Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
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.
The Howler - Charlie Smith Audio Only
Mon, Feb 09, 2026 11:51AM � 1:00:10
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
New Year resolutions, leadership, goal setting, vision board, discipline, mental well-being, communication, sales engineering, cyber security, team management, proactive communication, personal growth, work-life balance, family time, professional development.
SPEAKERS
Mary Newville, Charlie Smith, Chelsea Lowman
Chelsea Lowman 00:03
Hi. Welcome back to the Howler Podcast. I'm Chelsea and I'm Mary. Welcome to our February episode. We hope you enjoyed last episode with Alina talking manifestation, goal setting, leadership, all the things, and we realized we didn't chat at the beginning of the episode on our own resolutions, New Year visions and dreams. So we thought maybe we would kick this one off now that we've had a month or so to like process about it, and maybe talk about what we're thinking for 2026 I don't know, Mary, are you? Are you doing resolutions? Are you doing a word? Are you doing what's the vibe this year?
Mary Newville 00:49
Yeah, this year's vibe is we're embracing change coming into the year. I usually am, like, religious. I mean, if you listen to the podcast previous years, I love New Year's resolutions. I have a whole system. I look back at my calendar, I look back at my photos. I reflect on the wins, the losses. Am I who I want? Am I becoming who I want to be? All the things. But this year, I just like going into the year was craving soft is the best word I have. I just needed less to be and to do, and I just wanted to be and enjoy and be cozy. And so I kind of leaned into that. And I had finals all the way up until right before Christmas. But once it was done, I literally just was cozy the majority of the time. And I made a bunch of bracelets. I was, like, crafty. So I have a couple of things. So one, I have some words for the year. They're not necessarily like a word for the year. There's like, not intention behind them, but they're just kind of some words to guide me in the year. So some of them are my bracelets, my little word stack I've got worthy, magnetic, soft, expansive, magic, treasured. And so those are the vibes I'm leaning into getting into this year. And then I saw something on Instagram that I thought was kind of fun, and I just decided, why not, since we're changing it up this year. So it's six mini adventures, one big goal, and then one habit a quarter, and it's still January, so I'm going to give myself to the end of January to solidify. But my big goal for January, or for this year, I think is going to be get through 60% of my MBA program. So like feels very doable, but also like a lot, but I think I'd be proud of myself, and it'd be good. So I think that will be the big goal. The six mini adventures are still in the works, and the quarterly focus for this quarter is my morning routine. So I'm trying to get some good, like, foundations. I just, I've always rushed in the morning, and I want to, like, you know, like, enjoy the days and not always be rushing around. I want to wake up and enjoy my cup of coffee or tea and sit and read for a bit and just have a little bit more, like, enjoyable, slow, they say it's good for our emotional regulation too, to start the day for us, and not like bouncing into like, email, Slack, work workout, but like, how are we filling our cup to show up? So those are some things on my that's how I'm going into this year, not so solidified on like a goal or a mantra, but we're those are the things we're trying. What about you? I know in the past, you've done like, a phrase,
Chelsea Lowman 03:55
yes, well, first, I love your words. When you shared those with me, like a couple weeks ago, your bracelets. I just love, I just love all of them, expansive, men, magnetic, they're such good words. I want bracelets that say those words. But I also like giggle to myself a little bit, because I love that you're like, you know, I usually set goals and I'm going in soft, but then you still set, like, six goals, a big goal, another quarter. I mean, obviously we're reframing it. We're going in softer with our goals, but like, there's still, like, some intention there, which is, um, yes, I, for those of you that listen, know that I don't really do like a resolution. I usually do a word of the year, and then, like a mantra of the year, last year's word was discipline, and I am choosing to continue that word for 2026 i. Is, I don't really feel like I, I didn't feel intentional with it last year. Like, if, again, if you're a listener, you'll probably remember, like, halfway through the year, neither Mary nor I could remember what we even set for 2025, it was like, that type of year. So this year, I'm really trying to, like, stay intentional with my word. I didn't do a mantra this year. Nothing really like came to me, but I did do on December 31 I always do my like yearly reflection. So I did do that. I still journaled, and then I selected my word. And then I also got together with some girlfriends, and we did a vision board night, and some girls did like the magazine, you know, poster I had done that last year, and I knew it was not for me, so I did a digital one. So I like, went on Pinterest, found pictures, made it on Canva, and so now it's my phone background, so that I see it every day. And so I guess that is like a form of manifestation. Obviously, I'm like seeing these things every day, trying to manifest them into my life. And discipline is on there. And I put a little quote, discipline turns dreams into reality. So I guess that could kind of also be my mantra, a little bit, okay, I love it, yes, but also like, I think, I think there's a softness with discipline. Like I feel like discipline can feel like it's this, like, I mean it obviously the definition of discipline means to like, to, like, stick with it and stay strong. And it kind of feels like an aggressive word, but I do feel like you can take discipline in so many ways, like discipline and caring for yourself. And that doesn't have to mean like running a marathon. It can mean like, five seconds of five seconds, five minutes of breath work a day or just like something, you know, where like discipline can mean, you know, eating healthy, but also having a cupcake, like it can be whatever you want it to be. So that's my word.
Mary Newville 07:13
Well, and have you ever heard like the concept? I forget the exact phrase, but it's like freedom and discipline, kind of like, if you want to sit down at the piano and just have the freedom to, like play anything, the discipline to practice so that you get there or like work, like it's both, there's almost, like a give and take. Like, that discipline creates this, like,
Chelsea Lowman 07:37
freedom, freedom. Yes, I love that. I don't think I've heard that, but I fully resonate with it. I always joke like, about being type A planners of like trips and things, and it's like, we plan so that we can go with the flow, like, sense of like options and things, so that when I get there and and something doesn't work out, I can be like, That's okay, or like, I don't want to spend my whole time being like, what should I do? What should I you know? And so, like, that's the same concept of, yeah, yeah. A little bit of discipline gives you the freedom to, like, do whatever you want.
Mary Newville 08:14
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Love it. And I feel like, I mean, just from my vantage point. I feel like looking reflecting on parts of your year that I know I feel like you were disciplined, like, when I think about some of the fitness journey stuff, like you were really committed to, yeah, new endeavors and such,
Chelsea Lowman 08:37
yes, I think I definitely was disciplined. I think I just wasn't, I think I got to the year and realized I wasn't, like, as reflective on it, which maybe is a good thing like that. I that it was just like, part of, literally, part of my life, and not something I felt like I was forcing. But I do still feel like, just personally, there's still room for growth there. I was like, you know, we'll just pick it one more year and then see where next year takes us. Oh, I love it. Well, I feel like it wasn't this year, but last year's mantra, I remember you sharing that someone came up to you and shared how impactful it was, and they share it with
Mary Newville 09:17
their kids. You're probably inspiring more people this year with this dedication to something that is hard to do, especially in 2026 when we live in the age of AI and so many distractions and technology to pursue that is actually quite difficult and very admirable. So Well, thank you. Yeah, way to go
Chelsea Lowman 09:44
to you. There's so much. There's such an importance with softness, I feel like and especially entering a year where, you know, there's a lot of change coming. And even just like being a human in 2026 and everything going on in our world. Old, like, don't need to put added pressure on yourself. So I love that you were like, focusing just on being, like, existing and being present, because only good things can come from that. I think, yeah,
Mary Newville 10:13
and life short, right? We gotta be seriously in the here and now, where we can too. So I will say on the vision board note last year when we did those vision boards for when transforming tech month, I had Spain on my vision board, and I went to Spain. So okay, here we go. Put it out for myself and it happened. So anyways, that was fun. We'll have to if you're setting resolutions this year or as a listener, have any thoughts on the subject. We always love hearing from our pack on things they found interesting in the podcast, or things that you're thinking about as you're listening. So we really do love hearing from you. It was fun last month hearing feedback on alina's episode, and it was a fun one. So anyways, if you're in resolutions thoughts, let us know. This month we have the honor of getting to sit down with Charlie Smith. He is our Senior Vice President of Global acquisition sales engineering at Arctic Wolf, quite the title, but Charlie Smith is a seasoned sales engineering leader with over 13 years of experience driving sales engineering strategy and execution across startup high growth and enterprise technology organizations. He at Arctic wolf leads a team of 160 plus engineers and leaders across the Americas, AMEA APAC and Asian regions, advancing the company's mission to end cyber risk worldwide. Previously, Charlie served as vice president of sales engineering for North America at Arctic Wolf. Prior to Arctic Wolf, Charlie had a successful tenure and roles at ServiceNow, as Director of cons, as Director of solution consulting for strategic accounts, and Senior Manager of enterprise and major accounts, where he and his teams partnered with Fortune 101,000 clients to accelerate digital transformation initiatives. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in business management for Bethel University, and is recognized for building high performing global teams, scaling technical sales, engineering organizations and aligning innovative solutions with customer business outcomes.
Chelsea Lowman 12:29
Wow. Okay, I'm excited to chat with Charlie.
Mary Newville 12:33
Charlie, welcome to the Howler podcast. We're so excited to have you here today.
Charlie Smith 12:38
Thanks for having me. Excited to be here.
Mary Newville 12:41
How is your day going so far?
Charlie Smith 12:44
My day is going good. It's a little chaotic, as usual, but, but it's but it's good, especially since we've gotten microphones and cameras to work.
Mary Newville 12:55
Well before you join Chelsea and I were just chatting about New Year's resolutions. Curious, are you a resolutions guy? Did we set any this year?
Charlie Smith 13:04
Yeah, that's so funny. I'm, I'm not really a resolution guy, but I'm a reset guy. So, you know, I think it's just, it's kind of the perfect time of year to kind of take a look at, you know, kind of reflect on the year behind you and look forward to the year or years, hopefully ahead of you, and figure out what are the things that you might want to change but, or re amplify, if you will. But, yeah, I've never been like, set out, like a New Year's resolution, because I usually will set an unlisted, unrealistic resolution.
Chelsea Lowman 13:38
Do you remember any of the ones you've set in the past.
Charlie Smith 13:42
You know, they're just the your normal ones. You know, they're usually, like, around dietary things or exercise or whatever, but nothing crazy. You know, I reset on sugar. So, like, that was one of the ones, like, just this year. Like, I usually do a good job of, like, trying to avoid sugar as much as possible. But between between New Year's and Christmas, I did an awful job of that. So like, got into the first week of January, and like, I don't feel very good, and I'm sure that's probably because I had a lot of sugar. So like, cut it out, and I'll, like, be good with that, probably until, I don't know what's the next week? Probably Easter. Yeah, I passed Valentine's Day bypass.
Chelsea Lowman 14:27
Wow, you're strong. Valentine's Day chocolate. Yeah, I do feel like everyone gets that pass between Christmas and we're all eating like, 4000 calories of cookies alone each day. You just have to allow it.
Charlie Smith 14:42
Yeah, I was, I was really good up until Christmas, and then once I got, like, past Christmas Eve, then it was like, from Christmas Day to New Year's. Everything fell apart, dietary wise. But I think that's like when we were gathered the most with, like, our extended family and everything. Totally, you just
Mary Newville 15:00
right, right? Yeah. Well, it makes me laugh because I'm thinking about Amanda on our team. She posted over the holidays like a funny meme that was like, It's December 26 the day that I plan my New Year's comeback, while eating three servings of dessert for lunch. And I was like, that is so accurate. Me planning out my goals, and like, literally every day I'm having a humongous cinnamon roll for breakfast that is left over from Christmas Day.
Chelsea Lowman 15:32
Nothing wrong with that is what it is. And I don't know if you guys have this mindset, but I was joking with someone else about this, but it's almost like, you know, you have, let's say, eight cinnamon rolls. You made eight cinnamon rolls, and it's like, well, instead of, like, spacing those out, why don't I just have like, three today? Because then it gets them gone faster, you know, then they're gone faster, as opposed
Charlie Smith 15:56
to happens. That happens, yeah, yeah, yeah, the faster you eat it, the sooner it's gone, and then you don't have to worry about it. Makes all the sense in the world.
Chelsea Lowman 16:09
Okay, well, we are so excited to have you on the podcast before we get to some of our hard hitting questions, we always like to ease in. We've talked a little bit about resolutions. We love to ask people that you may be friends with within the company, some like inside dirt about you, so that we can, like, prepare our fun little segment. They only said, they only said really great things about your hobbies and things that you love to do. So we didn't get any bad info. Crazy, but I feel like, really timely with the Winter Olympics coming up. We heard that you love to ski I do that you have, like, a annual ski trip situation. So tell us more about that. Yeah, it's annual.
Charlie Smith 17:00
Try to do it annually. It probably happens like for a number of different reasons, kind of semi annually, but no, I was fortunate enough to grow up skiing as a young kid, and my parents would take us out west quite a bit, and we always drove. We never flew. Drive all night to get out there. And yeah, it's just always something I've really loved. And now, as our kids have grown over or grown older, we have three kids, so 2519 and 18, our oldest, our 25 year old, and I try to go out. It's been like a three year break now, but we've got our we've got this year's planned. So we're going to whitefish mountain in Montana this year. That'll be at the end of February. So yeah, I love it. There's very few things that I can do to like, relax and disconnect and get away and skiing for whatever reason is one of those things. So I'm looking forward to it. It'll be fun.
Mary Newville 17:56
Okay. I love that too. As your kids get older to like, make new traditions. Yeah. So are you guys? Like, what kind of skiing are we doing? Are you? No, I don't know a lot. So like, forgive the language here, but like offloading out where you're just kind of like going down the side of the mountain and dodging trees. Or are we sticking to, like the blue squares?
Chelsea Lowman 18:21
Like, what are we doing?
Charlie Smith 18:22
Yeah, we're kind of all over the place. So when it's when it's what's when it's our oldest and I, yeah, we're pretty much all over the place. So we're kind of all over the mountains. So inbounds, a little bit out of bounds, but not too crazy, blacks, blues, you name it, trees, bumps, traditional, downhill, all mountain scheme.
Mary Newville 18:44
So, okay, yeah, wow. Would you ever is it called hella scheme when you get like dropped and,
Charlie Smith 18:54
yeah, yeah, I've never done Helly Yeah, yeah. I've never done hella skiing. I would love to try that at some point in time, but never, never have done it. There's also snow cat skiing, so you can do the same thing, where a snow cat takes you up the mountain, out of bounds. We've never had the fortune to try that yet, either, but that's on the bucket list. That's kind of one of the future questions too. That's on the bucket list.
Mary Newville 19:19
Okay, love it is a snow cat, like a snowmobile. Like you're just, you're driving up and then skiing down. Or, what do you mean by that? A snow cat?
Charlie Smith 19:26
Sorry. Snow cats are what they like, groom the runs with. So, like, when you see, when you see the runs are really smooth, and they've got kind of the corduroy, kind of like line to them. That's, that's what a snow cat does. So it kind of drags the snow and gets them nice and groomed for people to ski on. So you have groomed and ungroomed. Ungroomed, obviously, is not like that. It's rougher. There's bumps all over. Groomed is usually smooth and so, yeah, that's how it works. Interesting.
Mary Newville 20:00
Me, I personally get so nervous skiing. I just feel like it is, I just, I think, well, you could probably comment on this, but I know that I need to be confident, yeah, on the skis, because otherwise I could just, like, run into a tree and die, yeah, I think my nerves, I just, I struggle to have the confidence to stay alive. And I'm just like, this is like, so dangerous. I'm just like, flying, yeah, my love body, yeah.
Charlie Smith 20:33
I think, well, this is my opinion. I think people, people that want to have control. In our learning to ski, it's very hard for them because they don't feel like they're in control. And when you don't feel like you're in control, then you don't have the confidence. So like once you once you kind of learn the basics, and you figure out how you can keep yourself under control, then you get more confident to kind of do other things and grow in your ability. That's usually what it comes down to.
Mary Newville 21:04
So like the letting go, Yeah, to be out of control, but you know the skills to keep yourself in control.
Charlie Smith 21:12
You got it? You got Okay, yeah, yeah.
Mary Newville 21:15
All I'll say is, I'll stick to the to the greens,
Charlie Smith 21:22
and now, yeah, that works. Yeah, greens are good. Greens are good. There's a lot of pretty scenery on greens.
Chelsea Lowman 21:31
Yeah, to just go down, relax, chit chat with your friend while you're going down. Like, that's my kind. Well, I also, I do like skiing, but I have a bad knee, like, three knee surgeries that, like, lateral movement is just not good. So I don't really ski very much, but I'm the same way every like my friends that are good skiers, I was like, stop being so tense. And I'm like, it's the only way to survive.
Charlie Smith 21:57
But, yeah, yeah, I love skiing. Not a big snowboarder. That's like, there's always a debate that's about to ask, yeah, skiing or snowboarding. And I grew up skiing. I've tried snowboarding, but I've just never, never gotten used to it. And kind of like you, Chelsea, I've had few knees, more than a few knee surgeries, and I feel more in control, in my and more confident in my abilities to ski than I do snowboarding. For sure, I admire those I can snowboard, actually, though.
Chelsea Lowman 22:27
Well, all my friends that they snowboard instead of ski, they're like, You should snowboard. It's so much easier. It'll be better for you. And I just don't, I don't know if that's just them, like, you know, just talking, or if that's true, I don't know.
Charlie Smith 22:41
Yeah, definitely not for me. Was not easy for me, for sure.
Chelsea Lowman 22:45
Okay, okay, fun. Well, so are you gonna watch the Olympics? Like, do you get into the skiing and stuff with the Olympics? Or no,
Charlie Smith 22:54
yeah, I will watch a little bit of it, you know, pending schedules and all that kind of stuff. Like, traditionally, I've been more of like a Winter Olympics consumer than a Summer Olympics consumer. I don't know why. I just am something about the Winter Olympics that I like. So like the luge and the bobsled and the ski jumping and even the figure skating. Like, is pretty cool. So like, yeah, I don't know. I just must gravitate towards those sports than I do the Summer Olympic sports from a viewing standpoint. But yeah, I'll, I'll take in some of it for sure.
Chelsea Lowman 23:29
Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm also a Winter Olympics person. I've like, had a countdown on my phone for the past two months. We're 16 days from opening ceremonies. Yeah, so excited. But yeah, Winter Olympics. So it
Charlie Smith 23:43
should be, yeah, and then, from a hockey fan standpoint, like the 1980 Olympic team, right? So, like, I grew up with that the 1980 Olympic team. That's like, fondly in my memory, even though I was still a young kid at the time. But I remember that vividly, and so that probably plays a part into it too.
Chelsea Lowman 24:01
For sure, yeah, for sure. Okay, well, thanks for teaching us a little bit about skiing.
Charlie Smith 24:11
Hopefully was much a lesson there, but
Chelsea Lowman 24:13
we're just chatting with us about it, yeah? But yeah, we want to. So it sounds like you started skiing when you were really young, and your parents would take you, so we want to kind of stay in like young Charlie, you were little, like, what did you want to be when you grew up? I'm sure you weren't envisioning working at a cyber security company, leading sales engineering. Like, what did you want to be and how and kind of take us on a journey to how we ended up here.
Charlie Smith 24:45
Oh, man, that's a that's a long journey. What did I want to be when I was a little kid? I was heavy into sports when I was a kid. So, you know, there was a baseball, around a football, around a basketball, around. Any, any, any sport, really, I was going to be playing it. So in my mind, I don't, I didn't have a lot of forethought into what I was going to do in my future, like even in high school. Remember thinking about it, and, you know, you take all the aptitude tests and all that kind of stuff, I gravitated, like, in aptitude tests more towards, like business. But as I got into, like, my senior year of high school, freshman year of college, like I I declared in my freshman year as a history major. And my idea then was I was I was gonna be a teacher and coach sports. So that was kind of the idea the first time around. And then in between that and entering into my professional career, I just kind of found it and got into, like, troubleshooting systems and things like that, doing repair and all that kind of stuff. And I really, like, loved root cause analytics, if you will. So like, trying to figure out, like, that's in system repair, that's what you would have to do, try to figure out, like, what was wrong with a system fix it. And I really liked that. And, you know, I got it. I got married young. So we got married at 21 had our first kid at 24 so we couldn't afford to both be in college at the same time. So I worked. My wife finished up her degree, and then I was like, Yeah, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go finish my degree. That wasn't until, like, 13 years later that I finished my degree, finally, but that time around was a business management degree. But in the meantime, I was working in it. So my kind of professional, professional journey, like, if I go way back company called probation medical, I was a field engineer there, which where I would go in. It was medical software, surgical documentation, is what it was. So I would go in do some do installing of surgery centers and hospitals, and then part of that job is you'd have to install the software, configure the software, but then you'd also have to help train doctors and nurses on how to use it during procedures. So sat through a lot of procedures, and then I went to EMC, and that's when I really got into sales engineering. And so that was your typical sales engineering work, pre sales. Some people refer to it as, but really, you know, it gave me a chance to apply kind of that root cause analytics to what was somebody trying to accomplish in their business around data storage and security and all things. It really because EMC had a vast portfolio of solutions. I really enjoyed that. I enjoyed, and still enjoy creating relationships, but really, truly trying to dissect and understand what somebody is trying to accomplish, and then bringing them a solution that helps them accomplish it. And so I always like to say EMC is where I professionally grew up. You know, that's where I learned a lot. I had a lot of really talented folks and individuals that I worked with there that was a very fun, hard working time. So there for 12 years, and then I went to ServiceNow. Went to ServiceNow as a EMC is also where I went into leadership, but went to ServiceNow as a leader, sales engineering leader, and had a lot of fun there, and then ended up at at Arctic wolf in spring of 2021 so what intrigued me about Arctic wolf was really what they were doing for their customers. So what they were doing, how they were doing it. You know, ending cyber risk is a hard thing to do. And, you know, I was able, lucky enough to talk to some partners, talk to a few customers before I joined. And the impact that arc wolf was having on its customers was was part of the allure. It's, like I said, especially when you're talking about kind of mid market companies that struggle with having a lot of talent, or having access to a lot of talent, or retaining talent in the security space, you can see a weight lifted off their shoulders a little bit when when Arctic wolf was involved. And so that's that's a fun thing to be a part of, and that's kind of how I ended up here, in a long winded way.
Mary Newville 29:27
Yeah, no. I mean, I think those are some good cliff notes along the journey. For someone that's never heard of a sales engineer or has but really has no idea what they do, yeah, how do you describe it to friends and family outside the industry, or how do you how do you explain what you do or what the people on your team do?
Charlie Smith 29:46
Yeah, I can. I can certainly explain that. Thanks for asking. So a sales engineer or an SE like we call them, the first thing that they do is really when they go to engage with a customer, they engage with partners, they engage with prospects, who. Might be a customer at some point in time, but in all three of those scenarios, they're really educating the customer, the partner, the potential prospect. And they do that in a variety of different ways. So that can be a presentation. It can be heavy on evangelism sometimes of what you're selling. They can do demos. They can do proof of concepts, but most importantly, what sales engineers are really trying to do is really try to figure out why somebody is engaging them in the first place. And what I mean by that is usually, when somebody wants to learn something about what you are are doing or selling out there in the field, there's usually a reason why. And so in our case at Arctic Wolf, they really are trying to understand sometimes, like, why are they ultimately engaging with us? Did they suffer a breach? Did they have a bad experience in their in their enterprise with security? Do they not have enough talent? Do they have a whole bunch of security tools in their environment that they can't make sense of So ultimately, where do they need help, and then what can we bring to bear that is going to help them and really help them achieve the outcome that they're looking for from us? And you can really apply that type of methodology that I just talked about to kind of almost any sales engineer that's out there in the world, not just Arctic Wolf. And in our case, you know the sales engineers, they need to be experts on Arctic Wolf. So we have a lot of different solutions and services that we provide to our customers. And you know that they might have to be an expert in manage security awareness. They might have to be an expert in risk or manage detection and response or incident response. So or end point like, there's just a lot to know about. I mean, sales engineers are really the ones that are knowing a lot about a lot when it comes to technology or the services that the company that they're working for is offering a potential client or a partner, a customer.
Mary Newville 31:56
Yeah, I'm curious. Do you find, I mean, that I know you lead a team of, like, over 160 sales engineers. But do, do a lot of people have a background in engineering? Or is it a lot of different paths in business it?
Charlie Smith 32:11
Or, yeah, yeah, couple different answers there. So like, there's, there's their lived background. You know what I mean by that is, like, what did they do before they were in sales engineering. I think it's pretty rare. And I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but it's pretty rare that somebody comes directly out of college or a post secondary type of education and goes right into sales engineering might happen sometimes, but not a lot. Most the time. People come into sales engineering, sales engineering from a systems administration background, or a network background, or a governance and risk and compliance background, some sort of technical background that they had, and usually in that background, when we were doing those things for a company that they were working for, they usually interfaced with an account team from a vendor, and through that interaction with the account team from a vendor or a partner, they kind of figured out, like what a sales engineer did, and it probably piqued their curiosity, of, Hey, man, I think I could do that. I think I could be good at that. And that's, that's usually what happens, is that, you know, they have some interactions with a vendor, with a partner, and they see sales engineers at that vendor or that partner, and then they figure out, you know what? That would maybe be an interesting thing that I would like to try and so the backgrounds are, I would say, diversified in terms of what their technical background is like. I said, sometimes it's in system administration, sometimes it's in network administration, sometimes it's in coding and programming, government, governance, risk, compliance, but it's, it's a very diversified kind of background for a sales engineer.
Mary Newville 33:48
Interesting last question on this thought on this train, let's say we have a someone in college listening or that's really interested in the field, whether it's breaking into Arctic wolf or they're just breaking out into the industry in general. Like, what would your advice be with regards to what to study or what to pursue.
Charlie Smith 34:05
There's wealth coding, any type of coding, you know, any type of systems administration, AI. There's, you know, AI is obviously a budding industry, so there's a lot of things to learn in AI machine learning. I think all of those are very foundational things to learn when you're going into a security type of role, because you have to understand all those, all those attack surfaces, if you will, you have to understand how they interact and how you secure them. So, yeah, I would say any of those pillars, if you will, and then study security if you can broadly across those, those pillars of technologies to really understand, again, how you how you secure those things.
Mary Newville 35:00
Effectively. Well, let's shift gears here a little bit and talk about leadership, which I'm excited to pick your brain a little bit more on, because in your intro, or when you talked about what you wanted to be, yeah, mentioned you originally were thinking history teacher and coaching. And I feel like so much of leadership, or great leadership involves coaching. So I'm, I'm excited to learn. Like, if you leverage some of the like, do you find joy in it the way you thought you would coaching? But why don't we start with just like, what is some, what are some leadership philosophies that you we were, like, really core to how you lead?
Charlie Smith 35:41
Yeah, I think the biggest thing that I've learned being a leader, one of the biggest things I've learned a lot of things, but to listen first, listen and observe, and then, and then, you know, speak and decide if that makes sense. That doesn't mean too that you're not decisive, and that doesn't mean that it takes a long time for you to make a decision, but I think you know tying this back to sales engineers, sales engineers love and crave context behind something. Right? It's very hard to go and recommend a solution to somebody if you don't have all the context in terms of what they're trying to to, really what outcome they're trying to drive towards, right? So in leadership, I think you have to be able to provide context in a lot of ways. And I think the only way to do that is, you know, first, you have to listen, got to kind of observe what's going on and then, and then speak and decide on things. So that has been foundational for me in in my leadership life, for sure.
Mary Newville 36:50
Yeah, I love that. I think there's something just core to being a human of wanting to feel seen and heard, too, and especially in a team context of like or opinion having value
Charlie Smith 37:06
that and how you highly Yeah, and it's easier, it's easier said than done, too, right? Because everybody's in a hurry, especially especially in our lives, right? So, you know, everybody's in a hurry, and so to do that, you have to be purposeful. You have to be intentful, and you have to take the time to focus and be present in the moment. And that's another thing too, is to there's a lot of distractions coming at a person, no matter if they're in leadership or not, in a daily in a daily work life. And you just think about how many communication mediums you have. You know you have email, you've got text, you've got just cell phones. You've got slack people using social media, like, you know, you have all these notifications coming in from everywhere. You know, what do you pay attention to? And where you where do you focus your time? And there's a lot of times where you gotta, you gotta set aside, you know, the notifications that are coming in and focus and be present, and what's going on right now. And that can be a challenge. It can be a constant challenge that I think a lot of people are challenged with, for lack of a better word, that's, that's the biggest thing that I've learned, and that's the biggest thing I probably coach to is really, you know, listening, observing and getting context. Because I think sometimes it's hard to kind of chart a path forward if you're not doing those things well.
Chelsea Lowman 38:33
As Mary mentioned, you had shared your interest in potentially being a coach, a sports coach, or a history teacher, which, again, are obviously, like, super influential roles. You're like, influencing people. So like, what excites you about people leading in general? Like, what, what made you be like? You know what? I know that eventually I want to lead a lead a team. I don't know if you have dreams and visions of leading an even larger team. But what excites you, but what excites you about having that influence?
Charlie Smith 39:10
Did you make a statement like, do I have, do I envision leading a larger team? Is that what it was, yeah, oh, and that's what I shook my head at. No. What I was shaking my head out was, was, did I ever think I would get into leadership? That's, that's what I was kind of shaking. I never, I never. Was not a, it was not on my radar professionally, to lead. I mean, if I would have gone back, you know, 25 years, I always give the analogy or tell the story of when I went to EMC, for example, I was lucky enough to my brother worked there as well, and so like, I had some tutelage from him as I came in. But there were some, you know, I was a very young adult when i. When I started there, I was like, 27 years old, 26 years old, and I was working in some cases where people were much more senior than me, had a lot more experience. All I wanted to do was, man, if I can be half as knowledgeable as they are, if I can be half as good at their job as what they are, I'm gonna be really happy. So I never envisioned leadership until somebody brought it up to me when an opening had come available, and somebody asked me, Hey, have you ever thought about going into that at the time? I had said, No, hadn't even thought about that. So it kind of comes back to your original question, which was like, What do I enjoy it most? About it? I enjoy just trying to make a difference in somebody's life positively kind of comes down to root cause again, like, what is it that a person is trying to accomplish, and what is what is most important to them, and how does that align to business goals and things like that. I love that, because I don't think employees want to necessarily stay still in their career. If they do that's fine, like some people just want to do what they do and do it really well. But you also have to evolve so that doing what you're doing really well today doesn't mean you're going to do that same thing really well in 36 months, right? So how do you just continuously help people evolve, help them accomplish what they want to accomplish. Try to block out noise, as much noise for them as possible, so that they can focus on those things. And there's, there's personal and professional coaching that, if they want it, you know, I'm going to help with it. So I enjoy that aspect of it. I love that aspect of it. I love the mentorship aspect of it, and leading from the front. I think I'm never going to ask my team to do something that I'm not going to do. So, you know, there's a leading from the front aspect that I really like as well.
Mary Newville 41:59
I had a couple reflections while you were sharing. One, I was thinking about how you talked about your leadership philosophy of like, providing context, understanding what people need, that you can come up with a plan and that mirrors exactly what you were talking about with, like the SE role and how you serve customers. So it's interesting how it applies to your leadership philosophy, but then you're modeling that, and if they're seeing and receiving that, I feel like they're probably better able to give that experience to customers. And I know personally, from being on the other side of like sales type calls or being in demos, it's always so frustrating when the sellers think they know our problems, and they're just telling us what the problem is and interrupting and just assuming they know we're gonna stay and it's like, no, that's not you're you just feel, I just know I feel, I feel so much better in those types of calls when, like, I feel heard, and they hear like, what our problems are. So anyways, I just thought that was interesting.
Charlie Smith 43:00
Yeah, yeah. And you know what? To have to have context, like, you have to be able to ask the right questions, right? And I think, man, if you're going in and you're doing a demo, or you're going to have to do a POC, like, yes, you could go do just a blanket demo, a standard demo, that maybe that hits like, 70% of a of a customer's issues, but you might be missing the really critical 30% and the only way you get to that critical 30% is if you ask the right questions up front. And Mary, I'm glad you brought that up, because there's a lot of people that will come in, do their pitch and leave and and that's that what we coach to, that's not what I coach to. It's, it's, it's really doing that right, Discovery up front, and understanding that context, so that what you go to deliver hits the mark. And I think that's forgot sometimes quite a bit in our world today.
Mary Newville 43:56
And it's like the finesse, too, of the building rapport and trust, because you feel seen and heard, and they are speaking to your knee, and you're like, yeah, that is exactly what I'm struggling with, or I need help with. So yeah, I was also thinking about when you were talking about how you didn't even consider people leadership until someone brought it up to you. And I've heard Nick Schneider, our CEO, talk about it before, and I feel like even on when he was on the podcast, he talked about just the important or he'll talk to new hires, he'll talk about how, like, some nice people are so focused on the next thing they're not doing great at what's currently in front of them. And he's, I've heard him say, like, just be amazing at what you're doing. Yeah, like that. So it's kind of, I feel like I see that in your story of you were just trying to be the best you could be, and half as good as all these really senior people. And you know, your your work ethic and characters spoke for itself, and you were asked,
Charlie Smith 44:49
yeah, I hope so. I hope, I think. But it's, it's very funny. You bring that up, Mary, I think everybody's different. Like, there's people out there that are like you. Very, very structured in how they want to operate and what they want to accomplish, and they need to have a structured plan, and they want to adhere to that plan. And then there's people that are a little bit unstructured in the way that they operate, and they still might get to the same outcome as the other person, right? They just go about it a different way. I was never one of these people that, you know, looked at my career and had this, like, two year plan of what I wanted to accomplish, and all that kind of stuff. But some people are and and that works for them, and that's and that's great. I've just never been that person, and I agree with Nick I think I've always felt, if you were clearly focused in doing the best that you can do right now, the rest of the stuff in the future figures itself out. And now that was something that kind of, my dad, actually, you know, talked about that quite a bit, was like, you know, focus on what you're doing right now really well, and the future stuff, it just is going to figure itself out. And so I think you know that that's worked for me. That doesn't necessarily mean it works for somebody else, you know, they want to, they want to have that roadmap, and they want to have, you know, check off those, those those kind of mile markers as they're on their way, on their journey. And that works. But for, for some people, they're a little bit more like me, I think, yeah,
Chelsea Lowman 46:16
well, oh, go ahead, tell us. Um, well, I just wanted to ask, you know, again, considering leadership wasn't necessarily on your radar, but you were given this opportunity looking back when you were a fresh new leader, is there maybe a leadership lesson that you had wished you maybe had learned a little earlier, like, you know, now that we're here, is there something where You're like, Oh, if I had really learned this in my first couple years of leadership, it would have been amazing.
Charlie Smith 46:47
That is such a that's a good question.
Chelsea Lowman 46:55
Or just like, what was maybe an unexpected challenge?
Charlie Smith 46:59
Yeah, no, I was just, I'm trying to think of how to articulate that. I think the biggest thing, and it wasn't a learning, but it was, it was something that was affirming, is that communication is critical. And what I mean by that is, like, proactive communication is critical. So like, people want most people want feedback, whether it's constructive or whether it's praise. But people, some people want that differently than others, meaning there's, like, there's people that don't like public praise. You know, they're, they're like, Hey, don't recognize me in front of a big group. I'm very uncomfortable with that. Like, there's, there's people that are like that. There's people that want to have constructive criticism right away in kind of an informal way, and then there's people that want it in a structured way, in a in a review or whatever, like, understanding what somebody's communication preferences are, from you to them, is like that was, that was something I always knew, because I always thought about that, like, from a customer mindset standpoint, I didn't necessarily Think about it right away from a leadership standpoint and communication with employees. You know, I kind of thought about it from the way of like, how would I want to be communicated with? And that's an okay way to think about it, but I'm not like everybody, so it was kind of like proactively figuring out from a person, hey, how do you like to be communicated with? I think that that is something that probably would have made some things a little bit easier early on, things were bad, but like, yeah, just a really good, I think, lesson to understand, like, how somebody wants to be communicated with,
Chelsea Lowman 48:57
for sure, yeah. And from your perspective, like, if you were to give advice, would you say to for a leader who you know wants to grow in that area, is the best way just to ask, or, like, really early on with if you have a new direct report, like, are you just having very direct conversation? Of like, how do you like to be communicated with? What type of feedback do you want to receive when? How like is that what you would recommend?
Charlie Smith 49:24
I legitimately ask people that all the time, yeah, I like to kind of break the ice and be like, Hey, this is, this is kind of how I work, and this is kind of how I like to be communicated to. You know, this is what I receive, well or not well. How do you how do you like to receive communication? I think it's a very good thing. Just gets it out there and open and allows you to meet in the middle with what works and and I think if you've got that set really well, then it's going to be really good sailing from there on out. Okay?
Chelsea Lowman 50:00
Well, like Mary mentioned, we always like to ask one final question before I rapid fire. We like to touch on mental health and well being and just holistic well being in general. So just kind of what does well being mean to you, what does that look like in practice for you? And then how do you model that and to your team, and how do you support your team's well being?
Charlie Smith 50:24
Oh, man, that's multifaceted. So number one, I think you need to take your time, be intentional about taking your time and doing it on a whatever frequency works for you, so that you don't get burned out. And I think, you know, the employee should own that. But like, there's employees that I have where I got to give them a bump. He's like, Hey, you thought about taking a vacation lately because, you know, so I think you got to own that as an employee and be self aware about like, When are when are you? You don't want to do something reactively where you're reaching a tipping point like you, I think vacations are best where you're not reaching that point and you're not so stressed out that you can go and have a good time on vacation and not be just drained. So intentionality and proactiveness go a long way just in mental well being. And I think you got to have your day this is me personally. You got to have your daily boundaries. And for me, like, I think what people say about social media, for example, is true. Like, I think you can very much overdose on being on a device and always connect it. So for me, what I have to do, like, I have a guardrail. And, you know, from pretty much 637, o'clock at night until seven o'clock the next morning. I'm, I'm going to be not connected very much now. I've got international teams, so I will be, you know, there to support them in an emergency case or whatever. But, but for the most part, you got to have your boundaries and get away. So for me, specifically, my mental well being is, is, is spent being away from being connected. And so I think you have to be proactive and intentional about that as well. There's a lot of good things that you can consume online. So I don't want to say that, right, but I think that goes a long ways, and you got to be self aware and and, and do that, like I said, with intentionality. So that's what it means for me. Do those things that get you away from, you know,
Mary Newville 52:31
work in the real world. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Chelsea Lowman 52:35
Boundaries, boundaries, boundaries. We love. We love boundaries. Okay, well, we're already here to the rapid fire, which is disappointing, because I feel like, because I feel like we had, we didn't even get to half of our first questions. We had to keep moving. That's okay. It means we'll just bring you back another time. Okay, so rapid fire, first thing that comes to your head, best concert of your life.
Charlie Smith 53:02
Foo Fighters, Excel. Energy Center in Saint Paul in 2018
Chelsea Lowman 53:08
fun, okay, I love the food fighters, yeah, um, favorite word.
Charlie Smith 53:14
It's a tough one. I know you, you like you gave me that one and I could not think of one. Swell. I use swell a lot, okay, yeah, and I always get an eyebrow raise, like, oh, never heard that be. Like, how you doing? Like, I'm swell. So, yeah,
Chelsea Lowman 53:32
yeah, I love that. It's so, like, wholesome, okay, a place on your bucket list. Ah.
Charlie Smith 53:42
Boy, Italy is on my wife's nice bucket list. So, yeah, I would say Italy is kind of top of the bucket list for us from an international perspective.
Chelsea Lowman 53:56
What's that? I said? What's stopping us? We got to take that PTO and get to Italy.
Charlie Smith 54:01
I you know what I just did Greece last year with my wife. So
Chelsea Lowman 54:08
I take it back. Um, what's something that people often get wrong about you? That's such a funny question. I
Charlie Smith 54:27
I hate losing I take pride. I take pride in keeping my emotions in check. So I think whether I'm a leader or not a leader, try not to get too high, try not to get too low and not get too emotional about things. So that doesn't mean I'm robotic, but I do not like losing, and I specifically don't like losing in anything. So people who know me. Like they know that that's a thing for me. So, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Chelsea Lowman 55:06
So are you saying, in a roundabout way, that maybe people would think you're taking things too seriously, trying to, like, regulate your emotions?
Charlie Smith 55:16
They would say that. They would say that I'm very, very competitive, but I don't necessarily let it show all the time. Okay, that
Mary Newville 55:24
parent, because I'll be this parent. Like, when you were playing like checkers, when with your kids, when they were like four, there was just like, absolutely no grace, like you were gonna beat them.
Charlie Smith 55:33
Yeah, you know, it's Mary. This is funny. My wife and I literally just talked about exactly that, like, nights ago. Discussion was, should you let your kids win? And I'm like, No, not saying, like, you should teach them how to win, but I don't think you should let them win. So So yeah, that probably gives you a little bit of sight into my my mentality, because you beat
Mary Newville 55:59
me fair and square, but otherwise, yeah, yeah.
Chelsea Lowman 56:04
What are they gaining by winning? I mean, I guess, like a sense of joy, but they're gonna learn, they're gonna learn real quick that life is doesn't work out like that. You know,
Charlie Smith 56:15
exactly right? I think you have to follow, fall in love with the process of trying to win. And I think now that, now that I'm thinking about it like, that's what I always really enjoy, is like that process. And so, like, this just happened the other night. We were playing cards, and I lost like, four games in a row and and we got to fourth game, and my wife and daughter were like, Okay, we're done. I'm like, nope, one more game, and I'll keep going until I win, and then if I win, then it's like, okay, I can end on a good note.
Chelsea Lowman 56:47
Yeah, that is me. My family loves Yahtzee, and I hate Yahtzee, and I will make them play until I win. And I'm like, okay, I'm good.
Mary Newville 57:00
Win that fifth game, the card game.
Charlie Smith 57:02
I did win the fifth game, okay, and the sixth game, yeah. What's that?
Chelsea Lowman 57:09
What game was it? Have you ever heard of smear? Oh, yes,
Charlie Smith 57:14
yeah, in our family, yeah, yeah.
Chelsea Lowman 57:18
All right. Final question, give us a snapshot of an ordinary moment in your life that has brought you joy,
Charlie Smith 57:26
a snapshot family, I think, my wife and my three kids like you know, as you're as you're going through life with your kids. You know, there's an adage out there that says the days are long, the years are fast. And, you know, we're to a point where, you know, we can look back and quantifiably say that that is true. And so with how that translates is like, you know, when you when you do have that family time where everybody is all together, or you've got the one on one time with the kids that maybe you didn't, you don't get as much of it is what you used to that. And I think I just started tearing up. That's ridiculous, but that's, that's like, that's, that's what it is for me. So, you know, we're blessed to have two granddaughters now with with our oldest and his wife. And so, yeah, life goes fast. And so for me, that's that's a fun thing to be part of, and it only gets more fun the older that you get.
Chelsea Lowman 58:31
Well, congrats, grandkids. Yeah, yeah. Two grand day too young to have grandkids.
Charlie Smith 58:39
We got married young, 21 first kids at 24 so that kind of our oldest is 25 so that kind of gives away my age, right there.
Chelsea Lowman 58:48
Yeah, that's amazing. Okay, well, thank you so much for being on the podcast with us today. I'm not joking. We'll have to have you back, because I have so many more questions about how sales engineers work with AES, but we didn't need to get
Charlie Smith 59:03
to, oh, that would have been awesome, you know.
Chelsea Lowman 59:06
But next time, next time, yeah, thank you so much. Wishing you all of us with 2026
Mary Newville 59:13
even though we're not in white fish
Chelsea Lowman 59:17
trip. Have so much fun.
Charlie Smith 59:19
Thank you. We will, we will awesome to be with you guys.
Chelsea Lowman 59:22
Appreciate it. All right, another episode in the books, our second episode of 2026 we hope you enjoyed it and enjoyed getting to know Charlie a little bit better. If you are a PAC member, we are celebrating black history month here at Arctic Wolf. It's the 100 year anniversary of Black History Month in the US. So we have a lot of fun things planned this month.
Mary Newville 59:49
If you're not part of the pack, we would love to have you join us on our mission to end saber risk. You can find our open positions worldwide at Arctic wolf Comm, backslash, career. Years, we wish you all a great February, and we will see you in March. You.
- 1 -
00Transcribed by https://otter.ai