Episode #50. Our Role as Leaders with David Fairman
“[As a leader] remember that you’re not the smartest person in the room, you have more to learn and that everyone brings value to the table”
— David Fairman
David Fairman is a highly experienced professional in the Security & Fraud and has worked for, and consulted to several large financial institutions and Fortune 500 companies, across the UK & EU, North America and APAC. David is a passionate leader in Cyber Security and Financial Crime and has been actively involved in founding several industry alliances and expert groups, holding Board positions, across multiple regions with the aim of making it safer to do business and transact in the digital world.
David has been recognised as one of the Top CISOs to know, is a published author and adjunct professor.
David's current focus is driving collaboration and innovation across the industry to address current and emerging threats prevalent with digital risk and improve the cyber resiliency and literacy in the community.
“Being a leader means we need to do more than just look after ourselves and focus on bettering ourselves - what do we do about bettering the country and bettering the community”? In this episode David discusses how we can do this, and other tips and steps we can take to be great leaders.
Links:
Time Stamps:
01:03 What shaped David’s career journey
02:16 “as I progress through my career, I'm learning more things, you get exposed to more things, and you learn to what you like, what you don't like”
03:32 Transitioning from the armed services into a corporate world
05:10 What do you think plays a big role in how we resource our teams?
06:30 “something that I've really enjoyed is exploring people who have a curiosity”
07:34 How small and mid-tier businesses can learn from global organisations when it comes to building cyber security functions and teams
09:38 ”a couple things that they can learn from is how they get those basics right”
10:12 Transitioning from a small/mid-tier to a large organisation
13:21 Staff retention tips
16:35 Stretching and nurturing employees
17:21 “your role as a leader is to help coach develop and mentor”
19:27 Advice you would give to your younger self
20:12 “…that cyber security space, it is tough, it is ambiguous, it changes rapidly. So embrace change, don't get frustrated with change”
20:59 When faced with an incident, how slow down critical thinking is best
21:51 “let's think for a minute, don't react”
21:54 Self-awareness and steps taken
23:53 “soft skills like you're never, you're never done with this stuff. You should be challenging yourself to get better every time”