaknesses before they become vulnerabilities, Nuria shares her unconventional path to cybersecurity. This episode explores her bold decision to extend her stay in San Francisco after the RSA Conference, the contrasts of fundraising between the UK and US, and how stepping out of your comfort zone drives rapid business growth.EPISODE HIGHLIGHTSEarly Curiosity: Growing up in London, being an Arsenal fan, and taking things apart to understand how they work.> "I was always a really curious kid... that would mean breaking a lot of stuff."Manufacturing to Software: Transitioning engineering principles from physical systems to software architecture.> "I became quite obsessed with... looking at how an entire system of interdependent processes behave."Leadership & Imposter Syndrome: Early lessons leading complex projects as a fresh graduate.> "You have all the tools here... You are never going to be fully ready."The Veriom Solution: Finding structural flaws before they turn into active security incidents.> "Every tool finds what's wrong. Veriom shows you the structural why."UK vs. US Fundraising: Navigating the risk-averse UK market compared to fast-moving US opportunities.> "The UK is naturally an extremely risk-averse nation... proof points are super, super important."The RSA Decision: How staying in San Francisco led to swift investment and customer traction.> "Sometimes that's what it takes... doing something that you would naturally be uncomfortable doing."Process engineering directly applies to modern cybersecurity architecture.Market speed varies globally; strategic positioning can turn months of effort into days.Proactively fixing structural weaknesses is the next evolution beyond standard "shift-left" security."Every tool finds what's wrong. Veriom shows you the structural why.""The traction we got here would've taken us around seven months to get the same traction in the UK."CALL TO ACTIONSubscribe to 909 Exec for leadership insights at the intersection of security and strategy. Visit 909cyber.com to learn about advisory services and securing organizational growth. Check out 909cyber's flagship product, www.909Shield.ai, to eliminate interview fraud and secure the helpdesk: trust the human.
- Aug 1, 202652 min
Episode 65: From Big Data to Personal Safety: Doxxing, AI Risk, and Protecting People in a Data-Driven World with Rachel Vrabec
Brought to you by 909Shield. Interview fraud is on the rise — fake candidate profiles, proxy interviews, and AI-driven scams designed to slip past your hiring team. 909Shield helps organizations keep their interview process secure end to end. Learn more at 909shield.ai.909Exec is the executive leadership podcast from 909Cyber, hosted by founder and CEO Den Jones, whose three-plus decades in enterprise security span Adobe, Cisco, SonicWall, and Banyan Security — where cybersecurity meets business strategy.In episode 65, Den is joined by Rachel Vrabec, founder and CEO of Kanary, to discuss how personal data has become both a powerful asset and a serious liability in the age of AI.Rachel traces her path from growing up a builder in Northern Wisconsin, to strategy consulting at IBM (design strategy, SAP, early enterprise Apple Watch deployments, and IoT safety modeling across Seoul, Madrid, and Tokyo), to political data science at Civis Analytics — where she sat beside the head of security while state-funded actors targeted the company's predictive models during the 2016 election. That front-row seat to data's power and risk pushed her to found Kanary: a platform that scrapes the web to map an individual's exposure, builds threat models for doxing, impersonation, and account takeover, and automates mitigation — for individuals and for organizations including the federal DOJ, major tech companies, and highly targeted nonprofits.Den and Rachel dig into how AI accelerates both the accuracy and the danger of personal data exposure, why Kanary acts as a "personal pen tester" running popular prompts against LLMs to catch leaks, and how harmful data can be removed or aged out as models retrain. They also cover Kanary's move toward multimodal protection (images and video), why takedowns alone aren't enough, and how digital signals now plug into physical security programs.The conversation closes with Rachel's honest take on founding a startup: the pressure of hyper-growth narratives, why "getting the right people in the right seats" is the real unlock, and how to stop carrying founder regret as baggage that slows you down.What we cover:Interview fraud and how 909 Shield protects hiringRachel's path from IBM to political data science at Civis AnalyticsGender dynamics in early tech educationNation-state attacks on the 2016 election, witnessed firsthandFrom "big data" and neural nets to today's AI brandingWhy Rachel founded Kanary: data as early-warning protection, not monetizationThreat models for doxing, impersonation, account takeoverKanary's work with the federal DOJ, tech leaders, and the National Network of Abortion FundsActing as a "personal pen tester" for AI chatbots and LLMsRemoving harmful data from AI models via patches and retrainingGoing multimodal: images and video, not just textWhy removal alone isn't a strategy — pairing digital signals with physical securityLimits of DIY "email every data broker" approachesFounder lessons: hiring right, rejecting hyper-growth myths, letting go of regretGuest: Rachel Vrabec, Founder & CEO of Kanary Host: Den Jones, Founder & CEO of 909 CyberLinks: 909Shield: https://909shield.ai 909Cyber: https://909cyber.com Kanary: https://www.kanary.com/If you found value here, subscribe, rate, and share 909 Exec.#CyberSecurity #ExecutiveLeadership #AIPrivacy #Doxxing #Kanary #909ExecChapters: 00:00 Interview fraud & 909 Shield 00:48 Intro & guest setup 02:48 Childhood & early tech exposure 10:28 Joining IBM 16:39 Civis Analytics 20:54 2016 election targeting; big data to AI 29:17 Founding Kanary 34:15 AI, LLM risk & data removal 37:14 Going multimodal & physical security 42:53 Why "delete my data" doesn't work 44:01 Founder lessons & letting go of baggage
- Jul 18, 202646 min
Episode 64: Hydration as a Superpower: Zeus Kajita on Brain-First Wellness and Ki Electrolytes
IntroductionHosted by Den Jones—founder and CEO of 909 Cyber and veteran enterprise security leader—909 Exec explores the real-life journeys and wisdom of executives shaping the business and technology world. In Episode 64, Den sits down with Zeus Kajita, the co-founder of Ki Electrolytes, to discuss his background, entrepreneurial lessons, and personal health journey.Main Topics CoveredCultural Background & Early Life: Zeus discusses growing up in the Bay Area heavily influenced by his father's Japanese heritage, which instilled a foundation of healthy eating and tea culture. He also touches on his family's deep roots in international business and travel, which led to his early experiences working overseas in Guam right after high school.Entrepreneurial Ventures & Key Lessons: Reflecting on a history of starting various businesses, Zeus frames his past failures as invaluable "outside the classroom" education. He emphasizes that choosing the right business partner is critical—attributing many past setbacks to misaligned partnerships or poor timing—and highlights his core strengths in business development, relationship-building, and establishing trust.Health Crisis & The Creation of Ki: Zeus opens up about his personal struggles during the COVID-19 pandemic, where he found himself 60 pounds overweight, tired, and depressed. This pivotal turning point prompted a return to the healthy habits of his youth and ultimately inspired him to create Ki Electrolytes.
- Jun 21, 202639 min
Episode 63: Rethinking DLP: Nightfall AI’s Rohan Sathe on Data Protection in the Age of AI Agents
Introduction SummaryHosted by CEO Den Jones, "909 Exec" is a leadership podcast from 909 Cyber. Jones uses his 30+ years of enterprise security experience at companies like Adobe and Cisco to help executives navigate risk and transformation. Episode 63 features Nightfall AI co-founder and CEO Rohan Sathe for a deep dive into Data Loss Prevention (DLP).Main Topics CoveredEntrepreneurial Journey: Sathe discusses his Silicon Valley roots and transition from the Uber Eats founding team to a cybersecurity founder.Consumer-Grade Enterprise Software: Sathe applies lessons from Uber Eats—building scalable products for low-switching-cost markets—to drive Nightfall’s enterprise product quality.Fundraising Strategy: Outlining Nightfall’s $65M total raise, Sathe emphasizes prioritizing investors who offer cybersecurity expertise and founder empathy over just capital.Flaws of Legacy DLP: After interviewing ~100 CISOs in 2018, Sathe found legacy tools were noisy, unpopular, and unsuited for modern cloud apps like Slack and Google Drive.Skepticism & Pain Points: Jones details his historical skepticism of DLP, citing lost employee productivity, high false-positive rates, blind spots, and a heavy reliance on user-driven classification.Design Principles: Nightfall aims to make DLP "invisible" to end-users unless an incident occurs. Jones relates this to his view that security should be "invisible, invincible, and inexpensive."Frictionless Architecture: Unlike SASE vendors that rely on latency-heavy network proxies, Nightfall targets optimal insertion points to eliminate user workflow delays and efficiently handle false positives.AI-Driven Risk Modeling: Replacing legacy regex rules with neural-network NLP and computer vision, Nightfall uses a comprehensive risk model evaluating identity, data lineage, and destinations to identify true incidents.Board-Level AI Concerns: As boards push for rapid AI adoption, AI data protection is now critical. This demands strict governance over autonomous agents operating at machine speed.Expanding Customers: Initially successful with tech-forward health and fintech companies, Nightfall's customer base has expanded into traditional sectors like manufacturing due to new AI security needs.Deployment & Value: Nightfall ensures rapid deployment via lightweight endpoint agents and system APIs (avoiding proxies). It integrates directly with SaaS apps and AI platforms to track prompts and agent actions.Managing Data: Nightfall tracks data movement between corporate and personal environments, including AI tools like ChatGPT. It can monitor or block personal AI usage and track file lineage to determine corporate ownership.Policy Enforcement: The platform uses customizable policies to block risky actions, present user justification prompts, and offer optional bypasses tailored to organizational philosophies.Startup Strategy & Compliance: Both agree expensive conference booths yield low ROI, favoring targeted events like dinners. Jones advises pursuing compliance primarily to unblock deals, noting it does not equate to actual security.Selling to CISOs: Acknowledging that CISOs are overwhelmed with pitches, they emphasize humility, understanding the customer's specific problems, and building long-term trust.Closing Reflections: Sathe admits he initially underestimated the importance of go-to-market strategies in cybersecurity. He warns that autonomous AI agents will permanently alter security paradigms. Jones concludes by clarifying the episode was unpaid and commending Sathe for changing his negative perception of DLP.
- Jun 9, 202643 min
Episode 62: From Art to AI: Toni Vanwinkle on Designing the Future of Work at Adobe
In this episode of 909 Exec, host Den Jones sits down with longtime friend and mentor Toni Vanwinkle, Adobe’s leader for Digital Employee Experience and co-chair of AI, to explore how technology, disruption, and human-centered leadership are reshaping the future of work. Toni shares her nonlinear “career lattice” journey from aspiring artist to finance professional, then into consulting and large-scale enterprise transformations at Cisco, before spending 16 years at Adobe in multiple roles. Along the way she discovered a passion for technology as a powerful way to solve business problems, implementing early automations and ERP systems, and learning how organizational change management is essential to bringing people along in any transformation.She opens up about pivotal personal decisions—like leaving a high-stress role to pursue consulting so she could prioritize starting a family—and how she and her husband redesigned their careers to create a sustainable “container” for work and parenting. Toni explains why you can have it all, just not all at the same time, and how aligning career moves with life needs and values has guided her path. Den and Toni dive into the trap of “work, work, work” in your 20s, and why so many professionals are blind to the need to prioritize their physical, financial, and spiritual health, as well as their broader sense of purpose. Toni encourages people to see themselves as multidimensional, drawing on her own artistic background to show how creativity can fuel even highly technical roles. The conversation then turns to the future of work and the transformative impact of AI. Toni outlines three key questions she uses to reimagine work: Do we still need to do this work? How can technology augment us as a thought partner? And what can we safely automate and delegate to machines? She envisions a future where humans provide context, creativity, and critical thinking, while AI accelerates consistency, reasoning, and problem-solving. As co-chair of AI at Adobe, Toni discusses how the company is embedding AI into products while maintaining a foundation of trust—focusing on security, ethics, and bias in models—and why educating employees on both AI proficiency and “human in the loop” responsibility is critical. She emphasizes that humans remain accountable for outcomes, even when AI is involved, and notes that bad actors are also using AI, which raises the stakes for security. Den and Toni compare the AI boom to the early web era, agreeing that AI will dwarf previous technology shifts in impact. They explore how AI is already accelerating work—from building internal tools and quizzes in minutes instead of weeks, to rethinking build-vs-buy decisions for enterprise software—while acknowledging that large-scale enterprises still need robust data, governance, and security layers. Throughout, they return to themes of wellbeing and sustainability in high-intensity operational roles, likening security and operations leaders to first responders. Toni argues that leaders must actively “bench” exhausted team members and continually reassess what they value—impact, relationships, spiritual and physical health, or time outdoors—so they can make conscious tradeoffs instead of unconsciously sacrificing their lives to work. To close, Toni shares what recharges her outside of work: time at the beach in any weather, the sense of wonder she finds in her garden, and the visceral energy she gets from live music. Den adds his own love of gardening, wine, and concerts, underscoring their shared belief that a rich life outside the office fuels better leadership inside it.
- May 30, 202639 min
Episode 61: Reinventing Cyber Tabletop Exercises with AI: Den Jones & Cassio Goldschmidt
This episode of “909 Exec,” hosted by 909 Cyber CEO Den Jones, explores where cybersecurity meets business strategy. Guest Cassio Goldschmidt, CTO of Reflex, discusses his career evolution and the launch of Reflex Security.Early Tech Roots: Discovered computers as a teenager in Brazil, which naturally led to a computer science degree.Silicon Valley: Moved to California to join Cisco just before the internet boom.Initial Projects: Worked on industrial automation in Brazil, followed by PC configuration (“Splice”) and early video conferencing initiatives at Cisco.CISO Success: Effective Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) need strong interpersonal skills and business alignment, not just technical expertise.Role Differences: A Business Information Security Officer (BISO) acts as a consultant across shared business units. In contrast, a CISO owns the resources and integrates deeply into daily operations.Community Networking: Engaging in communities like OWASP and BSides is essential for ongoing learning, collaboration, and building career resilience.A New Challenge: After guiding ServiceTitan's security program from its early days through an IPO, Cassio left his CISO role to satisfy his engineering and inventive mindset.Founding Reflex: He launched Reflex (Reflect Security) to build a truly innovative solution for incident preparedness.The Problem: Traditional tabletop exercises are often static, PowerPoint-driven, and lack engagement for modern technical leaders.The Solution: Reflex is an AI-driven platform that runs dynamic, OSINT-tailored tabletop simulations under realistic pressure.Behavioral Tracking: It detects human factors like panic, mistakes, and cognitive overload to generate fact-based reports rather than opinion-based assessments.Platform Flexibility: Reflex can run combined or separate tabletops for tech and executive teams, model different personality types, and deploy rapidly.Remote Integration: Natively supports Zoom, Google Meet, and Teams. It uses AI agents to co-facilitate and ask role-specific questions.Market Disruption: Highly cost-effective and scalable, Reflex allows for frequent, targeted tabletops rather than expensive, one-off traditional engagements.Target Audience: Ideal for large enterprises (like Cisco) and private equity firms needing high-quality, frequent tabletops across multiple portfolios on a budget.Security Training: Provides an immersive alternative to standard security awareness training by actively engaging users in common scenarios like MFA bypasses or USB risks.Future Vision: Enables organizations to track measurable team improvement over time, helping meet strict compliance and third-party preparedness expectations.Financial Status: Backed by professional VCs, Reflex emerged from stealth in January after a year of development. It is pre-Series A but has a secure, multi-year financial runway.Den and Cassio advise aspiring leaders to know their “why” and pursue disruptive strategies rather than the status quo. Reflex is highlighted as a low-friction, risk-reducing alternative for budget-constrained CISOs. The episode concludes by celebrating the partnership between 909 Cyber and Reflex, emphasizing a shared goal of revolutionizing organizational tabletop exercises.
About 909Exec
The 909Exec PodcastHosted by Den Jones, CEO of 909Cyber, this podcast dives into real-world leadership with insights from top execs across industries. From startups to global giants, Den brings wit, wisdom, and his signature Scottish flair to every episode—helping you lead smarter, grow faster, and avoid the pitfalls.
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