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Austin Tousaw on Cybersecurity, AI, and Building a Career Through Networks
36 Plays13 days ago
Austin Tousaw, Senior Manager of Global Data Security Operations at McDonald’s and a 2016 Syracuse iSchool graduate, joins Infoversity to share his career journey across cybersecurity, privacy, and data governance. From Fidelity and Deloitte to Meta and McDonald’s, Tousaw discusses how networking, adaptability, and lifelong learning shape success in a fast-changing tech landscape. The conversation also explores AI security, emerging roles in data protection, and what today’s students should know as they prepare for careers in information and technology.
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Transcript
Introduction to Austin Toussaint's Career
00:00:09
Speaker
Welcome to Infoversity. This is the official podcast of the Syracuse University School of Information Studies podcast. I'm Jeff Hemsley. I'm your host.
00:00:21
Speaker
Today I'm joined by Austin Toussaint. He's a senior manager of global data security operations at McDonald's. He's also a 2016 graduate of our iSchool where he studied information management and technology.
00:00:36
Speaker
He's built an impressive career spanning top organizations like McDonald's, Meta, Deloitte, and Fidelity Investments. With nearly a decade of experience in data but data privacy, cybersecurity, and compliance, his work has taken him from data engineering to privacy program management for major platforms like Fidelity Reels, Newsfeeds,
00:01:01
Speaker
like Facebook Reels and News Feed, and now overseeing global data security at one of the world's most recognizable
Foundation and Networking at Syracuse iSchool
00:01:09
Speaker
brands. So when you think back to when you started at the iSchool, could you have imagined this path?
00:01:18
Speaker
The answer is no. um I think... There was amazing opportunities here. We saw new grads, right? It was always amazing to see new grads go to places like Amazon and Facebook and Synchrony, Fidelity Investments, et cetera.
00:01:33
Speaker
So I knew people were, don't want to say successful because that's a career of success, um but i I knew the iSchool gave them a good path towards that first step into a career, right?
00:01:45
Speaker
um I never couldn't imagine that I'd be at four or five different companies um in the span of a 10 year, right? So I'm 31. I feel 40 from a career wise aspect because I've been at so many places at this point.
00:01:59
Speaker
um But I really think the iSchool helped me get that foundation that I needed to understand what was next. I think the classes that we have, 352, which is our analytics class, 359 was our database class. I took a database security elective, um which was like 400 elective class back then.
00:02:22
Speaker
and that gave me an opportunity to understand what I liked, right? Well, what were the things that I was interested in? What was I going to wake up every day and want to go to work for? So I think the answer is no, that I didn't think I'd have...
00:02:34
Speaker
This many jobs, this many companies.
Early Career Experiences and Growth
00:02:37
Speaker
But we'll get into more about how I've used networks and the importance of networks within not only the iSchool, but outside of the iSchool. And how important that has been in my jumps from from company to company or even internally from job to job.
00:02:51
Speaker
Yeah, that's one of the things i try to talk to our students about all the time, that your network is where opportunities are going to come from. Yeah. so how did how did that career path evolve evolve? Right. So like you left here. What happened next? How did you end up where you are?
00:03:09
Speaker
Yeah, so when I was here as as a junior, even before I left, I did a cybersecurity internship at Fidelity Investments. chose to move out to New Hampshire, where one of their headquarters is.
00:03:22
Speaker
I came back from my senior year and already had a full-time job. So they you know gave us our offers before we entered our internship, and I knew in my entire senior year that I had a full-time opportunity.
00:03:33
Speaker
which was, i don't know if that happens today still. I hope it does. yeah um But that was amazing because I understood, i knew I had an opportunity after college, but what could I do during my senior year that would help me excel after that, right? So you know I knew I was going into a data engineer, what they call the LEAP program, which is kind of a ah smaller rotational aspect program.
Transition to Cybersecurity and Consulting
00:03:55
Speaker
um But I took classes like data science. like I took classes like data database security. I took other... advanced information security classes that I thought were tremendously important my senior year without having the pressure of getting a job. right When I went and into the data but the the data engineering LEAP program at Fidelity, um I realized i didn't want to be technical.
00:04:20
Speaker
ah Interesting. So that was a very technical program from SQL to Python to some JavaScripting as well.
00:04:32
Speaker
ah And my first year out of college, and and I'll say this bluntly, it was a really hard job. I was sitting down every day, headphones in working on a very technical database team, and I was looking around at what's next, right? What could I do next that's going to, I'm going to be happier.
00:04:50
Speaker
I'm going to understand where I want to be and where my kind of my niche would be in my career. and I used my internal network for my internship actually to land in a new role as a cybersecurity analyst. I did a year as a data or database engineer on a very technical dba team so database administrator team and then i got an analyst role in a cyber security team in my world i think that was when it just opened right back then is when something called the ccpa which you probably are very well aware of the california consumer privacy act was coming um there was a lot of regulation in the financial space of fidelity investments and they were hiring to get people to help
00:05:32
Speaker
um One of the things there is after a year, actually used a um an iSchool grad referral to land at Deloitte to do consulting.
00:05:44
Speaker
So there was an iSchool grad um who I still talk to today. Don't quite know where they are. I believe they're at some sort of technology fertility company. um But I had didn't know them during undergrad that much. I knew who they were. i think we knew who each other were. And I had reached out via LinkedIn. and We got in a text message.
00:06:02
Speaker
And he referred me and I ended up at Deloitte. Now, this was pre-COVID when you did the Monday through Thursday traveling. yeah So I would get on on a plane every Monday to Thursday. And I was in a data privacy and data protection consulting practice.
Networking and Career Movement
00:06:17
Speaker
Now, I think there on my journey through my career, you realize quickly if that's going to be your job forever if you want to get out quick and and not travel but four days a week.
00:06:28
Speaker
I don't know. have you Have you traveled the four days a week? or Well, I haven't had that kind of schedule, but I traveled to a lot of different places yeah as the dean of the iSchool. Yeah. Talked to alumni, talked to potential students. So I guess you understand on the road gets gets difficult sometimes. And I didn't even have a family. I was 23, 24 years.
00:06:46
Speaker
um So I did a year there, an amazing opportunity, met people who I still talk to today. And I was actually having a conversation before this with your staff.
00:06:57
Speaker
um We talk about networking at the iSchool and the importance of networking. ah when when you're in the iSchool, when you're out of the iSchool. But one of the key pieces I think that I'd love to work with you more on too is networking when you're in a role.
00:07:14
Speaker
right When you get into a role after you graduate college, you have to network within the company. yup right That's your next network. yep You have your alumni base who can help, guide, support, mentor, referrer But when you get in a position, you need to be getting one-on-ones with all your cross-functional partners.
00:07:34
Speaker
right And I think that's the key to success in movement within a company or movement outside of a company. right It's who do I have as strong partners in my job? Do they trust me to do my job?
00:07:48
Speaker
Are they going to give be giving me good performance reviews? i mean that's the reality, right? when you get it When you get a performance review, part of it is your manager, but your peers also give you reviews. So how do I have strong peers, right?
00:08:01
Speaker
And that actually, you know, before I get to where I am today, i had really strong peers at Deloitte. strong leaders in senior manager, manager, and partner, very involved.
00:08:13
Speaker
Now, I got recruited via LinkedIn to go to Meta. They were starting a new privacy program there. I spent three years there. Well, actually, there's a couple of Syracuse grads there as well, and we would connect in the company.
00:08:27
Speaker
um And then from Meta, I went to an AI startup for a year and tried to ride the AI wave. Now, why I'm saying all this is that the reason why I'm in the position I am today is because my former manager from Deloitte was starting a new cyber program at McDonald's Corp. yeah So that internal networking, what I'll what i'll call friendship almost, right? mean You're friends with the people you work with. these people you go so professional It's professional, but it's also friendship. right like
00:08:58
Speaker
These relationships can be kind of multifaceted. yeah You're not messaging them on LinkedIn. You're calling them because you've worked with them before. You're texting them, hey, what are you doing next? um And I saw LinkedIn post for a senior manager role and I had called up my former manager and he was very excited that I was interested. And that's where I've been for the last year and a half.
00:09:17
Speaker
So the reason why I go through that entire aspect is that besides the recruit and recruitment from Meta and a large program they were growing, every role that I have been in has been some sort of connection back to either the iSchool in Syracuse or to my former colleagues.
00:09:35
Speaker
And I think that's really important. Yeah, this is a story that you know that I hope all of our students hear. right because So in my research, I actually study social networks.
00:09:47
Speaker
And the network you're describing is kind of a... A network of clusters, right? You have the iSchool students that you originally students with. You have a whole cluster of those. You get to a job, you connect to more people on LinkedIn. You've got a cluster there. Then you've got a cluster at the next job. So, you know, I have multiple clusters at this stage in my profession. Absolutely.
00:10:08
Speaker
And you never know where a job is going to come from. You never know who you can help get a job, right? Like these networks are super important.
Role at McDonald's and AI Impact
00:10:18
Speaker
I think you you hit on something that's incredibly important.
00:10:23
Speaker
And i'm I'm going to go above and beyond what you said and say, you never know what your next job is going to be or if it's even created yet. Yeah. Because when I went to Fidelity Investments, the data engineering program was new.
00:10:36
Speaker
When I went into the cyber role at Fidelity, CCPA and GDPR, and the sense of having an analyst in that role was new. It was a new role.
00:10:47
Speaker
At Deloitte, privacy consulting, they were just spinning up a huge privacy data data protection consulting practice. They had had that before, but the new roles were the ones that I had.
00:11:00
Speaker
an ai startup right i mean the company had been around but ai privacy the concept of how do we keep ai on guardrails how do we talk about uh hallucinations how do we talk about where our data is what ah an llm has access to that was all very new right And then coming into McDonald's, our whole org is new.
00:11:22
Speaker
right We had used third-party consultant practices before. we hired a new CISO from externally who's an amazing, amazing leader. His name is Mike Gordon.
00:11:34
Speaker
And he said, we want to hire within. so they started this new org. So it's it's funny sometimes when people ask me, you know what job do you think I'd fit in? Where like you know if i'm if I'm mentoring either current students, grad students, or people early on in their career, it's like, don't pinpoint exactly what job you want to fit in because you don't know what new jobs will come up.
00:11:57
Speaker
So don't pigeon yourself into, oh, I want to be an analyst in this specific area. Have a bright open mind of like, hey, next year there's going to be something in AI or we know quantum computing is coming, you know, we know data centers are being built everywhere.
00:12:15
Speaker
You know, what, what is the next new job that's coming? So I want to come back to that, but I also want to take a minute to kind of set some context. So tell us about your job right now. Like, what does that look like? What is your, what's your official title? What's your role? Like when you go to work, what do you and your team do?
00:12:35
Speaker
Great question. Um, When I first started at McDonald's and what I'm doing now is different. When I first started at McDonald's, was a senior manager of global data.
00:12:45
Speaker
so same title, but different different structures over the wider cybersecurity aspect. So when I first started, I worked on data classification and retention in the unstructured data aspect. So what I mean by unstructured is things like M365, email, Excel, JIRA. So things that aren't structured in and rows and columns and easier to...
00:13:10
Speaker
query, et cetera, and understanding the security around that. So I had a team that reported to me um that that works in Chicago talking about classification labeling.
00:13:21
Speaker
Give an example, we pushed out classification to email, right? How do I understand when I'm sending you an email or I'm sending you a Teams message or I'm using Microsoft Copilot?
00:13:32
Speaker
What sort of data I'm consuming? or attaching or have access to, right? So making sure the right people have access to the right data, but that we're classifying where data is.
00:13:44
Speaker
Because how can you could put controls around something that you don't know the classification of that Right. Right, so we we have launched that, and and some someone has taken over that team um from me because yeah know I had moved to a new team. Someone had left the company. Actually, two people left the company. And I got asked to take over a um another team that that's in a really cool area called DSPM, so Data Security Posture Management.
00:14:10
Speaker
And what we do there, and and and specifically for me being being a leader of the team, is I oversee a manager who I'll say is on the ground doing the work with the team and a few analysts for remediations of cloud data security using some pretty large vendors, and pretty well-known vendors, to understand where our critical vulnerabilities are from a database and data perspective.
00:14:35
Speaker
So, you know the use of AWS, which is Amazon's cloud, and GCP, which is Google's cloud, and Microsoft, which is Azure's cloud, we use all of them Right. um So when it comes to vulnerability, when it comes to overprivileged access, there are large vendors in the space that we use to help us with alerting.
00:14:56
Speaker
And my team specifically works with the application team. So software engineers, data scientists, DBAs to help remediate those remediations and make sure that we have lessons learned to understand and make sure those vulnerabilities don't pop up again.
00:15:13
Speaker
Okay, so now you've worked at a number of different companies and I imagine that it's almost like different companies have different security flavors. Can you talk a little bit about that, about how your job now is is really, really different and your focus is different compared to what it was at other places?
00:15:36
Speaker
I think the easiest way way of saying that is that companies have different priorities. Yeah. At Meta, it's move fast and break things, which is tough to be a person in privacy, trying to protect things when everyone else is trying to break that exact product.
00:15:53
Speaker
um The priorities at Meta were constant reorgs, so aligning teams in different ways for the new products. right so Give an example, I remember India banning TikTok.
00:16:07
Speaker
And then our priority was Facebook Reels. Instagram Reels was still very popular, but we had this opportunity to reinvent the Facebook app and bring short-form video to the Facebook app.
00:16:22
Speaker
But from a settings, from a privacy, from a data use perspective, how do we make sure things are locked down? How do we make sure we're not using public data for ai models, which I know has changed these days?
00:16:36
Speaker
At McDonald's, it's more protecting the brand. And what i mean what I mean by that is i have a lot of friends who oftentimes and say, what are you securing at McDonald's? And they make fun of me. Are you are you securing the food and the delivery trucks? And and they and it's it's it's that they know, obviously, I don't do that.
00:16:56
Speaker
But if you think about McDonald's as a brand, we're in 120 countries. we are if just If you just look at that, the amount of different regulations we have yeah is insane.
00:17:09
Speaker
We have 70 million customers a day. the you know Our revenue is something in the billions each quarter. So when do you think of people trying to access information, what do they want? right They want money.
00:17:24
Speaker
And they want data. And they want to expose companies. yeah I mean, comes down to maybe a few more things, but those are those are the aspects. And McDonald's brand is pretty large, well-known brand.
00:17:37
Speaker
So if I'm an ethical ah not an ethical hacker, and if I'm trying to breach into a company, and I think of what companies to do, I mean, McDonald's has data 120 different countries.
00:17:52
Speaker
And the amount of data that we have is incredible. mean, it's also incredible for the customer experience. We're now leveraging our McDonald's app, and we have a goal by 2027 to have 250 million loyalty customers.
00:18:07
Speaker
My personal opinion is that we'll crush that. The reason why is that I think we already have 150 million, but there is it it's our it's our reach. Everyone knows what McDonald's is, and Everyone has probably been there at some point, especially when you're thinking of road trips, right? Where else are you going to go when it comes to fast food? I mean, I know there's the Burger King's and Wendy's of the world, but the brand recognition is off the charts. I think we're the eighth well-known brand by Forbes in the world when it comes to brand recognition. So what i mean by that, and and kind of just going back to what I said before, is
00:18:47
Speaker
Meta was boot back brace move fast, break things, and we had an FTC consent order we were abiding by. McDonald's is how do we protect the brand? How do we make sure that we're not in the the news that we're not securing data?
00:19:01
Speaker
How do we make sure that our networks are up, that our technology works, that we can get people in and out of McDonald's as fast as possible? And one of the big things is comes AI, right? And I'm sure we'll talk about that a little more, but everyone thinks AI is coming to take everyone's job, especially when it comes to fast food.
00:19:21
Speaker
What I hear from my leadership is not it's not that. They want to move faster, use the same people, but give them tools yeah to get more people through. It's going to make it's going to make companies more competitive. Yes.
00:19:37
Speaker
So... Yeah, so let's go to that for now. So... um So you briefly mentioned new jobs. One of the things that I think about a lot when I think about AI is, yeah, some jobs are going to go away.
00:19:51
Speaker
But when the internet came up, there were new jobs that materialized that people hadn't thought of before. Like a web developer did not exist before the World Wide Web.
00:20:01
Speaker
Right. So you guys are probably thinking about that. What kinds of new jobs can you imagine on the horizon that didn't exist, that don't exist right now?
00:20:14
Speaker
It's good question. I think there's a couple different aspects of that. um Right now, we are seeing new jobs in the AI sector. um And I think we're going to continue to see, you know, we we keep hearing this responsible AI aspect, right?
00:20:34
Speaker
And there's a difference between responsible AI and securing AI. Responsible AI is understanding should we. How do we?
00:20:45
Speaker
What I'm seeing now when it comes to a large company-wide is that AI is then secured by the cybersecurity teams, but we will need experts in AI now.
00:20:58
Speaker
to secure that data. So what I see coming is enforcement and guardrail specific teams around LLMs. So if you're going to be using ChatGPT Enterprise, if you're going to be using Copilot, if you're going to be using Anthropic, which I know the university has a huge partnership with, really the inputs and outputs of that in securing the information,
00:21:24
Speaker
think we're going to see more AI security specialist roles And I think we're going to see a blend of data AI and data governance roles to understand how to push the business to utilize it, but not go past the line of being less careful and possibility of new breaches.
Building a Security Culture
00:21:49
Speaker
Today, I mean, give an example. Today, breaches happens in servers that that aren't patched or happens with phishing emails.
00:21:55
Speaker
I think tomorrow it's going to be you put some confidential information into an LLM model, or that LLM model then leaks, yeah and then someone else can use that data.
00:22:07
Speaker
So think the form of, like I believe it still is number one form of hacking is phishing emails. But I think we're getting more sophisticated there with vendor tools, with training.
00:22:20
Speaker
ah These new aspects of, hey, I want to create a presentation and give you all the information. And have you build it for me? You don't really have that filter. It's you and the prompt.
00:22:34
Speaker
There's no filter telling you not to put confidential information in it. So it's an interesting aspect of yeah how to build. I think a lot of people... that are really new to security don't realize how much of security is people dependent.
00:22:50
Speaker
And I think that's one of the places ai is going to really make things challenging for you guys because I can use AI to do analysis of people. yeah And that may help me in my phishing efforts. Yeah.
00:23:05
Speaker
Yeah, i mean, understanding behaviors. I mean, if you know, yeah yes. I mean, if you're using an AI chatbot, The behavior of you as a dean.
00:23:17
Speaker
ah bet you that chatbot pretty easily knows that you're the dean without knowing you're the dean. Yeah. Not to get you scared. In our case, in our case we have ah we have our data locked down within the the university. So if I use Claude, yeah then we own all that data.
00:23:38
Speaker
So we were just talking about how so how people are a key aspect of security. At your company, how do you build a culture of security so that McDonald's protects its own data?
00:23:53
Speaker
So think we're reimagining and rethinking right now yeah with all these new tools. And when I say tools, I mean AI, and I also mean vendor tools.
00:24:08
Speaker
there are If you look out today, there are the amount of vendor new new ah funding for Series A, Series B, and ah but ah beyond startups.
00:24:20
Speaker
And vendors trying to sell to major companies is more than it's ever been. A part of that is the AI boom. A part of that is the cybersecurity boom.
00:24:31
Speaker
But how do we make sure that
00:24:37
Speaker
The business and making money is always going to be a priority. But how do we make sure people know that the protection of the business is also ah close priority? We can't have the brand without protecting the brand.
00:24:50
Speaker
I think we've we've started to do trainings, the yearly trainings. We're doing lunch and learns, talking about different cybersecurity aspects. But I think more now than ever, I'm working with the business side, the marketing team.
00:25:06
Speaker
The teams who know what's going to happen before the public knows what's going to happen. I think we've seen this a lot with leaks, right? So how do we lock, if we know we're doing, um given it give Monopoly for example, we just launched Monopoly.
00:25:21
Speaker
If that came out and our competitors found out about that a year before we were doing it, that wouldn't be good for our brand. right ah And a piece of that is making sure the information is locked down and the databases where the information are locked down and that the people,
00:25:36
Speaker
are also aware that they need to be trusted. How do you do that part? Because that part right there, that's the cultural part. So you can do trainings. You can even do phishing of your own people to see if they click a link. like I know that's kind of a thing that yeah companies do.
00:25:56
Speaker
What does that look like for you guys? I think for me, it's...
00:26:03
Speaker
partnership, trust, and getting closer to the business side so that I am a partner to the business. I am not the brakes. If you're in a business role or a marketing role or a money, a revenue role, a lot of times in the past, you didn't want to talk to the cyber guy.
00:26:26
Speaker
You didn't want to talk to the privacy BI because he's going to try to slow you down. Yep. Where I don't want to be seen, and this is what I think we're trying to do from a culture perspective, we don't want to be seen as that. We want to be seen as one team.
00:26:39
Speaker
We want to be there, what we call privacy shift left or cyber shift left or privacy by design. We want to be there from the start, working with the teams. And I think it's a process problem.
00:26:52
Speaker
In the past, cyber and privacy came at the 23rd hour before you're going to push something out. And that's not like McDonald's specific. That's just industry specific. How can we be there on day one with the people to make sure they know the importance of cyber privacy and all the things that we're
iSchool's Dynamic Curriculum
00:27:12
Speaker
handling with? And I think a piece of that is comparing it to what's happening in the world.
00:27:17
Speaker
All the time you see leaks. All the time you see hacks. And you can use some of those lessons learned and give real life examples to your teams as, hey, this is what we're trying to avoid and and make that connection to what has actually happened in in real life.
00:27:38
Speaker
Okay, so I'm going to switch gears. I'm going to go back to the iSchool. Let's do it. i love it And one of the things that i that I like to talk to people about is in the time that you've been a professional,
00:27:51
Speaker
Technology has changed actually quite a lot. a lot. How do you keep up? And particularly, has the iSchool helped you? Has it put you in a position so that it's kind of natural to keep up? Or is it a challenge all the time?
00:28:08
Speaker
I think one of the things i always loved about the iSchool is the elective classes... for like the real in-the-moment scenarios. the The reason why I bring this class up a again, because i think it my favorite class, was database security class. And we went over the the active Home Depot Sony target hacks that happened like six months ago.
00:28:29
Speaker
Six months prior to that. So the iSchool kept me... up to date on what was happening in the real world while I was here during the four years. I mean, you look back at even the first class you take at the iSchool 195 with Jeff Rubin, who's a a close friend and what I'll call colleague at this point, because I i love talking to him about university-wide technologies and and even the iSchool specifically.
00:28:52
Speaker
His class changes every single year. Yeah. And the ability for the iSchool to continue to rapidly change yearly gives us as grads the opportunity to do that in the workforce.
00:29:06
Speaker
Now there are things like The Verge and TechCrunch and very real-time news outlets that actually I found out in iSchool classes that I still use today.
00:29:20
Speaker
And that's how I keep up. At this point, though, it's almost impossible to keep up. There's so much going on. But there are really cool newsletters out there too, which which i've I've used in the past um to understand what are the current Home Depot target Sonys? What is happening?
00:29:41
Speaker
Who's getting breached where? And at this point, it's how many, not who. yeah And what did they do wrong? And I think that's really cool. i'm not I don't read many books, to be honest. I am a article tech article junkie, I say.
00:29:55
Speaker
I get into Reddit or The Verge or TechCrunch, and I go down a path of what happened here? What tools do we have? How are we actually mitigating this risk?
00:30:10
Speaker
And a lot of times I'll share the public articles internally with my teams and say, look at this. Like, you know, this is why we do what we do.
00:30:21
Speaker
That not only one reaffirms why they have a job, but also gives them a little bit of a morale boost and like, oh, wow, I think we're covering that here. ah But i think the I think Jeff just came out with some ITS newsletter as well, ah which I read when he sends out.
00:30:40
Speaker
And I appreciate all of this because without these avenues and without being built... from 18 to 22 and the mindset of everything's changing, it'd be really hard to keep up today.
Data, AI, and Future Courses
00:30:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:55
Speaker
It'd be really hard. Yeah. One of the things that, um, that a lot of alumni tell me is, is that an high school degree helped them not be attached to a you know, a current technology, but really help them so that they could pivot all the time to new technology to think about technology kind of as just a set of tools and those tools are going to change all the time.
00:31:20
Speaker
That's a hundred percent. I see it as we used to call it, I don't know if we still call it, but the intersection of business and technology, but it goes beyond that, which is why we may not call that anymore, but it's understanding data.
00:31:35
Speaker
right Most of the classes we teach here talk about data and the importance of data. Data power is everything.
00:31:47
Speaker
Couldn't have AI without data. Couldn't have revenue without data. Yeah, these days that's certainly true. Maybe 50 years ago it was not a thing. But then...
00:31:58
Speaker
but then The aspect of data powering everything and the importance of governance, security, analytics behind that data. And then the classes that we teach here.
00:32:10
Speaker
And we have you know information security track for concentration, so how do you protect the data? i think I believe we have a data analytics track now. How do you manipulate the data and use the data for business aspects?
00:32:25
Speaker
And I would love to do other data governance aspects here and talk to you more about that, but
00:32:31
Speaker
The importance of securing data has never been more important, and and it's only going to become more important.
Navigating Career Changes and Networking
00:32:40
Speaker
I mean, you look at the self-driving cars.
00:32:43
Speaker
How do we think self-driving cars work? They are collecting data every single second about the roads and people beyond them. Where's that data going? What is that powering? Yeah, insurance companies are certainly starting to develop apps so they can sort of see how you're driving. And then ah that can affect your rates. And certainly people talk about Facebook. You know, they're making their money from data.
00:33:09
Speaker
All data. Right. So, so yeah, that's that's the world we live in these days. Okay, so this is the world we live in. Think about two or three things. If I was going to ask you two or three things that you want to tell people that are graduating right now, what would that be?
00:33:29
Speaker
I think the first would be
00:33:36
Speaker
be flexible and adaptable. Companies these days are making layoffs. They're doing reorgs. But they're still innovating.
00:33:49
Speaker
And a lot of young grads I'm seeing are being in a role for a year, like myself, then doing something different. And then in a role for a year and doing something different.
00:34:00
Speaker
And I think there's stress that comes with sure new job, new manager, et cetera. Getting used to that earlier on will help you.
00:34:11
Speaker
Give an example, I've been in what is eight different roles now? And I've been out for 10 years, four or five different companies, but eight different roles. So I think the first one being flexible and adaptable and understanding that a lot of this isn't under your control. If your boss is telling you, hey, we want you to come over here.
00:34:30
Speaker
That's just reality. Don't go against the grain, go with it. Whether you think or it's a good decision or not, do your best to be in that new opportunity, get your network and do well in that role.
00:34:44
Speaker
The second piece, I think, is what we talked about before. and understanding that your iSchool network and your alumni network needs to go into the network in your career.
00:34:55
Speaker
When I get into a new role, or if I'm mentoring someone and they're in a new role, the first week, they should be in one-on-ones all week, understanding who everyone is, getting their face in front of everyone, understanding their roles, documenting it down, so that when they need something, or they need help, or they need feedback, they're They know who to go to and they can start to align their strategic cross-functional partners.
00:35:19
Speaker
The reality today is that you can't, if you can't work with cross-functional partners, you're not going to do very well. I don't care if you're a heads down software engineer, you're going to be working with other software engineers. And I think the third one continue to learn.
00:35:34
Speaker
yeah If you're in a role and you're not learning, Don't leave the role, but start to look and understand what's next.
00:35:46
Speaker
Understand, am I getting everything out of this role? Am I learning more? Am I challenging myself? Because that's where I think the differences of changing roles is I have anxiety because I want a new role.
00:35:59
Speaker
Getting that new role is really hard. Once I get that new role, do I think it's actually going to be better
00:36:06
Speaker
I think yes. I don't think I've ever changed roles and regretted it. There are roles that I've like disliked less or more.
00:36:16
Speaker
But if you're learning something new, whatever it is, that's key. So continue learning. Learning doesn't stop because you're not in class anymore. Yeah, there's two things that sort of come to mind as you talk. One is this phrase we use called lifelong learners, right? Like you read articles all the time and that actually helps you professionally, right? That keeps you kind of on the edge. It keeps you aware of what's out there and what's going on.
00:36:43
Speaker
That's learning, right? You're constantly learning. um The other is opportunity. So, you know, when you switch roles, there's always another opportunity in front of you.
00:36:55
Speaker
Some people are more opportunistic than others, but I can think of these things as stressful changes or I can think of them as opportunities. yeah This is an opportunity for growth.
00:37:06
Speaker
um There's a lot of layoffs in the world. That's just kind of the way that corporations work. um I was laid off years and years and years ago. I used to work for company called Symantec. And, you know, we went through layoffs. The thing is, is that created an opportunity for me, right? Like in the moment, it was frightening. It was scary.
00:37:29
Speaker
But it led to a better job. Yeah. And it opened doors for me that otherwise i wasn't paying attention to. So those are all opportunities. Yes. this I think networks are the key thing, is one of the key things that our graduates, that our students right now should be paying attention.
00:37:48
Speaker
Make those networks. Shake hands with people. Introduce yourself. Connect on LinkedIn. I tell my students all the time, send me a send me an invite. I'm happy to connect with you LinkedIn.
00:38:00
Speaker
I think one thing you hit on that I wanted to hit on today that's outside of the technology rem realm is the stress of the world. It's, I would say, more stressful than ever. And that's not for new grads. That's someone who's 10 years out. Just the changing of the world.
00:38:20
Speaker
And ah i think it's important. We always talk about networking. We talk about getting good grades. We talk about getting jobs. But I think there's a mental health aspect to it. Sure.
00:38:31
Speaker
That is super important. You talked about the stress of a new role.
00:38:37
Speaker
Or a layoff. There are things in life, in your career, that are up to you. Leaving your current job and moving to a new job.
00:38:49
Speaker
That's up to you. Getting a reorg, being told that you're going to be in a different place, that's not up to you. Getting laid off.
00:39:01
Speaker
People think I'm going to be a top performer. will I'll never get laid off. If you look at my old privacy team, there are some of the best performers I've ever worked with in my life that were laid off at Meta.
00:39:14
Speaker
That's not up to you. So mental health health aspect and understanding the difference of something that's up to me and something that I have no control over is super important. And it took me a long time to understand this.
00:39:31
Speaker
But no matter what happens, and I want to connect to what you said, there will always be new opportunities. We live in a world where things are changing and new rules, even though there are layoffs, new rules are happening every year.
00:39:46
Speaker
Because we live in a world where technology is conquering everything. So because you get laid off, as you mentioned, isn't and i mean isn't the end of the world. Obviously, there's a financial piece of it. There's a stress of that.
00:40:02
Speaker
But you should see it not as I'm mad at the former company. I'm mad I could have done better. That's in the past. There's nothing else you can do. You can move forward, use your iSchool connections, use your internal connections, use LinkedIn, and get a new opportunity. And you find that many cases, as you mentioned, someone goes on a do new road path and they look back and say, why was I so stressed?
00:40:27
Speaker
For things that I couldn't control. So I think understanding that earlier in your career, and I wish I understood that at earlier in my career, is there are things that I can control and there are things I have. I could stress every night. I could i could never sleep for for a year. Am I going to have a job when I wake up?
00:40:42
Speaker
Or I could go to the job every day, do the best I can, know that if I get laid off, it may not be my control, under my control.
00:40:52
Speaker
And then utilize friends and my what I'll call my my inner circle, right which is important. to make sure that I have support when those bad things happen. But a lot of times you yeah you end up better than you were. You find a new thing you didn't think you liked.
00:41:09
Speaker
So those new opportunities that come from what I call negative moments,
Future Tech and Business Implications
00:41:14
Speaker
It's a part of life. if if If life was happy and everyone got new roles every day, there there'd be no emotions. There'd be no ups and downs, right? yeah Yeah, the ups come because there are downs. Absolutely.
00:41:25
Speaker
So what are you excited about? Like if you're looking at the technological landscape, what what is what's coming up that makes you excited? And particularly if you can put that in the context of security and your profession.
00:41:37
Speaker
Yeah, I think... Is it specific to my role or specific to the iSchool? specific Specific to my role, I'm super excited to start. We're we're pushing out our technologies to what we call it to the markets.
00:41:51
Speaker
So dealing with the Germanys, the Australias, the different countries where where McDonald's is. um And I'm really excited to work with different cultures, with different people and the way they learn.
00:42:09
Speaker
um and push out some really cool technologies to them that are like pretty innovative for some of these places. ah I think the future of the iSchool I'm super excited for is the use of data in AI and how to secure that, which I'd love to talk to you and more about. What courses are going to be here in two to three years where we're talking about AI database security or LLM security?
00:42:38
Speaker
or LLM data governance, or how to secure an open source LLM. And I think one of the things that's come up and I thought would hit before AI is the quantum computing aspect.
00:42:55
Speaker
Something that I think has been put on the back burner because it's ah it's a couple years away. yeah And this new AI thing has come. But quantum computing is still coming. And with quantum computing and AI together, right mean you're talking about some of the fastest ways to manipulate and create data known to man.
00:43:16
Speaker
And put robotics in there too. Right. Yeah. So I'm just going to kind of go into that a little bit. You know, we're excited because we have a new graduate degree in AI.
00:43:26
Speaker
We have a, an an undergraduate minor in AI. And we're thinking about pushing those boundaries even further. So we're going to be exploring different degree opportunities and other things. um It's an exciting moment. And it's a moment of change, certainly, because ai' is changing so fast.
00:43:45
Speaker
Like really five years ago, this was on our horizon, but it wasn't it wasn't something that you know anybody could even imagine what was going to come next, right? So it's changing really fast.
00:43:57
Speaker
So if we design a degree program right now, what's it going to look like in three years or five years? right It's going to be completely different. Different. What kinds of classes are students going to need? What is the landscape going to look like? Before, we were just talking about how you know the World Wide Web created a job that didn't exist before that job created.
00:44:19
Speaker
In five years, there are going to be job opportunities that we can't imagine at this moment. So it's ah it's a challenging moment to figure out where we need to position ourselves and where we need to position our students.
00:44:34
Speaker
Luckily, we have faculty who have incredibly pivoted towards ai in ways that probably won't surprise you as somebody who graduated from the iSchool. But people outside the iSchool may not realize that that AI impacts so many different things that almost all of our faculty have turned to that and said, how is that impacting my space? What can I do? How can I introduce this into my classes?
00:45:03
Speaker
You know, i I talked to high school teachers and not universally, but there's plenty of people that are just like, we're forbidding our students to look at AI.
00:45:15
Speaker
But in our classes, we're like, look, here's how you can use AI to do this. And to me, that's exciting, right? Sci-schools have always been on the cutting edge of technology and will continue to innovate and be on that edge. And we'll continue to have conversations with people like you, because I think that you can bring back the industry perspective that helps us tune our classes for the future. Yeah. And I think, I think it's the right way to go Absolutely. hundred percent, right? The,
00:45:47
Speaker
innovation that has occurred in the partnership with Anthropic at Syracuse is extremely exciting to see. I was very excited to hear about it. And the acceptance of it, I was also excited to hear about.
00:46:01
Speaker
mean, the reality is students are going to use it whether you like it or not. So why not embrace that? More than that, really more than that. Tomorrow's information professionals need to know how to use AI to be competitive.
00:46:15
Speaker
Absolutely. mean, I use it, I'll say I use it five to six times a day. i mean, we're we're we're a large co-pilot partner, so we have co-pilot. um All of them are pretty similar.
00:46:30
Speaker
One of the things that I think is really interesting and what's going to happen in a few years is companies are still trying to figure out how to use it. Large corporations. Yep, Now, we can use it as a staff level, and it's going to help us on a day-to-day. But companies want to use it to make more money. Yeah.
00:46:48
Speaker
Right? And that's the reality. And I think we're not, I don't think companies are there yet. They're not, and think I think I just saw an article that 90% of companies that were surveyed said they haven't actually profited yet from the use of AI for revenue purposes. I think there's a big profit for staff and enhancements. But when you look at the profits for Are we making more money because of the use of AI at the corporate level?
00:47:14
Speaker
It's not quite there yet. So that's next to come. How is ai going to be leveraged to help revenue increase? You know, what I think about though, is that it's it's almost like there's going to be an arms race.
00:47:29
Speaker
Like there's an arm race in security between bad actors and folks that are protecting systems, right? Well, as companies ramp up with AI, if they ramp up all evenly, there may not actually be revenue gains because the competition will just be more and more fierce. The companies that decide where there's going to be profit-taking is the companies that are slow and can't compete and can't figure out how to use AI.
00:47:58
Speaker
You know, capitalist societies have a way of dealing with that. Those companies go away. The interesting part here is We talk about ai so much every day now, and the large corporations are using it.
00:48:16
Speaker
But as you mentioned, um you know the medium, the small corporations haven't even begun the start of it. When you look at Syracuse as the local economy, it's a pretty industrial town.
00:48:32
Speaker
you know Carrier used to be here. I'm from Syracuse, which is why I'm saying this. um Let me give an example. My father works for a company called Seal Master, a large corporation.
00:48:45
Speaker
and I asked him, hey, are you using AI? Hey, haven't even looked at it yet. And I think it's important to understand that though these large companies are moving fast, where's the rest of the world?
00:48:59
Speaker
Where's the people who are 35 70 who are in the workforce that didn't go to the iSchool, that don't have a technology background? Yeah, yeah, yeah. what How are they going to adapt?
00:49:12
Speaker
Yeah. And a lot of them aren't. And they're going to hold companies back. I think that's key.
Podcast Conclusion and Reflections
00:49:19
Speaker
So this is pretty much all we've got time for.
00:49:23
Speaker
I want to thank you for joining us today. Always love coming and seeing you. I really enjoyed this chat. I hope that the folks listening really enjoyed it. I imagine they will. Absolutely. Thanks. Appreciate you, Jeff.
00:49:33
Speaker
Yeah. Have a good one. You too.