“People Demonstrated Their Resiliency And Agility, Finding Innovative Ways To Leverage Technology To Improve Communication And Make Connections In The Virtual World.”
Please tell us about your role and the team / technology you handle at Telos. How did you arrive at Telos?
Before Telos, I spent 15 years at Microsoft in a variety of roles, supporting products and services alike. I had the opportunity to build out a nationwide sales team to bring new services into the SMB space, but I came over to Telos because I was intrigued by the opportunity to bring cybersecurity products to market in new and interesting ways. My initial charter at Telos was to bolster sales operations and alliances, but not on the scale that we are today. At the time, we had just begun talking to AWS on the C2S award for the CIA.
I grabbed the reins on the programmatic side of the relationship and began building our alliances relationship with AWS, advancing our partnership and working to get Telos products included in the various AWS marketplaces.
Today, we see AWS as a go-to-market partner and together we drive a joint pipeline. Over the last 5 years, we’ve built on our success with AWS as well as deep integrations with other partners like Microsoft, to find new routes to market and strategies to access customers we believe have a need for our cybersecurity products. After all, the fastest way to scale is to go through partners.
What is Telos and what does your product / service offering look like?
Telos Corporation empowers and protects the world’s most security-conscious organizations with solutions and services for cybersecurity to protect information and IT systems; cloud security to enable working in the cloud with confidence; and enterprise security to support the tactical and strategic goals of today’s organizations. Telos’ key solutions include:
- Telos Ghost is a secure, cloud-based, patented system for private, secure and anonymous operations on the internet. The solution operates under the philosophy, “you can’t exploit what you can’t see,” offering a completely anonymous way to do business, share intelligence and assess cyber threats online. This capability in turn keeps business and mission-critical communications hidden from adversaries and safe from intrusion.
- Xacta was the first solution of its kind and is recognized by industry analysts as the catalyst for the IT Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) industry. Integrated with both the AWS and Azure clouds, Xacta provides cloud customers with automation that is critical for gathering, organizing and operationalizing the data needed to continuously manage cyber risk for regulated and non-regulated industries alike.
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Could you tell us more about the current trends in cyber and Cloud computing marketplace and how Telos influences the market?
The need for cybersecurity solutions is growing exponentially as new threats and attacks continue to make the headlines daily, from SolarWinds to Colonial Pipeline, to the recent JBS and MTA ransomware attacks. At the end of the day, no organization is immune from the risk of cyber attacks like ransomware and malware, regardless of industry or size. As employees and students alike shifted to remote work and online learning during the pandemic, they became increasingly targeted entry points into their organizations’ networks and systems. Telos and the Telos CyberProtect partners have solutions that address the cybersecurity concerns aggravated by the pandemic. For instance, Telos Ghost, our innovative virtual obfuscation network, has seen increased success and interest within the education, IoT, banking, healthcare and critical infrastructure markets, likely as a direct result of the pandemic and increasingly remote world.
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Partner Program
What is the CyberProtect Partner Program?
The Telos CyberProtect Partner Program is a new channel initiative created to foster relationships with organizations and influencers that serve as trusted advisors in the areas of cyber, cloud and enterprise security. Our hybrid model accommodates partners with multiple routes to market, offering greater profitability across the ecosystem. To accelerate partner enablement, the program includes an education curriculum that delivers training and knowledge transfer in a variety of formats, pre- and post-sale support, a certification process for partners with consistent screening and testing, co-op or investment funds and more. When partners join the Telos CyberProtect Partner Network, they become connected with a global community that works directly and indirectly with one another to build, market and sell Telos solutions and services.
What are the conditions to be part of this partnership model?
We’re looking to engage with partners that share an unwavering commitment to integrity and strive to exceed customer expectations. At an entry-level, partners can join the program without any technical or revenue commitments. Implementation and Elite service partners will be required to maintain annual technical certifications to provide ongoing support for our mutual customers. By engaging with the right partners, we’ll drive accelerated growth, generate new revenue streams and deliver on our mission of providing world-class security solutions.
Tell us more about your recent partnerships and how these alliances improve customer experience across industries.
While we have existing relationships with AWS, Microsoft, Johnson Controls International, Omnilert and others, our newest partners include DLT Solutions, a Tech Data company, and Presidio Government Solutions LLC, branded publicly as Presidio Federal. These companies are the first to formally join the Telos CyberProtect Partner Program, with more to come soon.
DLT in particular has a significant presence in the state, local and education market and will allow us to expand and bring our best in class cybersecurity solutions to new verticals. On the other hand, Presidio Federal is already working with several customers that can immediately benefit from Telos’ solutions. Together, these two partnerships offer us a one-two punch of sorts, as Presidio often contracts through DLT. The beauty of the way our program is structured is that we can work directly with partners, but also coordinate with distributors.
Pandemic Era Management
How has your role evolved through the pandemic crisis? How did you stay on top of your game?
In 2020, our company was required to rapidly embrace remote work and collaboration. Luckily, Telos had systems in place that made the transition to remote work relatively easy for our employees. Like many other organizations, we had to maintain our level of productivity and address the needs of our customers, with a newly-dispersed team.
Personally, while working from home, I quickly realized the need for more deliberate and more frequent outreach to team members. In a remote world, it’s critical to continually check in with employees to ensure people feel “connected” and comfortable. We witnessed a whole waterfront of reactions to COVID-19, and I came to realize that the pandemic was in many ways an exercise in diversity and inclusion, as it required leaders to listen to and navigate concerns and meet people where they were.
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One lesson you learned by working with technology and people during the pandemic?
We all know technology adapts quickly, but the pandemic really showcased this reality, as tech jumped in to fill gaps introduced seemingly overnight. People demonstrated their resiliency and agility, finding innovative ways to leverage technology to improve communication and make connections in the virtual world. Perhaps a silver lining of the pandemic was the authenticity it brought to professional interactions, with people having no choice but to truly bring their whole selves to work. We got glimpses into each other’s personal workspaces with conversations around the artwork or lack thereof on the walls. We met the family pets and children who needed something – usually when we were not on mute – with a new level of patience and curiosity. I think it helped us to laugh and be more approachable in an authentic way.
Thank you, Lisa! That was fun and we hope to see you back on itechnologyseries.com soon.
[To participate in our interview series, please write to us at sghosh@martechseries.com]
Lisa Conway is the VP of strategic alliances at Telos Corporation, a leading provider of continuous security solutions and services for the world’s most security-conscious agencies and organizations.
In her role, Lisa is focused on leading sales initiatives to drive growth across both public sector and commercial markets. She is responsible for implementing strategic sales programs and the sales execution model, fostering alliance partnerships, and bringing Telos offerings to customers and partners in a scalable fashion.
Prior to joining Telos in 2016, Lisa spent 15 years at Microsoft where she began as a solution sales specialist and worked her way to general manager, responsible for developing and managing all aspects of a high-growth U.S. services business focused on the commercial, mid-market commercial, and partner space. She spent her early career in partner consulting, performing a variety of consulting, management, business development and sales activities.
Telos Corporation empowers and protects the world’s most security-conscious organizations with solutions for continuous security assurance of individuals, systems, and information. Telos’ offerings include cybersecurity solutions for IT risk management and information security; cloud security solutions to protect cloud-based assets and enable continuous compliance with industry and government security standards; and enterprise security solutions to ensure that personnel can work and collaborate securely and productively. The company serves military, intelligence and civilian agencies of the federal government, allied nations and commercial organizations around the world.
