Security Market Watch
SMW Stories Episode 25 - Tina Williams-Koroma, CEO and Co-Founder - CyDeploy
Join us as Tina unpacks the challenges and triumphs of transitioning from a service-based to a product-based business. From navigating the complexities of venture capital to balancing technical oversight with strategic planning, Tina's experiences offer invaluable lessons for aspiring entrepreneurs. She highlights the critical importance of a strong support system and reflects on the profound impact cybersecurity has on our daily lives and critical infrastructure. Tina's dedication to empowering others shines through as she discusses her commitment to leaving a lasting legacy in the cybersecurity realm. Don't miss this heartfelt and insightful conversation with a true industry pioneer.
Join us as Tina unpacks the challenges and triumphs of transitioning from a service-based to a product-based business. From navigating the complexities of venture capital to balancing technical oversight with strategic planning, Tina's experiences offer invaluable lessons for aspiring entrepreneurs. She highlights the critical importance of a strong support system and reflects on the profound impact cybersecurity has on our daily lives and critical infrastructure. Tina's dedication to empowering others shines through as she discusses her commitment to leaving a lasting legacy in the cybersecurity realm. Don't miss this heartfelt and insightful conversation with a true industry pioneer.
Welcome to this episode of Security Market Watch, where we talk to industry leaders, ceos, founders, and we bring their stories to you. Very often we think about the product, we think about the information in the technical side of security. You know, these are the stories of the people who are making the world go round, who make security go round, and today my guest is Tina Williams-Koroma. She is the CEO and co-founder of T-Secure and SciDeploy. Did I get that right?
Speaker 2:Yes, all right Great.
Speaker 1:Tina, welcome to Security Market Watch. It's great to have you on the show. You've been here before, so you're not a new face to Security Market Watch. It's great to have you on the show. You've been here before, so you're not a new face to Security Market Watch. And for those who are listening or watching this right now, check out that episode where we talked to Tina. I think it was maybe three or four episodes ago. It was last season, last year, however you want to call it, and that was a great conversation. You should go check it out.
Speaker 1:So today we really just want to get to know you a little bit more, tina. We've heard of your product, cydeploy. We've heard of T-Secure. You touched a little bit on your time at Lockheed Martin and your journey from working for Lockheed Martin all the way through running your own business and your own startup, and I mean it's a fabulous story. I'm sure is dying to hear your story. So with that, welcome to the show. And let's start before Lockheed Martin, right, a young Tina Williams-Karoma. Maybe at that time you weren't Tina Williams-Karoma yet. Maybe you weren't married yet. What was that time like and what pushed you into the direction and onto the journey that you're on now?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so first, thanks so much for having me back again and I'm looking forward to our discussion today. So yeah, before Lockheed, certainly it was a college experience for me, and I got to that college. I learned about it through a high school internship that I'd done. So the high school internship was me giving computers a second try. I had taken a programming class in my sophomore year of high school. It was Pascal, programming to date myself a bit, and I decided, oh no, this computer stuff is not for me, this is boring, I don't want to do this, and I decided I was going to go into physical therapy.
Speaker 2:But then, unfortunately, I was a basketball player and a soccer player. So during a basketball game I tore my ACL and I had to spend a lot of time in a physical therapist's office, and that told me that I do not want to be a physical therapist for my life. So when I did the summer internship after my junior year, that was me giving computers a second try, and that's when I actually learned about the University of Maryland, baltimore County and the Meyerhoff Scholars Program that they had, and so that's where I went in undergrad and I majored in computer science. So my whole world started to become, from a professional perspective, to be focused on computers. So that's the origin story leading up to my first full-time job with Lockheed Martin after I finished with my undergrad studies.
Speaker 1:So you weren't into computers. Then you said okay, I'm not going to do the computer thing, I'm going to focus on physical therapy. And then you came full circle, right back to computers.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:So how does that happen? How do you turn off that switch that goes, you know this is boring, and then turn on the switch that says this is fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I think a lot of it was, and this is the value that I think that there really is in internships. And then also the type of program that I got into, which was a rotational leadership program at Lockheed Martin, the ability to try stuff out right. Even when you say computers, that's so broad, right. There's so many different aspects and ultimately I decided that while computer programming wasn't necessarily something that I wanted to do my entire career, cybersecurity really was, and you know even that story for me. I watched the movie the Net with Sandra Bullock and I saw her on the beach with her computer and I was like, what field is she in? And that was kind of the shaping for cybersecurity.
Speaker 2:But the internship that I had after my junior year in high school was really just another type of exposure to computers and technology and that, I think, was one of the first times in which I was like, okay, this technology field surrounding computers is not just one option or just one thing that I could potentially do right. So after I did that internship, it's like, okay, this is really cool. Plus, I was surrounded by a lot of other really, you know, cool high school students, if I could categorize myself as that. So that was a lot of fun. Just to say, hey, you know, it doesn't have to be necessarily like a lonely, you know sort of field.
Speaker 2:And so then I took another coding class my senior year in high school and that was pretty cool. That was C++. So even the language itself was more fun than the prior language of Pascal that I took. So you know, I think that just trying stuff out and having the opportunity to try things out through internships and rotational programs is really beneficial. I found it to be a great asset. That way you're not just dumping the whole thing and just saying, ah, I don't like it, when you haven't really given it much of a chance.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you got to give it a chance. That's the key there. I noticed you've got a couple of posters in your background here. If you're listening to this you can't see it, but if you're watching, I'm a little bit curious about Our Father's Business. What's the story behind that poster?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So I authored that book. That was probably about a 10-year project where I picked it up, put it down, picked it up, put it down.
Speaker 2:But there's this scripture in the book of Luke, in the Bible, and it's where Jesus, yeshua, has stayed behind from his parents who went on.
Speaker 2:So he stayed behind teaching in the temple, and you know, one of the things you know that he said during that time is you know, why is it that you're looking for me, don't you know I must be about my father's business, and so, really for me, when I'm approaching life and where I should spend my time, you know it's every time you make a decision about how you're going to spend your time, you're basically making a decision about what you're trading your life for and what you're willing to trade your life for, and so our father's business is really a look at the life of Christ through the lens. The book of Luke really looks at Christ's life as a human being versus, you know, his divine nature per se, and so it really is like a parallel of how did Christ conduct his life and being about his father's business, and how can we as well conduct our lives on purpose, being about God's business and making sure we get done on this earth what we've been destined and purposed and assigned to do.
Speaker 1:So that's that book. So you take what you do very seriously. I do. That's really what you're saying in a nutshell. I heard somebody say the other day that I'm trading my life force for money. You have to trade money. You're trading energy for money. So whatever you're doing better be worth it.
Speaker 1:Better be worth it, exactly so that's what you're saying in a nutshell. All right, so let's pivot over to that. What was the call to adventure? What was the moment? Was there something that said, tina, maybe it was the voice of God you should get into, you should leave Lockheed Martin and start your own company. What was that moment like?
Speaker 2:moment like, yeah, you know. So I think it's something that was always. Entrepreneurship is just always been something that's been a part of me. My first entrepreneurial vision was when I was seven years old and that was really around seeing an opportunity and an opportunity for creativity. So when I was seven, my dad was on this military base, this Air Force base, and there was this golf course that was on the base and there was also this dirty little creek area near my house and I was little tomboy as I was, was always playing in the dirt, getting dirty and all that kind of stuff, and I would see all these golf balls and I'm like these golfers are not coming down here to get these balls. I was like so we could bring it to them. And so my first business venture idea formal one was to wash off the golf balls and sell them back with lemonade. So I got my whole little crew and you know, one Saturday we meet about $20.
Speaker 2:And so you know it was like kid rich right at that time and I was like, oh, this is, this is neat. So I think just that after that it was. You know I had a babysitting business, pet sitting. You know I would use our home dot matrix printer, pull off the perforated lines I'm dating myself again and post these posters all over the military base we'd be on. And yeah, that was I learned stakeholder management with the pet sitting, my parents being the primary stakeholders. We'd have these strangers dogs in our houses. They'd scratch and whine, keep my parents awake. They were like no, no, we're not doing this anymore. So you know that business was open and shut pretty quick.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I think I always had like an entrepreneurial bent I'm, and so I've had a lot of different forays with entrepreneurship right and really impact. Ultimately, my focus is on community impact. Being a great example, I can help, mentor and get people as far as I've gone. So throughout my career, no matter what I've been doing in my career, there's always this element of mentoring, having conversations, letting people know how they can get into cybersecurity, how they can get into entrepreneurship, how to start a business, and so for me, I think one of the greatest ways in which to have social impact is through business. I remember a college discussion that I had with at least one of my college buddies and that was around you know, how do you think you can impact the world? You know greatest, and you know through politics or through business, and you know where we really settled was business, right, you have such an opportunity through entrepreneurship and through business and providing opportunities for others, and so that's a big part of my why right.
Speaker 2:So it was always a matter of time and like okay, of my why right. So it was always a matter of time and like, okay, you know, when am I gonna? Not if I'm going to be a full-time entrepreneur in venture, but when? And so it was just I was biding my time, learning, you know, doing really good on, uh, as I worked for other people, so I worked for other people the way I want people to work for me, right, like cause I think you, you definitely reap what you sow. So I always had in mind that if I want other people working for and taking care of my baby or venture, well then I want to do that now. So that was always in my mind working at Lockheed, working at Unisys, working at another small business before I started my full-time services company, t-secure. So yeah, that's kind of the origin story, I guess, in terms of my start in full-time entrepreneurship.
Speaker 1:So the call to adventure really was the adventure of entrepreneurship, which I'm hearing. That call came at an early age and you sort of just kept saying yes to it, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. But hey, sometimes people say no, sometimes people say no to the call and they have to.
Speaker 1:like Jonah, you know, you're familiar with the Bible. So Jonah refused the call and we all know what happened to him he ended up in the belly of a fish. And so, thank God, he didn't end up in the belly of a fish. He wound up here on the Security Market Watch podcast, which I don't know which is worse, but we'll roll with it. I'll take the latter for sure.
Speaker 1:Great, good, good, good, good answer. So it seems like you've answered the call and with every adventure, there are going to be tribulations, there are going to be challenges. So what are some of the challenges that you faced in starting your own business and in this iteration of starting your own company?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I definitely. Certainly there's a lot of overlap and similarities, no matter what kind of company you're starting, right, like there's some commonalities but certainly there's a lot of differences as well. With regard to a services business and a product business, so, you know, with services, that was, you know, largely bootstrapped. No, you know investment, money and things like that, and so you know, day one profitable, right, like. So my mindset just around personal finances and around business finances is around profitability, right, and so it's somewhat different when you think of, like, a product where it's, you know you don't have a thing to sell yet to get revenue and yet you need to spend a certain amount of money to get and build that thing to sell, right, like. So very different concept, a very, you know, steep learning curve around investment. And you know venture capital and angels, and you know pro formas and discussions of speaking to a future with a specificity that it's very difficult to have when you're starting, like how much money will you be making in five and 10 years, like, oh, you know. So certainly, you know just a steep learning curve in that regard, right, you're kind of getting to know the language, the flow of, you know, external capital and the like, while also trying to focus on the product itself. So, while I have a very technical background, you know I'm trying to do fundraising, establish the vision and the focus and do the market research and things like that, plus keep an eye on, like, the product and the development.
Speaker 2:It just it was very challenging and I think you know, put us behind a bit. You know product wise, just because when I turned back around to like look more closely you know from product, it was like wait, what is this? You know which, if I had been, you know more detailed hands on involved, you know, in providing greater direction, I would have caught stuff earlier. And so you know that was around. You know that helped shape the decision to.
Speaker 2:You know, bring in like a co-founder that could do that. So, looking back in my network so I think that you know that's a part of the challenge is just, you know how long and how much can I do this on my own, though you know I am very experienced from a business perspective in running a profitable company. You know things are very different, you know, with product and so just sort of trying to apply what I already know but then at the same time, giving myself enough space and latitude to have to lean into a steep learning curve and knowing when I need to bring in some additional help and assistance. And that support system is critical that support system is.
Speaker 1:I mean you need, there's a reason why in every story, the hero has a bunch of friends that roll with them. I mean Simone and Pumba, bagheera and what's his name I don't know, the Panther and the Bear in Jungle Book. I mean that's your team, right. Those are the people around you, those are your ride or dies, right? And so what you're saying echoes what every other founder and CEO has said it's not easy and you got to be a little bit of a glutton for punishment, but that's the job. That's the job you overcome. And so you've overcome time and time and time again, and I have no doubt that you'll continue to do so. So you know, when you're all done with your overcoming and your successes and you've done everything that you want to do you leave. What is, what is the legacy that you want to leave behind? How do you want to be remembered in this field?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Gosh, I want to be remembered as someone that just provided a great open door and opportunity and set so many other people up for success in cybersecurity and in entrepreneurship. I really that's the legacy that I want to leave. I think that cybersecurity is such an important field and just protects so many important aspects our very way of life, right which is why critical infrastructure get its label that is increasingly a focus of adversaries is, you know, coming onto our home turf and disrupting our way of life and the things that we rely on, right. So when I think of cybersecurity, I'm not just thinking about the bits and the bytes. I'm thinking about the people that it's protecting the seniors who have worked a lifetime for certain retirement and savings and are looking to rest and don't want their money taken advantage of or stolen by adversaries. I'm thinking about, you know, older relatives that are relying on different medical technology, right, that shouldn't have that disrupted by hackers or adversaries that can get access to these technical devices, right, that are now also internet connected. So, you know, I could go on and on about what comes to mind behind cybersecurity and a lot of it, you know, includes the faces even small business owners, right that have put so much capital and sweat equity and the like into their businesses and making sure that they're protected right from these adversaries.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, it's great when I've heard, you know, people come back, that I've frankly, you know, forgotten that I necessarily had a conversation with them. You know where they've come back and said hey, tina, I just got my first job in cybersecurity. Thank you so much for sending me that. You know, referral or whatever. Like gosh, like that feels so, so, so good, like I, to have certain doors open to me, positioning me to open them for other people and to provide opportunity. Like I'm almost tearing up now, but that that's that's. Yeah, it's worth it. That that makes it worth it. Yeah, and that's what I want to be known for. That that's how I want my love for others to to manifest. Yeah, you're going to manifest, yeah.
Speaker 1:You're going to get me going. Yeah, I know right, I promised I wasn't going to cry.
Speaker 2:I know that is so inspirational.
Speaker 1:You have always been an inspiration to me and I love what you find inspiration in Tina's story as well, because I know that I do. Thanks again, and thank you for tuning in to this episode of Security Market Watch. I'm your host, josh Bruning. You can find me also on LinkedIn, linkedincom. Slash joshbruning or shoot us an email at info at smwpodcastcom. Thank you so much for tuning in. Bye, all right, tina, that was great, that was awesome.