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Want a peak behind the curtain into one of the best places to work in cybersecurity and the minds of the innovators behind the industry’s leading security operations platform? Tune in to The Howler podcast!
Hosted by Chelsea Lowman, People Experience Specialist, and Mary Newville, People Experience Senior Manager, the culture duo connects with pack leaders on leadership insights, mental health and overall wellbeing, and how they lead their teams to advance our mission of ending cyber risk.
Lisa Tetrault transcript
Mary Newville 0:00
Hi Heller listeners, it's Mary. Before we start this episode, I wanted to congratulate Lisa Tetreault, today's podcast guest, on her promotion to senior vice president of security services. When Chelsea and I sat down with Lisa for this episode, it was right before she got promoted, so we introduced her as the vice president of security operations, but we are so thrilled to see her elevated to the SVP of security services role. So enjoy today's episode with our new senior vice president of security services, Lisa Tetreault.
Chelsea Lowman 0:38
Welcome back to the Howler Podcast. I'm Chelsea, I'm Mary. We are so excited to be here together again. It is the end of our fiscal year right now, but when you're listening to this, it'll be a brand new fiscal year here at Arctic Wolf, which we're excited about,
Mary Newville 0:56
very excited for. Yeah, I can't believe it another year in the books,
Speaker 1 1:02
talking about, go ahead. I
Chelsea Lowman 1:06
was just gonna say, I can't believe that. It's May. I can't,
Speaker 1 1:12
in my mind, it's still January. No, yeah,
Mary Newville 1:15
same. I'm like, the math isn't mathing. Like, how did we get here so fast. And in my mind, it's basically June, because I have so much stuff coming up the next couple of weeks that already there. So I'm like, How are we already,
Chelsea Lowman 1:33
literally, we're we're both of our maze are just like a wash in a good way, but it's like, we're traveling for like, a month. Yeah? So, yeah,
Mary Newville 1:48
lots of fun stuff ahead. Okay, well, so what's a highlight from your fiscal year 20?
Chelsea Lowman 1:53
It's so hard to it's always so hard to recall things that happened earlier, you know? Yeah, yeah. Like, obviously the things that just happened, just like the recent stuff, yeah, but I think a highlight for me was we had our full team together, the full people experience team together for the first time in person. We had a little px week, and it was truly so magical, like every day we were in a conference room, whiteboarding, brainstorming, visioning together, which I love, a little strategy session. And then every day, there was an element of, like, fun and connection and team building. And we did an escape room and virtual reality, and we did a little happy hour and a dinner, and it was just they were really long days, but it was truly so fun to just like, have the whole team together now that you know you're in Texas. Our teammate, Amanda, is in all the way in England. So it was just so special. I just like, My cheeks hurt, smiling thinking about it. It was such a fun week.
Mary Newville 3:00
It was so fun, I would agree. And also, I mean, we're only a month actually to the day, a month out from that trip, and we have executed against every single goal and plan, which is so far, which is really fun to see the things we were dreaming about start coming to life right now. So
Chelsea Lowman 3:19
yeah, yeah, we didn't just have fun people. We got to work and, like Mary said, we already have implemented and executed, like, a whole new strategic plan, which is wild. It
Mary Newville 3:34
really is. I'm like, Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 3:37
what about you?
Unknown Speaker 3:38
You know,
Mary Newville 3:39
I was thinking the same. I was like, Oh, my I can't on the spot. Just like, pick out my highlight from fiscal year 25 next week was definitely a highlight. Time even think back to May of last year, till now, our
Chelsea Lowman 3:55
Stronger Together summit was a highlight. We talked about that already a little
Mary Newville 4:01
bit. I mean, I was thinking, I mean, amplify comes to mind, because it went well, but also because I feel like, you and I are really just like, dug in. And we were like, We're gonna make this happen, and it's gonna be great. By sheer willpower. We pulled it up in a month, and then it turned it turned out really well, and it was cool to be in that venue, downtown mosaic. If anyone needs a venue, it's great space downtown Minneapolis. So but yeah, I mean also, I mean, speaking the Snark together Summit, we just had our end of Year awards are stronger together. End of Year Awards last week, that was okay, that was for sure, a highlight.
Unknown Speaker 4:45
For sure a highlight. Celebrate
Mary Newville 4:49
our pack members that work so hard, day in and day out and see the I mean, it got me seeing Vic crying. Yeah, we won. Yeah,
Chelsea Lowman 5:00
there were tears, there were laughs, there's a lot of celebration,
Mary Newville 5:05
celebration. Yeah, if you weren't there pack, did we record that? I think you posted it. Yeah. You posted unity. If you're part of the pack, you can watch it in the pack unity Slack channel. But we this is our third year in a row doing this, but we invite the pack to come celebrate all our culture movers, shakers, impact makers, and all of our leaders around the pack that work so hard to create community, connection, learning and growth opportunities, celebration and we highlight folks Emerging Leader of the Year, sponsor of the year, pack is back, Ambassador of the year, etc, and just such a rewarding day to see all these people that work so hard to contribute to the pack, be celebrated, be recognized,
Unknown Speaker 5:53
for sure. And if
Chelsea Lowman 5:55
you're not part of the pack, you can head to the Arctic wolf LinkedIn. We did do a nice little post with all our award winners, so you can check out those people. But yeah, another magical day, like I just felt all the warm and fuzzies after that event. And I'm really looking forward to continuing the tradition next year, seeing how pack unity and pack gives back and well, Wolf and all these culture programs continue to grow with all these amazing people. So I'm excited. Fiscal Year, we're all in.
Mary Newville 6:30
We're all in
Unknown Speaker 6:34
six. How are you going
Mary Newville 6:36
to go all in? In fiscal year 26 oh,
Chelsea Lowman 6:39
how am I gonna go all in? I don't know. I feel like, I feel like, work wise, I go all in, yeah, you're in my heart and soul. Um, I would have to, I would have to, let's circle back to that in the next, next episode. Yeah, same. But we should. I'd be curious if we asked our guest what her answer would be.
Mary Newville 7:08
Oh, yes, let's do it. Listen. Let's ask Lisa. Which is enough? Our guest today is Lisa Tetreault. She is up in Canada, and Lisa is our cybersecurity executive with special expertise in security operations, incident response and managed operations, Lisa has found passion over the last 25 years in the network and security operations, space building operational processes and teams, scaling from startup to large corporations. Lisa is passionate about diversity at all levels, finding, cultivating and embracing each team member's unique perspectives, leading international teams of network and cybersecurity professionals across over 15 countries. Lisa thrives delighting 1000s of customers each day. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Western University with a specialization in software engineering. Lisa was awarded the IT world Canada, top 20 Canadian cyber women of 2023 She's an active contributor to many podcasts and publications. Lisa recently graduated from the Toronto metropolitan Emerging Leaders cyber Initiative Program in October of 2023
Chelsea Lowman 8:17
okay, well, I'm so excited. Let's chat with Lisa. Okay, Lisa, hello. Welcome to the podcast.
Unknown Speaker 8:25
Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.
Chelsea Lowman 8:30
We're so excited to have you here. I know that you are a long time Howler podcast listener. A long time is in the year and a half that it's existed. So you know how we start every episode with our guests with some sort of fun trivia, like, would you rather? So I'm curious, what trivia Do you think we came with for you today?
Lisa Tetrault 8:55
Well, you probably came now that you say that with likely something about the Howler podcast, but
Speaker 1 9:03
I was expecting hockey.
Chelsea Lowman 9:08
My gosh, Lisa, we should have done you just that was such a brilliant idea. I should have given you trivia about the podcast. Can we, can we just stop recording, find a new date so that I can do it.
Unknown Speaker 9:23
Let's do it.
Lisa Tetrault 9:26
No, but you Deb in curling, I can tell you about Carrie and maybe her magic moment, and talk about, okay,
Speaker 1 9:40
wait, who? Who's the Disney fan? That's Dan Chiappa for sure, who loves Beyonce Kristen, who once said The
Mary Newville 9:52
kiss of death is, what is the kiss of death? It's like not having humility being a know it all.
Unknown Speaker 10:01
I want to say, was it lane?
Mary Newville 10:04
Wasn't lane, but you're in the right direction.
Unknown Speaker 10:09
Nick, was it? Nick? It was Nick.
Mary Newville 10:11
Nick, because the kiss of death is he didn't say no at all. Or maybe it wasn't no at all, personal lacking humility. Okay, that was my pop trip who once said
Unknown Speaker 10:23
it's not
Chelsea Lowman 10:30
who once said that it's not the fall that gets you, it's the impact the second bounce that makes you puncture your organs with your bones. Larson, no, I wish I can't see I'm horrible at quoting people. But it was Mary. How did
Speaker 1 10:55
it go? It's guy diving. It's okay. It's okay. I remember this. I remember this guy, diving
Chelsea Lowman 11:01
story.
Unknown Speaker 11:02
I do remember that story. It was great, wrong
Mary Newville 11:05
gone wrong.
Chelsea Lowman 11:07
Okay, well, you were correct that the actual trivia that we have prepared for you is hockey related, because we know that you love hockey. It was challenging. I wanted to make it Canada specific, hockey related but the internet really failed me, maybe because I'm in the US, I don't know. So I think I have some pretty easy ones for you, but we'll still have some fun. Okay, first question, the first organized indoor hockey game was played at Victoria skating rink in Montreal, organized by who
Unknown Speaker 11:42
Jacques, plant,
Chelsea Lowman 11:45
James Creighton, Wayne Johnson, or Emmanuel orlet. I mean, these
Lisa Tetrault 11:51
people are well before my time of starting to watch hockey. I'm going to say, let's go with it's probably back in the early 1900s
Speaker 1 12:10
let's go with jackpot. Which one jock pot?
Chelsea Lowman 12:13
No, I'm sorry it was James Creighton, but you were correct that it was early 19 I think it was like 1850 something.
Lisa Tetrault 12:21
Well, he was in late 1900 he was like mid 1900s so, yeah,
Chelsea Lowman 12:27
yeah, sorry, it was like, I think the game was like 1857 I didn't write it down, but wasn't
Unknown Speaker 12:32
even in the right decade then
Chelsea Lowman 12:37
where you said 19th century? No,
Unknown Speaker 12:39
this was, like,
Lisa Tetrault 12:40
the so Jack font was until like, 1900s something. So, oh, I'm, like, way in the wrong decade.
Unknown Speaker 12:51
Wait, I thought I
Chelsea Lowman 12:52
made up some of these names. So I thought Jacques plant was one that I made up. But you're saying he's a real person. He's a goalie. He is who created the goalie mask 40s. So
Unknown Speaker 13:03
I'm like, 70 years wrong.
Chelsea Lowman 13:06
Okay, okay, I thought you were saying you were wrong. When you said that the game was in the eight, like 19th century, I was like, No, you're right. It was in 18. Wow, okay, okay, okay, we're back on track. Um, that was not a name I made up, Wayne Johnson. That was the one I made up. Okay, moving along in 1993 what Canadian NHL team won? It's 24th Stanley Cup.
Speaker 1 13:33
We're gonna go with the haves. Sorry, Montreal Canadiens. Okay, I was like the who, yes, correct,
Chelsea Lowman 13:43
and they have still won the most Stanley Cups in history.
Unknown Speaker 13:47
Yeah, I'm not a Habs fan,
Chelsea Lowman 13:52
okay, okay, the NHL original six actually started with four teams until it expanded to six in 1924 and 1926 which teams were not part of the original teams? Here are the here are the six. I know you know them, but the Boston Bruins, the Detroit Red Wings, the Montreal Canadiens, the New York Rangers, the Chicago Blackhawks and the Toronto Maple Leafs, which two were not actually the original four teams. This is
Lisa Tetrault 14:23
a hard one, because I only knew that there was an original six. So if you had to guess, okay, I'm gonna go with Chicago and Boston,
Speaker 1 14:35
good job. Okay, yes, Boston
Chelsea Lowman 14:39
and Chicago. I didn't write win, but they joined in 24 and 26
Unknown Speaker 14:46
Okay, two more. If
Chelsea Lowman 14:47
Tiger Williams holds the record for most penalty minutes in NHL history, he's a Canadian player. Among amassing how many minutes do. 3236 that was a, b is 3960 6c. Is 4116
Unknown Speaker 15:12
and D is 4366 I'm gonna go with C close. It was b3
Chelsea Lowman 15:21
1966 penalty minutes. That's a lot of minutes. Yeah,
Lisa Tetrault 15:28
he must have sat in the box, the penalty box,
Unknown Speaker 15:31
quite a bit. I
Chelsea Lowman 15:33
mean, did he even play? It's like he stepped foot on the ice and then went into the penalty box. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 15:38
that's probably very true.
Chelsea Lowman 15:43
Okay, final, final one. How many Olympic gold medals has the Canadian national team won, men and women combined, total Canadian National Team medals?
Lisa Tetrault 15:56
Is this? Is this a true or a pick, a pick an answer.
Unknown Speaker 16:02
Oh, no,
Chelsea Lowman 16:04
your Canadian Blood is on the line. Just joking. Okay, I'm going to pick up some numbers for you really quick. Do you want? I mean, if
Lisa Tetrault 16:13
you'd like to, I have a number of my head, but let's, let's give me some some numbers. Give me some choices. Okay,
Chelsea Lowman 16:19
don't look at me, though, because you'll be able to tell as I'm making it up. Okay, A is 10, B is 14, C is 13, and D is 11. I'm gonna go with 13. Close. It's 14. Head, Lisa, yeah, what number did you have in your head? Oh, okay, yes, the men have won nine, and the women have won
Unknown Speaker 16:53
five. Okay, all right,
Mary Newville 16:57
okay, that was well and for pack members that don't know, like maybe, if you're listening and you're new or you're in Asia somewhere, Lisa is a dedicated member of the Arctic wolf Canadian hockey team that won the season. You were the lead champs most recently, right? We
Unknown Speaker 17:21
did. We won the league this just recently.
Speaker 1 17:26
We have a great team. Yeah, and you guys have jerseys.
Mary Newville 17:31
The whole thing, what's been like? What? What? What position do you play on the on the Canadian hockey on the Arctic wolf hockey
Unknown Speaker 17:39
team? I'm
Lisa Tetrault 17:40
a right wing player. So I forward. I play right wing.
Unknown Speaker 17:45
How many?
Mary Newville 17:47
How many points did you score last season? I didn't
Lisa Tetrault 17:51
have very many, because I was traveling so much.
Mary Newville 17:55
I was really dedicated team member
Lisa Tetrault 17:58
with the rock when I'm there, when I'm in town and I'm able to come so I I will show my support by attending. But we have a really deep bench, which means we have a lot of skaters that participate. It's great because we have team members from r, d, from s2, from product. It's very cross functional. It's a great collaborative team, which I love, and it's really great. We have great competitive and a lot of camaraderie across the team. And
Mary Newville 18:37
it kind of, I feel like people come and watch the games, because I know I recently saw a photo, and in the background you see all of the fan posters. Yes,
Lisa Tetrault 18:49
we had about 40 people or 50 people come to our last game and Banner. They had a huge banner. It
Speaker 1 18:58
was great. It was pretty fun. That's amazing. Yeah,
Lisa Tetrault 19:04
it was. It was a really great atmosphere for us. I remember looking across the ice and all of the fans were there. It was really great.
Chelsea Lowman 19:14
Yeah, that's a lot of fans for a wreck, a wreck gate that night.
Unknown Speaker 19:19
Especially at night. Yeah,
Mary Newville 19:25
Mary, I said, and isn't I was like, That's pretty. It shows a lot too, because aren't the games typically pretty late at night.
Lisa Tetrault 19:31
Yes, we're usually on the ice after 10pm Yeah,
Mary Newville 19:36
I would be like, sending my support, but I will be sleeping.
Chelsea Lowman 19:39
Literally, I Well, that is past my bedtime. At least. Hockey games are short comparatively to other major sports. Anyway, okay, yeah, it was so fun. Lisa loves hockey. Go, what's the name of the Arctic wolf team? Is it just. Like Arctic wolf hockey team.
Unknown Speaker 20:01
It's the the
Lisa Tetrault 20:02
wolves article, Arctic wolf wolves. Okay,
Chelsea Lowman 20:07
go Arctic wolf wolves. Next move we want, we want back to back champs, no pressure.
Mary Newville 20:16
Well, okay, and then Lisa, if you don't, you said you don't like the Montreal hats or whatever. So what team do you
Lisa Tetrault 20:23
support? I'm a Toronto Maple Leafs fan. Maple leaves. Yes, we're gonna say more. Go ahead. We haven't won in a very, very long time. So, yeah, it's been a very long, long time I've not been alive since the Toronto Maple Leafs have won a Stanley Cup. So anytime we get to the playoffs, it's a challenging time for us Toronto Maple Leafs fans, because we want to cheer our team on, and then they get to the playoffs, and they don't often do very well, but it's always this year. So yeah,
Chelsea Lowman 21:11
I'm like a Minnesota Vikings fan.
Unknown Speaker 21:14
Totally understand. Yeah,
Chelsea Lowman 21:17
okay, well, let's continue to get to get to know you a little bit better. We know you love hockey, but there's so much more to you than that. So as we work towards like talking about your role here at Arctic Wolf and your journey in cybersecurity, let's go all the way back to little Lisa. What did she want to be when she was little? What did you want to be when you were growing up and kind of take us through a journey of like, when did you learn about cybersecurity? How did you become interested? How did we end up here on this lovely podcast together? Sure,
Lisa Tetrault 21:59
so when I was little, Lisa, I was always playing sports growing up. So I did a lot of team sports and also individual sports, but they were non traditional, I'm going to say often. So I was like pole vaulting and curling. And I also did some traditional sports too. I played baseball, did gymnastics, dance, tennis, that type of thing. I thought that I might be a physiotherapist at first, just with all the sports that I was in. And I was also really good at math, and I also had a little bit of an interest in being a lawyer, so there was nothing specific, and none of the three really were connected, right? Those three interests were just not connected. Late in high school, I got really sick, and I was in the hospital quite a bit, and then I decided, because of how much time I spent in and out of the hospital, that I didn't really want to be in a hospital very much. And I thought, well, that's probably something I'm just not going to do. So I ended up choosing a career path based on what I was pretty good at, which was math, and at that time, it was like, wow, you can be a math teacher. That's kind of what you want to be. That's what the guidance counselor told me that I should probably go into. So I went to a school that I could be close to my medical team for university, and I ended up taking an elective computer science class at that time. And I thought, Oh, this is pretty cool. And I pivoted into computer science, and there was a networking and cyber course there. And I thought, Oh, this is really cool. And I ended up doing an internship at a bank, and part of what we were doing was firewalls and network security in my internship, and I spent 16 months at that internship, which turned into a full time job afterwards. And I just the that was my passion. I just landed in it. So it ended up going from being a math teacher to, I don't really think math teaching is for me, to, oh, this is interesting. And I just kept following what was interesting to me. So, math, well, this computer science, oh, well, this internship, well, oh, cyber, oh, let's go and do these interesting things. Ended up at the bank, and then, as my journey in my career continued, I just found passion in networking and operations. And cyber security, and that's what ended up landing me here at Arctic Wolf. Was Was that so over the course of I was at the bank, I was at IBM, I ended up at Blackberry, and then a company called sandbine, and now Arctic Wolf, for the last seven years, I just found passion in operations and cybersecurity together, and I've been able to expand my career here at Arctic Wolf, and it's been the best seven years of my career, if I'm being honest,
Mary Newville 25:32
tell us about what brought you to Arctic Wolf. Did you know someone that had come or did you find it? I mean, you really were here at the beginning of a lot of what we know our Dick Wolf to be today when it comes to the SOC security operations center. For those that might not be familiar with that term,
Lisa Tetrault 25:51
it was actually a friend of mine that worked at a competitor. He wasn't going to lead the competitor, and I'd worked with him at a previous company, BlackBerry, and he wasn't going to leave. And he referred the recruiter to me and said, I'm not going to leave, but if you want to talk to this person, I think you should. And I ended up here, because I had, I was at a point in my career over at the last company that I started looking, and I thought a change was ready, was in the horizon for me, and so I was already starting to look, and it was just I, my, my, the person that hired me with Sam McLean, so that was great. He was starting to build out a dedicated SOC, because at the time, we had blended roles doing the security operations center at that time. And I thought this is perfect for me. I really want to be part of that. And I thought, This is great. Let's do it.
Mary Newville 27:04
What employee number were you like? Generally? Do you know
Unknown Speaker 27:07
I was less than 100 Oh
Chelsea Lowman 27:09
my gosh. You were really here at the start of it all.
Unknown Speaker 27:14
Okay. Well,
Chelsea Lowman 27:15
speaking of you've seen the socket Arctic Wolf, literally from its infancy through to today. So like, what have been some of the biggest challenges, and then as you reflect on the journey and where we are now, like, what are you most proud of in your seven years here?
Speaker 1 27:37
I just passed seven years last week, which was pretty cool. Wow,
Lisa Tetrault 27:43
thank you. I think some of the biggest challenges was along the way. Was about scaling. I think scaling as we were growing in hyper growth phase, it was a challenge and it was an opportunity, and the same breath, optimizing the operational efficiency was was a great time for growth at Arctic Wolf and maintaining that agility and effectiveness to deliver the outcomes that we were looking for for our customers was pretty important. And I think implementing the processes that you know one quarter was great, and then they became obsolete. By the end of the quarter, we were in such a rapid growth phase was it was a testament to our success and how big we were getting, and gave me a lot of moments of pause over the years. And it it was a really great time and a great opportunity, and each quarter, I take the time to pause and reflect on what I've learned and what we need to do moving forward, because every quarter is a new quarter to think through where our business is and what we need to deliver for our customers, which may not be the same for the next quarter, and kind of my moment every quarter to do that, I really feel that I'm proud about all of the team that we have. They are deeply committed to our meaningful mission, and the impact of our work is so meaningful. We have exceptional talent, and we are really collaborative. And I think the team that we've assembled, not just within us too, but across all of Arctic Wolf, is really important. I see a lot of resilience across the organ. Organizations and the flexibility in navigating the change and seeing that evolution is really important. I'm really proud of the culture that we have at Arctic Wolf, even the cultural values they resonate with everyone you see it on the walls, right, and I like seeing the US save customers from having like that bad day, and we have a win security channel. I'm sure you both have seen it. I love seeing our team that has like personal responsibility when the threat actors are peaking around in the environments and they want to stop them from getting into the customer's crown jewels, and that personal responsibility to protect our customers like it's their own environment that makes me really proud of the team that we have. And when you take that and you have it as a personal mission on the team, that's what really makes me proud of the team that we have here at Arctic Wolf. And it's not just within security services, it's, you know, the R D organization helping build better detections and the product team helping us build a better platform, and the sales team selling, you know, great products to our customers, and you know, HR supporting us and in the whole organization. Yeah,
Mary Newville 31:31
I love that about Arctic wolf too, how there's just deep respect across the organization for every part and the value it brings to the greater strategy, right? Like, there's no actually, I mean, I feel like if there was like a team that was like elevated among the rest, it would be us to on the front lines, like 24/7 but, I mean, I say that with like no, there is no like ever. The world revolves around one specific team, because everyone understands the value that we all bring to the table in our different areas. I was thinking about so you talking a lot about what it looked like to grow in hyper growth and what you're proud of, and a lot of it seemed to be just the literal growth of setting goals each quarter and seeing how by the end of the quarter, the things you were doing were not relevant anymore. And that was a good thing, because it was a testament that, like, you outgrew them, and we're on to the next goal. And I mean, I that's like, one of my favorite parts of being our Dick Wolf is that we get to build and it. And you said, like, I think you said something like,
Unknown Speaker 32:43
often things don't
Mary Newville 32:47
aren't like, the things that are needed aren't the same as they were before. And I feel like that's usually the norm here. So it's like, what makes it fun is that we're constantly there's new challenges to solve and things to figure out. But that makes me think so fiscal year 25 or six that were that is starting next month, the theme for kickoff is all in. What does it look like Lisa to have been at Arctic wolf seven years and to quarter over quarter? Make goals, reflect, see the wins. Build new things, outgrow those things. Build new what does it look like to go all in seven years later? That's
Lisa Tetrault 33:23
a great question. Mary, for me, it's continuing to do all of the things that we need to do for our business and for our customers. We need to continue to grow and scale and add value to everything we're doing for our customers, right? And it's it's doing exactly that we have to be at the top of our game. I have to be at the top of my game, every department needs to be working together to deliver the best outcomes and value to our customers, and it starts with taking care of ourselves and in the platform and our customers. And to me, it's it's hyping it up, right? Seven years is a long time, and I love taking that time to pause, reflect and push the boundaries, to understand if I need to think differently, which I do every quarter. But really take the time I usually take a couple of days at quarter end to see if I need to change my strategy and think differently and with AI, the way it's coming in and the way the threat actors are thinking differently and moving differently. We. Need to really pause and look at that and see if there's any shifts that we need to make strategically over the next couple of years, which we're always looking at, of course, and that's really what it is. It's going all in and not looking back right. We have to make sure we're on the right path and keep testing the limits and testing any beliefs that we have, and let's just go for it.
Unknown Speaker 35:30
Love that. I
Chelsea Lowman 35:32
know you just said not looking back, but I do have a question about the past. Before we before we keep moving towards the present and talking about the present moment. I am just curious. We've talked a lot on the podcast with different guests about work life balance, and sometimes in your career, there's times where it's like, you know, the balance is going to be a little skewed. It's heads down. I'm grinding, and that's just part of it. And I'm wondering, in these past seven years, if there's a specific time that you can recall of like, this was just, I mean, I'm sure the whole seven years was a wild ride, but whoa, this these five months in 2019, just blew my mind. We were doing X, Y, Z, and yada ya. Like, is there a certain time that you look back to that was wild, but maybe with fondness now,
Lisa Tetrault 36:31
remember times where we had a mega event and we didn't have any process around it, and we'll have any technology and tools that were really supporting it, and we were doing a lot of things manually. Can
Mary Newville 36:45
you define, for those that might not be familiar, that a mega event is absolutely
Lisa Tetrault 36:50
so for context, when all of our customers might be experiencing the same breach, I'm sorry, the same threat across the environment, then it's all hands on deck for all of our customer base. Our general approach is to contact all of our customers by phone by alerting them. We're all engaged. It's all hands on deck. And to do this, you need proper tool set. You need a platform. You need everyone firing you on the same way. And I remember times where we didn't have the greatest of all tools to be able to get us in the right direction at a scalable approach, right? We had the tools, of course, but it wasn't scalable. It's very manual process. We all had to do the right thing for our customers, and we did.
Unknown Speaker 37:55
And I
Lisa Tetrault 37:56
remember the times back then where it was a big, monumental effort to be able to do right by our customers, and we still did. And I reflect back at how far we've come and how many customers we can contact and support do all the same activities in a fraction of the time now than we did back then, with a much smaller customer base. And so that, to me, is is a testament to how far we've come, and I'm really proud of those moments, the support we have, the departments we have now, the the whole collective group coming together, different functions and departments across the organizations. It's it's a much different approach, and we can scale it.
Chelsea Lowman 38:57
Yeah, when Mary and I always talk about those moments, those big moments where you're, like, putting out a fire together, or you're working on this project that feels like it's like sucking the life out of you doing it with your team. It makes you so much stronger when you can, when you have that support, when you can, like, find the moments to laugh about it together, about it. Maybe you know, whatever you need lean on each other. It just makes you so much stronger on the other side of it. So, yeah, I can imagine navigating a mega event with without the processes that we have in place today. I can just imagine what it was like. But I'm sure you felt so accomplished after the fact, because, to your point, you kept the main thing, the main thing, which was keeping our customers informed and protecting our customers. And I yeah, I wish I could. Go back in time and see what it was like in my mind, which I know it's not true. Everyone's running around, papers are flying, we're calling each other, we're on the computer, typing really fast, really, what are we gonna do? I don't know. Like, I have a whole movie scene in my head right now of what that was like,
Unknown Speaker 40:16
um,
Lisa Tetrault 40:18
scene permeating your mind. We'll let we'll let that go.
Chelsea Lowman 40:22
Yeah, that's not what it's like now, to be clear, we're just reminiscing. We're reminiscing. Um, okay, well, speaking of what it's like now, s2 has quite a reputation, sorry. S2 is security services, for those of you that don't know, has quite a reputation. I feel like, with an Arctic Wolf, you all have kind of your own little mini culture amongst yourselves, of some silliness, but also some great recognition programs, like your jacket ceremonies and your Legos and your patches, and it just looks like You all have so much fun. So I'm just curious, like, can you share a little bit more about us too, and how you all built that culture? Because I know it wasn't an overnight type of thing. So
Lisa Tetrault 41:13
back in 2020 we determined that we needed to have a culture program built, and we wanted to be intentional about investing in the security services team and recognize them for their hard work. This was an investment in our people, because our people are taking care of the customers. And so I'll send a shout out to a little company in Waterloo, Ontario Canada, called Chocolate soup. They have a Lego recognition program, and I think you've probably seen it. I have my little Lego people here. Got a little tap. There you go.
Mary Newville 41:54
They're fans of the podcast. They actually sent Chelsea and I our own little Heller podcast, Lego I saw that with the microphone. I saw
Lisa Tetrault 42:03
that. It was great. I saw you posted on LinkedIn, which was wonderful. So I had it's, it's quite actually popular in the tech community here in Waterloo to have chocolate soup. So they are a culture as a service company, and they have a Lego recognition program. We have anniversary we have the anniversary program. So I brought in the program where you have a person and you get two pieces of your own flair. I have a hockey stick and a dog, because that is my thing, and that is to identify yourself. And you have a tower builder. And for us, we do blitzes with it. We have, I don't know we had some for a mega incidents. We have, we give out Lego bricks. So when we have mega events, we give out these little bricks. And the team really enjoys that we have anniversaries. Every year of service, you get a new anniversary brick. And so that was one of the ways we wanted to identify people in their years of service. We also had built out a training certification program in each role within Security Services has a training component, and the team members had to certify in their role. In every time they're certified, they get a certificate and a challenge coin, and one year later, they had to recertify in the role, and once they've done that, we have a big ceremony, and somebody gets to walk down the carpet. Some locations have a red carpet. Some have blue carpet, and we honor them with a jacket. And in that jacket, it has a patch with their rolls. So it might say TSE one, it might say CSE one or CSE two, I'm sorry, which is a triage security engineer one, or a concierge security engineer two, or incident response, or whatever the role is that they are in, and it also has their call sign, so they can customize that whatever their call sign is, and we celebrate them, because now they've got hours in seat in that role for a year, plus they've been certified in that role twice. In addition to that, we also have an annual alpha dog program, and it's actually coming up in May. We get to announce the winners. It's our annual program that we recognize the top 1% of the team annually. And this is for a team member and their plus one for an all expense, paid trip to a destination. We decide once a year they this year it's four days, I think, in Nashville, and we're really. Excited to be honoring all of our team members. The criteria is delighting and protecting our customers. A lot of metrics based reasons. Really, we're looking for recognition of our team members that have gone above and beyond to give back all sorts of different criteria, and it's based on their roles. So that's just a little bit of our culture. We obviously also use all of the great programs that article has, like bucket lists, Star Coins, that type of thing. And we we do a lot of wind security shout outs, which I think is super important, because we should be sharing all of the great things we've done for our customers, because that's really what it's about. So
Mary Newville 45:43
many fun things I have now that I'm in San Antonio, which is a huge s2 sock office, I've got to participate in many jacket ceremony, which so fun to see people get their jackets and to walk the red carpet and to do their pose for the photo. Lisa, I have to know what is your call sign?
Lisa Tetrault 46:03
Well, I don't have one. You don't have one. I mean, it's probably mucho Blanco, if I'm being honest with you, but that's more my nickname.
Chelsea Lowman 46:14
I'm unreachable. You can't reach me. I don't have a call, yeah?
Unknown Speaker 46:19
Well, it's probably mucho Blanco if I'm being honest with you,
Mary Newville 46:24
which, which means very white,
Unknown Speaker 46:27
right? Yes, it's
Lisa Tetrault 46:29
something about my moment of joy. It's probably something about my moment of joy too. It's my hockey nickname to be funny.
Mary Newville 46:44
Wait is it? I'm just, is it like a reference that I just don't know? Is that like a name of a drink or something, or, like, No,
Unknown Speaker 46:51
my nickname at hockey, it's your hockey Okay.
Unknown Speaker 46:54
Okay.
Chelsea Lowman 46:56
Are you saying we're gonna learn a little bit more later?
Lisa Tetrault 46:59
You, might you? Might you ask me your regular questions, you will,
Chelsea Lowman 47:03
okay, okay, well, let's keep it moving, because now I'm so curious.
Mary Newville 47:08
I was like, I'm not picking up on something here.
Chelsea Lowman 47:15
Okay, well, yes, thank you for sharing. And to your point, of all of the things you just listed, recognition plays such a big role in people just feeling appreciated at work. And some of these things may seem small, but like even receiving or sending Star Coins or we have an HR like a celebrate HR channel, where we just shout each other out if we see something amazing that someone's doing, um, and it goes a long way, because we all get busy, and we all are, you know, heads down in the grind of it. And so it's nice to be able to take a step back and be like, Wow, we're really working hard. We're really doing it, you know. So I think s2 does a great job at doing that. Okay, switching gears a little bit. We always love to talk about leadership. And so curious, what is the best leadership advice that you've ever received?
Lisa Tetrault 48:15
Oh, best leadership advice. I think the best leadership advice I've received is about the relationships, and I think this is probably something Carrie also talked about a bit, but relationships are one of the single most important measures of success, I think, within an organization, and I truly believe that you can only be as successful within your own organization, right? So if you don't have the relationships of you, with your peers, with your customers, with other business units, it becomes very difficult to be effective as a company, and it becomes the single most important thing as a whole to be a cohesive unit. The other the other thing I would probably say that I've received early on in my career is to learn to be really good at giving and receiving feedback. And I really believe that feedback is a gift. If anyone gives you feedback, it might be difficult to hear, but they've built up a lot of courage to give you that feedback. I think it's a gift to be able to listen to it and to internalize it and to take it and and run with it. Whether or not you do anything with it, is your own prerogative. But I really think it's important to to sit with it a bit and. Learn from that. So those two things are really my thing. So I really lean into partnerships, and those relationships are super important to me. But also the feedback component is also one thing that's super important in the way I live, my leadership, in my leadership style. Yeah,
Mary Newville 50:19
I mean, it is really hard to grow or evolve without feedback, have
Chelsea Lowman 50:25
you? I'm curious. I mean, I'm sure you've received potentially feedback that's been hard to hear just yourself. How do you grow that muscle of like, one, listening, accepting, not like internalizing it too much or spiraling, but then also, like, how do you discern what feedback you think is valuable versus not?
Lisa Tetrault 50:52
Yeah, that's a great question. I think for me, I oftentimes write it down right away, because you might be hijacked in the moment, right how you might receive it. So write it down, and I usually go back to it within 24 hours, and I might reach out to the person and understand a bit of context within 24 to 48 hours. And I always thank them for the feedback, because I think it's important to person for whatever gift they just gave you, right? And then from that point, you can always decide to adapt and take it, or you decide whether or not it's going to be helpful for you, or it's it's something that you decide whether or not you're going to take it for context and be mindful of, or decide to not do anything with. Right? I think context is everything, and perception is everyone's perception is there for everyone, right? So I value that. I also think that I journal a lot so I get things out on journaling, and I give myself about 48 hours to think about it, and then after that, I put my pen down, and I don't stew about things too long. That's how I kind of I put a time box around it.
Mary Newville 52:38
I mean, I like the feedback as a gift analogy, because it does reframe feedback sometimes, if it's hard to receive of like this, actually could be really good for me to hear this perspective. But I also like the gift analogy because sometimes we get gifts that we don't need or didn't ask for, or don't make sense, and we just lightly say thank you, and then we bring that gift to the Goodwill or Salvation Army, just, you know, because there is that wisdom to like, not everybody's perspective. Like, just because they're giving the feedback doesn't necessarily mean it's
Unknown Speaker 53:12
That's right, I'm sorry.
Lisa Tetrault 53:16
That's why the time box, for me is important. I'll just put it on a time box and that's it.
Mary Newville 53:24
Yeah, give yourself that time and then move on. Well, that sounds like a healthy habit, which, before we do the rapid fire, really quick you talked about, I mean, right now you talk about like, that time boxing technique to help you, like, manage, like, from a mental perspective, getting hard feedback earlier in the podcast, you talked about how important it is to be at the top of our game. You also talked about how important it is to take care of ourselves, to build our product, which I thought was an interesting point that you mentioned, that we have to be our best to make a great product, to serve our customers well. So what does wellbeing mean to you. What does well being look like to you as a leader of a huge team and in a rapid, hyper growth space? Yeah.
Lisa Tetrault 54:11
So well being to me, is being in alignment with the balance that I need at the time that I need it. So it may not be the same day over day, week over week, or month over month, and I am totally fluid and flexible, because that's what it looks like for me, and my family is totally in support of that, which I'm very grateful for. So I play hockey several times a week on several different hockey teams. I might walk my dog because I love being outside, and outdoors is really good for me. I might ride my peloton or run on my peloton. I have a tread and a bike. I might do yoga because that's what I need that week. I might take. A complete day off and just just do whatever I need to do. If work is getting too busy for me, I might just block the entire day off as if I'm out of office and not interact with people and just get caught up. That feels like well being to me sometimes, because then I'm not thinking about all of my to do list and having that in my backpack. I call it my backpack. My backpack is full of my my worries, my the things that I'm carrying around. It's my backpack, and if my backpack gets too full, then I need to unload it. Okay? I love a spa day. A spa day is good for me. I love meditation. Meditation is good for me. I also love weekend away with my friends from hockey. I have really good they're really good for my soul, so that that looks great for me as well. And I love journaling. Journaling is where I get rid of junk in my head and big
Mary Newville 56:02
journal or two. This feels really full circle, because we started the podcast with you talking about little Lisa and how we got to cybersecurity, and it was all following your interests and passions. So full circle here at the end. Kind of cool to see that you keep yourself well by following your interests and passions and making space for the things that feel good and give you joy.
Chelsea Lowman 56:25
That's right, yeah. And I love the backpack analogy. I've never heard that one before, but it's, I love the visualization of, like, my mental worries physically on my back. And like, it's, you know, it's like getting too heavy. And you can, because we can all feel when the stress, anxiety, all those things build up, we can feel it in our bodies, like our body is telling us these things. And so then when you think about it as a backpack, it's like, whoa. I need to, I need to take some books out of my backpack, you know. And I just love that, because, I mean, we talk about like, you know, the weight of the world on our shoulders and stuff, but that's harder to like visualize than like a backpack on my back. Get it too. It's good analysis. Go,
Lisa Tetrault 57:09
use that analogy with my team. It's like, you're, I'm, you don't let other people put things in your backpack, and you are letting this go into your backpack, so you need to set that boundary. So this is,
Unknown Speaker 57:28
yeah, so
Lisa Tetrault 57:32
is, is very much used, and when I talk to the team in context of boundaries. So just it, it resonates because it's a visual,
Chelsea Lowman 57:49
yeah, okay, slay love that everyone. Don't let anyone put anything in your backpack. It's your backpack. You decide what goes in there. Love it. Okay. Can't wait to tell more people about the backpack. I
Mary Newville 58:05
can see me and Chelsea, like, in a one on one discussing what needs to come out of like, what's in the background.
Chelsea Lowman 58:12
It's gonna be a standing item on our one on one agendas. What's in the backpack, what needs to come out? I love it. Yeah, okay, we have come to the end. I feel like we needed more time, but we have come to the end, which is our usual rapid fire questions, and so this is just first thing that comes to your mind. Don't think too much about
Speaker 1 58:39
it. Okay, all right, best concert of your life. Oh, Chelsea,
Lisa Tetrault 58:49
I have like, four. Can I give you four? I know it's not
Speaker 1 58:52
happy to give you four. Give give me four. Okay?
Lisa Tetrault 58:58
Taylor Swift era's tour, I went to Vancouver last leg of hers tour,
Unknown Speaker 59:05
92 Lollapalooza. I know I'm dating myself. I had chili peppers, Pearl Jam, sound garden were there.
Lisa Tetrault 59:14
I saw Jason Aldean and Dirks Bentley in Arizona at the Super Bowl weekend about 10 years ago with my dad. And it was great. I think it's probably because my dad and I went,
Mary Newville 59:24
Yeah, I would have never pegged you as a country music fan. I
Speaker 1 59:27
love all genres, all genres. I know you're, you've already been, we've
Chelsea Lowman 59:32
already been on a roller coaster. I can't wait to hear the fourth one. Okay, Fleetwood
Lisa Tetrault 59:35
Mac. About 20 years ago, Stevie Nicks was rocking it hard, and that was in trouble.
Chelsea Lowman 59:43
Hey, those are some good ones. For a second when we cut to you, I almost didn't know who I was talking to, but love
Unknown Speaker 59:53
the hair. Thank you. Okay, favorite word, gray. It. Oh, okay,
Chelsea Lowman 1:00:02
I don't think we've had that one a place on your bucket list. So
Lisa Tetrault 1:00:06
my last company well, over the last probably 20 years, I've been traveling a ton, I'm going to say Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania. I have not hiked that yet, and it's on my bucket list to do at least portion of it. Not the big
Speaker 1 1:00:24
Have you hiked other like well known, massive mountains?
Unknown Speaker 1:00:28
I'm Machu Picchu.
Chelsea Lowman 1:00:32
Okay, cool, cool. Okay. What is something that people often get wrong about you?
Unknown Speaker 1:00:37
I think I'm
Lisa Tetrault 1:00:38
I'm confused with being extremely extroverted, and I'm not nearly as extroverted as people think I am. I'm probably more of an ambivert,
Speaker 1 1:00:47
okay, okay, and last
Chelsea Lowman 1:00:52
but not least, give us a snapshot of an ordinary moment in your life that has brought you joy.
Lisa Tetrault 1:00:59
So I have. I'm part of a women's hockey team called the angry beavers. Isn't that a fun I am so much I'm filled with sorry. Mary
Mary Newville 1:01:12
Ryan wanted to name Arctic Wolf.
Lisa Tetrault 1:01:14
I did, and it was pretty funny when I came in and he was talking about how he wanted to name the team, angry beavers. And swag I should have bought today that said angry beavers. I've got a two. I've got I've got jerseys, I've got shirts and sweaters, like hoodies, everything. It's quite funny. Anyhow, this team is a very great group of friends, and I'm filled with joy when I play with these women. And over the years, I've been able to play with like, several hockey teams, but I get a lot of my cup is filled all the time when I'm playing hockey, because I can just focus on playing hockey, being on the ice, and it's bigger than just the angry read versus it's other teams as well. But when I'm on the ice, I get I can make a mistake, I can get back on there in the next shift and try again. But this particular hockey team is is super important to me and my life, and some of them have some difficult challenges going on in their personal lives, but as a whole unit, we're there for each other. And it's, it's not Lisa from cyber, it's not that's, I'm actually not called Lisa. And called Bucha Blanco. It's, we all have different nicknames for each other. It's, it's really about having each other's back. And if someone's struggling, you're you're helping each other. And for me, that brings me tremendous joy, because I can just show up regardless of who I am in that moment or that day, and they've got you and I adore this part of of this team and being able to be authentically
Unknown Speaker 1:03:13
myself. Hmm,
Chelsea Lowman 1:03:17
that's so special. I mean, anytime you got a group of women together. I mean, I could go on a I could go on a whole tangent right now, which I won't, because we need to wrap up the podcast. But it's so special to your point being able to show up, to just show up, like maybe you're pissed, maybe you're tired, maybe you're annoyed, maybe you're giddy. Maybe you're excited, like, just being able to show up in whatever way, and not having to, like, worry how people are gonna receive you or respond or have to put on a show for people. You're so lucky to have such a community. So yay. Angry beavers. Okay, love it well. Also, thank you for putting on this beautiful pink wig. Lisa has a massive wig collection in her office, because if you didn't get it from us sharing earlier, they have a lot of fun at us too, and we're doing some real serious things over here, but we need to find the levity when we can. And Lisa is great at doing that, and I think it provides an opportunity for our pack members to also show up as themselves and not take themselves too seriously either. So thank you. Love the pink hair. If you ever did it in real life, like, I think you could really pull it off.
Mary Newville 1:04:45
Really good, great. Thank
Lisa Tetrault 1:04:47
you. I don't know about the hair sticking out of the bottom. The real hair sticking out of the bottom. It's probably not it. Yeah, I'll probably just crash the next meeting I have with this on it's usually when we have, like, tough days. I have to put. Something on just to make it a better day. But let's go. Yeah,
Chelsea Lowman 1:05:05
amazing. Okay. Well, thank you so much, Lisa. We were so happy to finally have you on the podcast. Can't wait for you to listen to your very own episode. Oh, I
Lisa Tetrault 1:05:17
don't know about that, but anyway, thank you. I really am grateful that you asked me to be part of this. Thank you so much. Yes,
Unknown Speaker 1:05:26
for the
Mary Newville 1:05:28
greater fact I get to learn more about Lisa. Thank
Speaker 1 1:05:31
you. Yes, Thanks for Thanks, Lisa. Thank you.
Mary Newville 1:05:36
Okay, wow. What a great conversation with Lisa.
Chelsea Lowman 1:05:40
Yes, she's just so fun, so like, smiley and bubbly, but also so passionate.
Mary Newville 1:05:47
Yes, I was really looking forward to the conversation and getting a peek behind the curtain, if you will, of who is Lisa and so that was fun to see today, and great two episodes in a row. We've gotten to hear from leadership at Arctic Wolf, which is fun as well. Yes,
Chelsea Lowman 1:06:05
we got to keep it going. Keep the momentum going. More women. Okay, well, May is a jam packed month here at Arctic Wolf, we have company kickoff because, again, it's the start of our new fiscal year. This year's theme is all in, so we're going to circle back next episode to talk about how we plan on going all in. It's also API Heritage Month. So I know happy wolves has planned a really fun, meaningful month of connection. Additionally, it's mental health awareness month, so make sure that you are checking out mental health and well being packing of the Alliance as that will be a really good resource during this month as well. So just lots of things going on in this first month of fiscal year, 26
Mary Newville 1:06:57
so many exciting things. Actually, I was just thinking like, oh my gosh, I need to get my mom to come to Texas so that we can make lumpia for a heritage. But I know there's a bunch of Filipinos and not a bunch, but several of us here in the Texas office. So we'll have to do something special for yellow flavor to Asian Pacific Islander Heritage in in San Antonio, but yes, it'll be a great month. Excited to start another fiscal year, and if you want to join us on our mission to end cyber risk and be part of this really special community of people that care about each other and want to leave the world a better place. While we're working on ending cyber risk. Come and join us. Check out our open positions at Arctic wolf.com backslash careers, and we will catch you in June. June.
Chelsea Lowman 1:07:52
All right. Bye. Everyone see you next time. Happy man, you.