Risk Mitigation & your Job Search Thesis

Risk Mitigation & your Job Search Thesis

What's been in the news the past week?

  1. A major data breach affecting AT&T and nearly all of its customers
  2. An assassination attempt on a top US presidential contender
  3. One of the largest IT outages in the cloud era

What do all of these have in common?

They high the institutional IMPERATIVE of investing in comprehensive risk mitigation.

I recall learning years ago that most B2B/B2G company value props center around one of three principles: 1. helping organizations increase top-line revenue 2.) help organizations reduce costs and improve bottom-line & 3.) helping organizations mitigate risk

But what does it mean exactly to help mitigate risk? And what can learn from some of today's recent events?

Why Risk Mitigation Matters

Vulnerability is everywhere

We've discovered vulnerabilities spanning physical security, IT infrastructure, and cyber environments that many of us may not have expected.

?How does a major corporation leave multi-factor authentication disabled?

? How could a software update lead to such a massive system collapse?

? How does the rooftop of a building near a major political rally go so completely unobserved?

"Obvious" vulnerabilities seem to be an increasing facet of the modern world. Is it necessarily surprising to see such glaring gaps any longer?

Reputation and Trust

Early fallout from incidents like the above show how system failures can lead to immediate loss of trust, adversely impacting careers and corporate brands, all the while creating opportunities for competitors to accelerate market disruption. While often times, the consequences of major failures and breaches are quickly overcome with good PR and the passage of time, that's by no means a certainty in any of these instances.

Public and Regulatory Change

Incidents like data breaches and system failures attract massive attention from the public and regulatory bodies, leading to increased scrutiny and calls for transparent, effective risk management practices and new regulations. The introduction of GDPR in the European Union, for example, was preceded by events like majoy Yahoo 2013 data breach (revealed later to the public), where over 3 billion user accounts were compromised.

Risk Mitigation & Job Search Thesis

For job seekers working on defining a job search thesis - and getting away from an "open to anything" posture - now might be an excellent time to consider risk-mitigation themes and the types of businesses working to help companies and organizations here. There are multiple ways you may look at this

Sector Focus

Perhaps some of you are interested in specific sectors.

  • Financial Services. Risk mitigation is critical to protect sensitive customer data, ensure compliance with regulations, and prevent financial crimes such as fraud and money laundering. Companies in this sector are frequently evolving their risk management strategies to handle cybersecurity threats, operational risks, and regulatory changes.
  • Healthcare: In healthcare, risk mitigation is essential to protect patient data at all times, comply with strict regulations like HIPAA, and ensure the continuity of critical healthcare services (imagine important surgeries being delayed or cancelled due to recent events. Actual lives may have been put at risk). Organizations in this sector focus on data security, emergency preparedness, and patient safety.
  • Government Services: Risk mitigation for government services involves safeguarding national security, protecting citizens' data, addressing new risk associated with climate change, and ensuring the uninterrupted delivery of public services. it goes without saying this sector prioritizes robust cybersecurity measures, disaster recovery plans, and comprehensive risk assessments not only at the Federal level, but also for State agencies, Counties, and local municipalities

Themes

An interest in risk mitigation does not need to be sector oriented. Thing about key themes in tech today that may offer new promise for addressing organizational and corporate risk in the modern world.

Web3: The decentralized nature of Web3 presents unique risk mitigation opportunities (AND challenges).

How could Web3 itself help mitigate risk? If traditional identity management systems are centralized - and hence more attractive targets for hackers - perhaps more decentralized identity solutions could reduce the risk of large-scale data breaches. Or smart contracts on blockchain platforms like Ethereum - that can automatically execute & enforce agreements without the need for intermediaries - could better reduce the risk of human error and fraud. Lastly, perhaps traditional cloud storage systems, more centralized and vulnerable to breaches, could be replaced with more decentralized solutions based on Web3.

AI: Like Web3, AI introduces both potential major new risk, but perhaps new solutions as well. Companies are exploring AI-driven solutions to enhance cybersecurity, predict and prevent operational disruptions, and better manage compliance. AI solutions could be deployed to detect fraud much faster, or predict maintenance needs in physical equipment to prevent major breakdowns, or assess Secret Service protocols to identify vulnerabilities too easily missed by human experts.

Target List

What businesses are solving these problems - or preventing risk in 2024 using new technology and solutions? What does success look like here?

The sooner YOU can begin to investigate and formulate your own answers to these questions, the better prepared you'll be find companies you'd be excited to consider for your next employment destination.

This is not necessarily easy, but it's how you can potentially outflank "industry insiders" by STARTING with your own intellectual curiosity about the world around you.

Chuck Brotman

Sales, Marketing, CS, & Leadership Recruiting for Mission-Driven Companies | Blueprint Expansion aka gtmrecruiter.com

4 个月

On AT&T, Snowflake, and discussions of multi-factor authentication (link to a podcast in this episode) - https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/news/366593774/Experts-weigh-in-on-Snowflake-database-MFA-features

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Chuck Brotman

Sales, Marketing, CS, & Leadership Recruiting for Mission-Driven Companies | Blueprint Expansion aka gtmrecruiter.com

4 个月
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Chuck Brotman

Sales, Marketing, CS, & Leadership Recruiting for Mission-Driven Companies | Blueprint Expansion aka gtmrecruiter.com

4 个月

LinkedIn - this post certainly wouldn't be suppressed based on the topic, correct?

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