Scorecarder Spotlight - Jeff Laskowski, SVP & GM Professional Services

Scorecarder Spotlight

Our series “Scorecarder Spotlight” showcases our talented employees and the incredible work they do.?

Name: Jeff Laskowski?

Job: SVP & GM Professional Services?

Location: Leesburg, VA?

Tell us about yourself?

I live in Virginia about an hour away from Washington, D.C. I have three boys so they keep me very busy. We’re fortunate enough to have some property, so there’s a lot of outdoor space for them to ride bikes, have fun, and play. Most people are surprised to find out that I like to ride motorcycles; I still own a dirtbike today and have owned a Harley for a few years.

I went to college for mechanical engineering, but found out pretty quickly that having 8am classes across the board was not a great decision for me—that was not a fun semester. So I switched my major to engineering technology, which turned out to be welding, HVAC, refrigeration and other mechanical tech. That major wasn’t for me either, but turned out to be incredibly valuable, because to this day I can fix the A/C, the fridge, and my cars without having to pay someone else to do it.?

Late in my freshman year, I had taken a programming course, and everything clicked right away. It all came very naturally to me, and I ended up earning a computer science degree in my remaining three years. After college, I started as a developer writing custom software within a large consulting firm.

How did you pivot to cybersecurity??

Since I can remember, I’ve always been fascinated with technology and specifically computer viruses and hacking. As an example, I’ve lost them now, but I used to have a box of virus samples on 3.5” plastic floppy disks. In addition to my major in computer science, I also was interested in business. I didn’t know it at the time, but that combination was (and still is) rare, as very few people in business understood tech, and vice versa. So the combination of interests in tech and business got me into cybersecurity. Cyber incidents were very similar to my experience in consulting, where you’re only as good as your last project, everything is high-pressure and you have to show your value immediately, fix the problem, then move on to the next one.??

What did you do before working at SecurityScorecard?

One of the first questions Alex (Yampolskiy) asked when he interviewed me for this job was, “Why do we only have seven shared connections on LinkedIn?” We work in the same industry, so it was definitely a good question. After I thought a bit, I realized that for much of my career, I’ve worked in companies that actively avoid the spotlight. I spent 13 years at Lockheed Martin working on defense projects. There was information you can’t even share with a spouse, let alone broadcast online. We were chasing and preventing nation-state attacks, so it was all very secretive.

From there, I joined Mandiant, where I worked across a number of public companies for almost seven years. That’s another area where you have to be discreet; if a company was working with us, especially around an incident, they didn’t want to advertise the fact that our team was at their door. As a result, I’ve spent 20 years of my life at places I couldn’t really talk about. For that reason, I don’t maintain any social media accounts, and I have a minimal presence on LinkedIn.?

Some of your proudest career moments?

I’ve worked on some high-profile projects throughout my career, but I can’t name them for you. The cases that stand out were all over the headlines and media though. I’m also very proud and appreciative of the many co-workers, clients, and friends that have helped me along the way. As I joined SecurityScorecard, I was challenged to step back and look at the long game to see what could be possible to transform our services business. This job is really driving me to look farther down the line, how to anticipate roadblocks, and what needs to be done to avoid them. It’s an excellent opportunity for me to learn.?

CTA: Find out more about SecurityScorecard’s Managed Cyber Risk Services?