I’ve always believed security should be leverage, not liability. That belief has carried me into boardrooms, across continents, and alongside founders racing to prove their next big bet. Over and over, I’ve seen the same pattern: when security is a checkbox, it slows everything down. But when it’s built as trust, it becomes fuel, closing deals faster and inspiring confidence at every level.

At Cisco’s Duo Security, I helped launch the APAC business, guiding executives and engineers through Zero Trust adoption before playbooks existed. It was high-stakes work that demanded both technical rigor and cultural fluency. We closed the company’s largest deal at the time not through harder selling, but by showing that trust itself could open markets.

Then I stepped away. Three years. Twelve countries. Conversations from Tokyo izakayas to Sydney boardrooms taught me something technology alone never could: trust isn’t only about controls. It’s built in relationships, clarity, and habits that hold under pressure.

Today, I bring that perspective as a Field CISO: part executive advisor, part evangelist. I help Cloud and AI-native teams remove security as a sales blocker, earn credibility with prospects and customers, and build trust that scales as fast as product. Not through bureaucracy, but through buyer-ready narratives, practical playbooks, and experienced security leadership.

I’ve lived both sides of the story, the scale of Fortune 500 rollouts and the urgency of startups. What I know is this: in a world racing toward cloud-native and AI-driven everything, trust isn’t just a requirement. It’s the advantage that decides who wins.