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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.
The Howler - Tom Rogers - March 2026 - Audio
Fri, Feb 27, 2026 9:03AM � 1:12:59
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Women's History Month, Winter Olympics, Pack Unity Alliance, cybersecurity leadership, marketing strategy, SDR team, customer problem-solving, team collaboration, leadership style, work-life balance, psychological safety, growth experiment, revenue impact, marketing funnels, data-driven decisions., Tom Rogers, competitive nature, zodiac sign, family moments, notes on fridge, funny sense of humor, rite of passage, Hot Cross Buns, podcast episode, Women's History Month, Pi Day, St Patrick's Day, global Employee Appreciation Day, Arctic Wolf careers, cyber risk.
SPEAKERS
Tom Rogers, Chelsea Lowman, Mary Newville
Chelsea Lowman 00:04
Hi, welcome back to the Howler Podcast. I'm Chelsea and I'm Mary. Welcome to our March episode. It's Women's History Month. So congrats to both Mary and I, because we are women,
Mary Newville 00:17
women everywhere, everywhere.
Chelsea Lowman 00:20
I am really excited our Pack unity Alliance, Women Transforming tech always does a really great job in March of like, bringing fun events, bringing everyone together. They always have, like, so many webinars where we're learning, we're growing. But then we have social events where we're getting new headshots and cocktails, yeah, and connecting,
Mary Newville 00:44
it's so fun. Well, and I saw their post about the force multiplier, multipliers and amplifying key messages across different alliances, I thought that was really cool. I'm excited to see out this month,
Chelsea Lowman 01:00
same, same. But as listeners know, we do record these a month in advance, and so it's actually February right now, and we are in the thick of the Winter Olympics. Is I am a big Olympics girly. Love the Olympics. Love how sport, just like brings everyone together.
Mary Newville 01:22
Yeah, what tell us, like, why you love it so much. How does it make you feel? Or tell us, like, how you came to love it. What was like the first Olympics?
Chelsea Lowman 01:29
Um, well, I will say for those. I mean, I don't know why everyone would know, but I used to work in sports before this. So I worked in professional sports for 10 years, and I do just think that sport in general does just bring people together, like it gives everyone a common thing to root for. It is like an equalizer, like everyone gets out there and everyone has the opportunity to like, succeed, to win, to do all the things. And I just love the Olympics because I I love being worldly. I like to, like, know about different cultures and different countries. And I love the stories of like these people have dedicated their whole lives to this, like, one thing, and especially for a lot of the Winter Olympic sports, they're not as popular. Like, people aren't just watching ice skating every year. You know, there are obviously people that do, but so it's like people are working so hard for like, one shot, or, like, I don't know, they might go to the Olympics, like, three times, you know, depending on their age. So it's like, you only have this, like, stage only a few times in your life. And it's just, like, so exciting. And like, the little backstories that we get about the athletes, then it makes you want to root for them. And then when they, like, cut to their family, it just, it's just so fun. I don't know it makes me emotional, because I love, actually, I love seeing people's dreams come true. That's the root of it. Like, if I'm like, watching someone on a stage get a standing ovation, like I'm crying, I'm like, oh my god, their dreams are coming true. Like, I just love watching people achieve things. And so Olympics, like, they're just achieving their biggest dream, yeah, and sports, so you get to, like, root, you know, you get into it. So you're like, oh, I don't know.
Mary Newville 03:34
Okay, well, you could probably educate me. Well, I have a comment and then I have a question, but they're related, so Okay, Chelsea knows this, but I spent like 20 minutes two weeks ago figuring out how to get the Olympics on the TV office, and I am now pecan. Subscriber, so, yep, peacock, peacock, peacock, that's what isn't I know peacock is our internal engagement survey. Peacock. Subscriber, so I could watch the Olympics. And the other day, the Bob sledding was on, and it was one of those emotional and mind you, like I'm watching intermittently, and I don't have the sound on, so I'm like, This is not as emotional because the subtitles and without the sound, I'm just not getting as much. But it caught my attention because the woman, and maybe you know who it is, we can give her credit or shine, give her flowers, but she's like a mother, and it was her first Olympic gold for bobsledding. But in the in the scene, she had a really great time, but there was one more bobsledder that went right behind her, so it was that, like, will she be gold, or will she be silver? Basically, person's performance did really well, but then she comes in and her time is lower, or, sorry, higher than this other woman's. And so then it's the immediate, like falling on the ground crying and people hugging, and you can. Just the emotion on her face. So I hear you with like, all the hard work is culminating in this moment. And like, How cool. And also, like, as a mother, like your kids and all the things you work hard. But I also was just looking at the sport of bobsledding, and I feel like basketball, volleyball, running, like, those are things that we all do, and even if you're not like a basketball person, like in elementary school, like, you just have to play it in gym class. So those sports make sense to me that maybe people would start to rise above the rest. Like, wow, that person is a superstar at basketball. But bobsledding isn't something that the average person would just, you've never gone upsleading No, and it's so dangerous, even watching it makes me scared. So I, I pardon I was just thinking when I was watching this, like, that is a sport, maybe, and I don't want to discredit, I think obviously lots of hard work, but it kind of feels like you become great because you have the access maybe. Like, how do you become a great bobsledder? Do you just say, I want to be one, but how do I not know that I'm a superstar bobsledder? I just never had you could be opportunity. No one was like, Mary, do you want to try Bob's letting you could be like, it's a weird like, how do you get there? Do you know what I will say?
Chelsea Lowman 06:18
To your point, a lot of sports are about access. Like, hockey is a very expensive sport. Like, you can't just have skates, have the equipment, have ice, you know, like basketball, soccer, these are really accessible sports. A kid can just go outside. You can find a basketball court. You can, like, pick around a soccer ball. So, like, sports is an equalizer, in a sense of, once you're on the court, everyone has the opportunity to succeed, but there definitely are barriers to sports. But to your point, I think a lot of like, I know I follow this skeleton athlete. Well, he's retired now, but he won gold a few years ago, and he was just a track athlete. A lot of like skeleton, Bob sled, luge, those are track athletes, because they sprint, you know, at the start. And he was just a high school track athlete, and one day the like, national bobsled or skeleton coach, like, came to school and was like, You look athletic. Do you want to try skeleton? And he was like, I'm sure. I don't know. And then
Mary Newville 07:27
are and your head first, or you're laying on your back. Which one is Skeleton?
Chelsea Lowman 07:32
Skeleton is your on your stomach, head first,
Mary Newville 07:35
see and again, the first time you do that, it's like, Hey, by the way, you could be paralyzed. You're going to go 70 miles per hour head first.
Chelsea Lowman 07:42
Okay, well, you isn't they have like, training. You're not just immediately going on the track, like you start, like anything you start, like you first start. You learn how to jump on it. And they have tracks where it's literally just like you go down and up, and that's it. You know, it's just like a straight line, and you're just practicing getting on the sled. And you know what? I mean? You're not just like, immediately going to an Olympic style. Anyway. So a lot of those types of sledding athletes are multi Olympic sport athletes, like some people, are summer track Olympians, and then their winter wedding Olympians. But yeah, I think a lot of those sports you just kind of, you have to have someone be like, Oh, you're athletic. Do you want to try this? Because, yeah, I mean, my cousin went to the Junior Olympics for ski jumping, and I'm always like, how do you get into ski jumping? You know, why would I just, like, jump off a huge, I don't know that's why. And he was like, Well, I used to go skiing every weekend up in, up at Buck Hill, or whatever the place is here in Minnesota. And he was like, one day, someone was like, Hey, have you ever tried ski jumping? And he said, No, and then, you know, then he ski jumped for like, 10 years. So it just takes one person to like you. Always say, it just takes one person to see the potential in you and to like, cultivate that.
Mary Newville 09:13
So, like a lot of really powerful themes here, of access, believing in people in your dreams of hard work for the couple seconds of glory, because that's another thing. Like we see these moments, and it's like we don't see the hours and years of training and sacrifice.
Chelsea Lowman 09:33
And a lot of these athletes are not making money, like they're not in lucrative if you're not a major sport, athlete in the US, as in, like, one of the major leagues, like, you're not making money, you know, some of these people have regular nine to fives and then train, like, take time off to train. So it is wild. It's just so inspiring to me that people the things that we can accomplish if we set our mind. Into it, you know? Yeah.
Mary Newville 10:02
Well, is your cup so full as we end the team?
Chelsea Lowman 10:07
Well, I hope all of those that watch the Olympics felt inspired a great reminder that we're all humans in this world, regardless of what country we come from, and it's just like, so special to bring everyone together during a time like there's just so much going on in the world. So it's nice to just come together and find some joy. You know,
Mary Newville 10:34
well said, Chelsea, you're listening in your Olympics, man, you can slack Chelsea about your ease or any of that stuff. So, yes, okay, well, shall we?
Chelsea Lowman 10:49
Yeah, speaking of worldly, we do have someone up in the US on the podcast today.
Mary Newville 10:57
Today we're joined by Tom Rogers. Tom brings a decade of cybersecurity leadership, including time at rapid seven where he drove more than 40% growth in marketing's pipeline impact and built a top tier customer reference program. Before that, he held key marketing roles at immersive trustware and Sophos shaping global strategies across the security landscape. Tom is now helping Arctic wolf advances mission to end cyber risk and strengthen a culture grounded in unity and impact.
Chelsea Lowman 11:25
All right, welcome to the podcast, Tom. We're so excited to have you. Yeah, happy to be here. Thanks for having me. Okay, so fun. So I've had a chance to meet Tom multiple times because I got to do your onboarding. And then even though you are based in Boston. I would say you half live in Minnesota. At this point, I feel like I see you every other week. Correct me if I'm wrong,
Tom Rogers 11:49
you are not incorrect. Uber actually thinks I live in Minnesota. So when I get to Minnesota now, it says, Welcome home Boston. It says, Have a nice trip, which is joke for everybody in the office there.
Chelsea Lowman 12:03
Oh my gosh, wait, that's actually wild. That's so funny, okay, but Mary hasn't had a chance to meet you, yeah? So I didn't realize you
Mary Newville 12:11
were British. Maybe
Tom Rogers 12:14
that is correct. Yes, Britain, just outside of London, is home originally, but I'm at the point now where I've spent more of my life post 21 outside of the UK than than inside of the UK. So I don't quite know what that classifies me as right now,
Mary Newville 12:30
citizen of the world, maybe,
Tom Rogers 12:32
maybe, oh, Canada, and Canada and the US, for sure, that's where the majority of the time has been.
Chelsea Lowman 12:38
Well, I think as long as you got the British accent, you're not going to be able to claim you're not British. You know, that's true.
Tom Rogers 12:45
I've just about got mine still, although, although I've learned over time that this is a little bit like mixing paint, right? So, so people think I'm Australian quite a lot of the time. So I guess, like British and North American equals Australian. My kids were, geez, six and one and a half when we moved to Boston. So they full on, sound like they're out of a Mark Wahlberg movie at this point, which is, which is very confusing whenever we go to the airport, because they're like, how do these guys
Chelsea Lowman 13:16
wait? I kind of think it would be fun if they had a little British and Boston accent. That's the combo that would be interesting.
Tom Rogers 13:24
Well, well, my eldest, my eldest, does that when he's with me and his mom. He's 13 now, so he's 14 in a couple of months. But when he's with me and his mom, he fully sounds like he's, you know, from the UK. And then as soon as he's engaging with any of his friends or anybody that's not from the UK, it's full thick Boston egg. Very odd. Yeah, doesn't like to talk about it, so we don't mention it, but he's got two. Definitely got two distinct set of vocal characteristics.
Mary Newville 13:53
Wow, the lingo, if you will. When Claire leverage, our general manager in Europe, was on the podcast, and this is, like, a couple years ago now, but she gave Chelsea and I the basics, you know, like rubbage and rubbish, and I don't even now, but something about, like, Apple in a day anyways. Yeah, right. It's the lingo. Do you still use, like, British slang.
Tom Rogers 14:22
When I'm at home, I do, although I'm very interchangeable. So, so generally, when I'm at home, I'm pretty much fully Americanized in my in my lingo, I suppose, but, but I do, I do flip between the two. So I will go like car, trunk, car, boot interchangeably, rubbish and garbage interchangeably. I still swear mostly in British. So if I swear that comes through with, like, a full British accent and and I think it has a, I don't know, I can probably get away with it a little more with a full British accent, but I'm pretty interchangeable. Okay?
Chelsea Lowman 15:00
Right. Okay, interesting. Well, before you joined us, Mary and I, during our intro, we were talking about the Olympics, because it's Olympics right now. So when you one, do you watch the Olympics? And two, are you rooting for England? Or, like, where are your allegiance? Where does your allegiance lie?
Tom Rogers 15:18
Chelsea, such a tough question. So, so I do. I love the Olympics. It's, it's, you know, summer or winter, but the winter one is fun. It's, you know, it's the it's once every four years, you can get invested in curling and ski jumping. I actually like care, you know, I would tell you my affiliations lie in multiple places. So I guess, guess the heart is always with, with, with the Brits, right? And not a lot we're great at in the Winter Olympics, to be super transparent. So, you know, I feel, I feel obligated when we do actually have a chance to compete in something, sort of have to defer back to that. Certainly, you know, some of the US athletes, I guess you know, are good to watch. And I was watching one of the speed skaters yesterday who seemed like great and so obviously want to do them. Do, do for them to do. Well, I guess the contentious one, if there was a contentious one, would be, would be the ice hockey. And I tend to, I tend to root for the Canadians. There is living in Vancouver, which was a phenomenal experience. And, you know, I think, as most people are aware, like, hockey is somewhat sacred north of the border, right? And so rooting for them, I guess, but hopefully we get a Canadian US final, which will be a ton of fun to watch, but that may be the only one that's slightly contentious for folks in Eden Prairie, but probably gets me some points for the for the team in Waterloo,
Chelsea Lowman 16:42
okay, well, we do have a Canadian US final. That's happening today, the women's goals. Yeah, 1/3 you you want the Canadian team, the women's team, to win gold.
16:55
If you had to push me, if you had, I feel like we're on. We're getting into dangerous water.
Chelsea Lowman 17:02
Chelsea, I'm just messing with you, but yeah,
Tom Rogers 17:06
generally, you know, I was fortunate. I lived in Vancouver when the Winter Olympics were there in 2012 and it was just a phenomenal experience, and just everything that goes around it as well that I think you don't appreciate when it's not kind of in but, but, you know, I have a lot of friends. Still there. Lot of people I still talk to a lot of the time. And so I would be, I would be doing them a disservice if I wasn't rooting for them in this two horse race. Yeah.
Chelsea Lowman 17:36
Okay, well, did you see Sydney Crosby's out now? Did?
Tom Rogers 17:39
Yeah, yeah, which actually is sad, but also I don't have him in my hockey pool, so I'm getting over it.
Chelsea Lowman 17:48
Okay, okay, all right. Well, this is, well, we'll see what happens. Obviously, I want the US team to win, but I'm a big hockey fan, so I follow a lot of Canadian players. So you know, you're like, rooting for players, but also teams.
Tom Rogers 18:02
But, yeah, so you know, so you a wild a wild support, a wild fan.
Chelsea Lowman 18:07
So actually, I grew up, I'm from Virginia, so I grew up a capitalist fan. And I was, like, a deep, like, I watched every game, huge capitalist fan. And then when I moved to Minnesota, so I worked in sports before this, and I was working in the NBA, and Previously I worked in baseball. So it worked out that, like, I had the offseason to watch hockey, but then once I started working in basketball, it was like, during hockey season, I couldn't watch games because I was, like, working games Right, right? And so I kind of fell off being a capitals fan. And then, of course, the first year I wasn't a fan, they won the Stanley Cup. I don't want to talk about it. And so now it's been a few years, like I had a little break from being a big hockey fan, and now I'm back in it this, like past year. And so it's just easier to be a wild fan. I feel so disconnected from the capitals, like the team's not even the team that I know anymore, you know. So I've become a wild fan, which has been fun.
Tom Rogers 19:07
They have a great team this year. I'm still getting over that, still getting over the fact that Vancouver Canucks captain is now a
Chelsea Lowman 19:13
while it has been fun, like watching Quinn play, yeah, he's like, seeing him live, because I did go to a game, you know, on TV, you're like, Oh yeah, his skating skills are cool, but then, like seeing it live is very different. Yeah. Anyway, side tangent over, we got to get back to you, and we want to learn more about you and your career and how you ended up at Arctic Wolf. So we love to go back to the beginning when little Tom was in the UK, like, what did you want to be when you were little? I don't know if you knew about marketing at that point, you know, but kind of take us on a journey from like, what you thought you wanted to do, and then kind of how you ended up here at. Took off.
Tom Rogers 20:00
Yeah, so, so, so, great question. You know, not, not dissimilar to any young man growing up, I guess, you know, the original aspiration was to play for England and Captain England in soccer or football. I guess quickly realized that wasn't, you know, something that was probably going to be likely for me. But, but grew up playing a lot of sports, loved sports. Love the team element of it, the competitiveness, and so my original sort of, or I guess, the, you know, growing up, I really, really had two, two dreams. One was to be a sports agent. So this was kind of around the time that the film Jerry Maguire came out. I just thought it was a great movie, and looked a lot of fun. Didn't realize you needed a law degree, probably to do that, and so decided against that one fairly quickly. And then the other thing that I was always fascinated with was aviation. And so a pilot was also something that I thought would be just a really cool thing to do, you know, to get out and see the world and explore and just look like a really interesting thing to do. And so I guess those were the two growing up that I really, kind of, you know, wanted to do, and unintentionally fell into marketing. I guess when, when I realized neither of those two things was probably going to be the path I took.
Mary Newville 21:16
Wait Quick, quick sidebar before we follow the journey of falling into marketing. Why do you need a law degree to be a sports agent?
Tom Rogers 21:23
I think a lot of it is like contract law review and stuff like that. And so, you know, interestingly, when I decided to go to go back and do higher education in the UK, I found, I found a course that was essentially Sports Studies and business, right? And I thought, well, this is great. This is going to align perfectly to kind of, you know, my aspirations to get into this world. And I realized very quickly that 90% of the people in the in the course wanted to be physiotherapists or phys ed teachers or or coaches, and so I was very much in the minority. And I can't remember thinking, That's odd. And I talked to the professor at the time, and he said, Yeah, you need a you need a law degree to do that, and you don't really have the grades to do that right now. My friend so stuck, stuck with that instead, but would have been nice, I guess.
Chelsea Lowman 22:12
Yeah, how did we fall? Oh, go ahead, Chelsea. Oh, I was just gonna, yeah, reiterate, like most of their job is negotiating contracts, but it's not too late for you. Not obviously, we don't want you to leave Arctic Wolf. But all players also have marketing agents, so maybe there's a future for you still to be a sports marketing agent.
22:33
Call my friend Alina after this. And
Chelsea Lowman 22:39
I mean, like many, many years down the road, many, many years ago, yeah.
Mary Newville 22:46
How did we fall into marketing?
Tom Rogers 22:51
Finished school, didn't really have a plan, decided to bypass, kind of, that piece of the last year of education, and decided to have some fun and bypass kind of what do you do next? Decided at that point that it's very common in the UK that to sort of take a year off between finishing sort of mandatory education and starting secondary education to go travel and see some of the world. But decided I wasn't ready for that at that point. So finished school and sort of decided I was going to go traveling and needed kind of temporary work to kind of make some money, to get myself kind of set off. And so took a job at a business, I'm sure everybody will know, a company called Sophos in the UK. They were headquartered just down the road from where I was. Didn't really care about what department it was in. Was more focused on, how do I get some sort of sustainable work and make some money here, and got placed in the marketing department, which was a really interesting kind of start to my professional career. I mean, I'm going to date myself here, guys, but part of my first job was this was still at the point where you would send out updates, antivirus, updates on physical like CDs to customers so they can update their update their laptops. And so for one week a month, I would go down to the storage room, and I would literally pack CDs into individual envelopes, put them through a prepaid postage machine for all of our customers, put the sticky labels on and send the CDs out. So I did that for one week a month, and the rest of the time I got involved in kind of organizing the Annual Sales and Marketing Conference. Did a bit of PR and some other stuff. And I was supposed to be there four months. The four months flew by and ended up staying in the business for nine years. Really, sort of the aspiration of traveling the world, but had a great experience there, and sort of really fell in love with both the cross functional nature of the work you know, like working with the sales team every day, the customer success team, the product team. You know, really felt that like the intersection of. Kind of some of the things that were driving the business. And then secondly, I'm kind of a data guy, like, I've always been a data guy, and it was kind of at the point where marketing pivoted a little bit from, like, here's some money, go do your thing, to here's some money. What have you done for me to help the business be successful? And so I got super involved in analytics and marketing funnels and understanding demand from kind of that perspective and and it just felt like a really good fit and a really interesting thing for me to work on and have stuck with it ever since. Wow.
Mary Newville 25:32
So what did you What were your roles? Or like, where did you start and where did you end over those nine years?
Tom Rogers 25:37
So I started as a bunch of roles. Started as a like a very junior assistant working on organizing events and conferences and a bit of PR and some other stuff. Went over to Vancouver during that period. So went over to Vancouver. Sophos met Chris Kraft was was there at the time. So I've known Chris for a long time. Chris weeds, who just joined us in the product org. I knew him from the UK, so I've known these guys a long time, and then I really got involved in, like, email marketing analytics, performance understanding, like demand programs. So did a whole bunch of that for a long time. Like, really, sort of, I call it, like back office, like operational marketing, you know, it's really understanding, like, the plumbing of how marketing works, and how you understand performance, and how you talk about it to the rest of the business. And so did that for seven, eight years, went back to the UK at that point and realized I hadn't done sort of any, I would guess it like front facing marketing work, you know, sort of traditional field marketing work. And so took a job at a different organization doing that. So pivoted from kind of like the plumbing and the infrastructure of marketing and how to make that work to more sales, customer success channel, facing roles within a kind of field organization in Europe.
Mary Newville 26:55
Wow, so you did. You never took the gap year, but you got your Sophos role. Took you all over the world. It sounds like very
Tom Rogers 27:03
I've been very fortunate, you know, like, I mean, you know, all of my roles I've been, I've been very fortunate to spend a lot of time in a lot of different places, learning about businesses, learning about, you know, how to operate in those markets, learning about the cultural nuances. So Sophos, I think was probably the majority of the time was, was Europe, North America. It was really when I when I got to rapid seven, that I started to get kind of more international exposure as that business was growing. And spent a lot of time in Asia, lot of time in kind of, you know, the Middle East and those places, learning how to kind of build those businesses and understand kind of how they operated, but, but I've been very fortunate to be to have had the opportunity to go to a lot of cool places and and enjoy those places, but also hopefully, you know, have a have a positive impact on the business as well.
Mary Newville 27:56
Yeah, that is amazing. I love that. For you. I'm really jealous of, like, the European Gap Year culture, and just the more open hand with, like, work life balance and working to live versus living to work. Is that the right phrase, but it's cool that you I always I feel like a lot of successful people, people we have on the podcast, it always seems like they weren't necessarily planning. It wasn't like I am going to be a CEO, but following their interest. And it's just cool, how life works out the way it should, when you follow what you want to do versus maybe what you should do. I don't know if that's, yeah, I mean, I so I
Tom Rogers 28:39
think about it, you know, like and I get, I get asked this question a decent amount, right? This is like, you know, what is your career path like? How did you get to where you got to? What? You know, What decisions did you make? The one thing that I always say to people is, you know, ultimately, when you're thinking about opportunities, or you're thinking about, what do you want to do, if you sort of visually depict a triangle, right? And at the three points of the triangle, you've got kind of compensation and your earnings. And the other corners you've got sort of status right, like, what's your title? How big is your team? And in the other corner, you've got learning. I've always tried to make every decision based on learning and my ability to learn stuff, and really try to focus on my decisions, on what's going to help me get furthest into that corner, because, because my assumption has been that if you do that well, then the other two kind of naturally follow, right? Versus they don't drive the learning piece, the learning piece drives them. And so, you know, I get, I guess I didn't sort of have that framework of how to think about it as I've made decisions during my career, but as I look back at it now, and kind of apply that framework to it, I've sort of unintentionally made all of the decisions based on what's going to give me the most opportunity to learn things and experience new things. And that's kind of driven, I guess, the other parts of the triangle.
Mary Newville 30:00
Yeah, I love that. That's such great advice.
30:04
Yeah, I have my moments occasionally where it makes sense,
Chelsea Lowman 30:09
yeah, okay, well, you're almost a year in, yeah, what's the biggest thing you've learned?
Tom Rogers 30:16
What is the biggest thing I've learned? That's a great question learning. So I think that the biggest things I've learned are, you know, let me reframe it for you a different way. When, when I was thinking about sort of, you know, an opportunity, or what do I do next? I try to pivot around kind of three areas again, right? That the first is, kind of, you know, organizational culture, right? That means a lot of things to a lot of different people. Right for some people in that in their career, that can mean, you know, how great are the holiday parties, or how much, you know, fun Can I have in the environment? Right? For for me, it was, it was about, you know, you know, the example the leadership team sets, the openness to new ideas, the willingness to collaborate on things, and the desire to really think about, like, how do we build this as a team sport, right? So, so I would say, you know, first year learnings have been, you know, all of those things have proved that to be incredibly true, right? I'm very fortunate. I've got phenomenal partnerships with, well, on the channel side, Matt, on the on the sales side, and sometimes, you know, they can be sort of high friction relationships right between sales leaders and marketing leaders about, you know, who's got the ball when and and who's responsible for either the good or, mostly, you know, when things aren't working. But I just found it to be an incredibly supportive, collaborative group that kind of want to make progress and move things forward together. So, that's been great. The second thing I always sort of think about is, is the business really solving a customer's problem? And that's kind of a proxy for, like, what is the growth potential of the business, right? But when you think about, I know we'll talk about this in a bit, but when you think about, you know, the challenges that our customers are facing today, the unique way that we're solving them for our customers, and the ways that we are able to solve them to help them make progress in their cybersecurity journey. You know, we're doing a lot of things that are very unique in the industry, some of which are very visible right now, some of which I think are probably coming. But I think that I thought that was a real differentiator in the sense of, you know, we're really solving customers problems every day and then. And then the third thing I always sort of think about is like, is it somewhere where I can go and have an impact and positively impact the business, right? And so, you know, for me, you know, having spent half my life in the US, half my life outside of the US, I got a pretty good understanding of kind of how to scale and build these businesses internationally, also done kind of a good chunk of the growth journey that we're on right now. And, you know, we talk a lot about, sort of, what is the next phase of growth look like for Arctic Wolf. And so I'd seen a lot of that. And so I thought, I thought for me, like those three things really aligned well. And I would say a lot of it has proved to be true in the nine months I've been here. Right now, we are, we are transforming in a lot of ways, to kind of set ourselves up for that kind of next sort of phase of what Arctic wolf looks like, lot of expansion, lot of new opportunity. And I think really, you know the thing, the thing that I've learned the most, which is a really healthy place to be in. And maybe you guys have had this experience in your professional careers, but I've certainly, you know, been in situations or roles or times in organizations where I've really thought, like, Do we really have a big opportunity ahead of us here and like, that's not a great sort of situation to be in, right? I think for us, we have all the opportunity and all the runway ahead of us, our challenge is going to be, how do we execute on that well, and how do we prioritize the things that are going to be most impactful, and that is a much better situation to be in than waking up every day really thinking about, are we solving customers problems effectively, And do we have opportunity ahead of us? Yeah.
Mary Newville 34:02
Yeah. I You're, I love, I feel like you're, for sure, a marketing leader, because you've got the triangle, the three points, like you've got the visuals, the talking points, but it's so good. I love it. Well, you're in this role. Those are things you think about, and what got you here. Tell us, give us like, a peek, and do like, what's the day in the life?
Tom Rogers 34:22
Yeah, you know, it's, it's interesting. I'll preface it guys with, with, with, I am certainly not the best market here in the world, and I'm certainly not the best marketeer on the team, which, which is a benefit, right? Because I say to the team a lot, I think if the the expectations or the The belief is the ideas will come from kind of leadership, we're probably going to get some going to get some strange ideas, you know, particularly if I'm involved every now and again, you know, I would say most of my day, you know, I was asked this few weeks ago, most of my day is spent with sales and sales leadership, Channel and Channel leadership, really trying to understand what is going on in their businesses. What are they seeing? Step. Same on the CS side, right? Because ultimately, we're trying to drive not just acquisition revenue. We're trying to sell more into our existing customers and retain more of those dollars. So I think a good a good chunk of it is is spent kind of understanding the perspective from the teams that are actually out there every day in the field, on the sales CS and channel side, sort of trying to decipher what they're seeing and what they're experiencing. So I suppose a third of the days is that, I'd say a third of the day is really with the leaders on my team and the wider marketing team, trying to understand, how do we connect what we're hearing from different parts of the business to where we can make an impact and we can positively, you know, help grow the business and support the business. And then a third of the day is, is, is with, with the with, with the greatest of respect to some of the teams, probably the more unglamorous kind of, like, keep the ship moving in the right direction, stuff. So a lot of time with finance, a lot of time with, with the GNA, with biz apps and kind of those, those teams around, like, how do we, how do we move some of these areas forward? So we're predictable in what we're doing, and we're consistent in what we're doing, and we're kind of making progress in the areas that are going to set us up for the future. And so I try to broadly split my time sort of a third. What is happening today, you know, a third. How do we correlate that into actionable information for the team, and then a third sort of, okay, what are we doing? We need to make progress on in the next six to 12 months to really set us up to be successful.
Mary Newville 36:34
I know when you joined Arctic Wolf, one of the a big change internally was the SDR, so our demand gen our sales development representatives moving from reporting into sales to reporting into you through marketing. Are you able to give us like a peek behind the curtain into the strategy behind that and how that's playing out throughout your first year here?
Tom Rogers 36:55
Yeah, for sure. So, so love, love the SDR team. We've been very fortunate to have the SDR team as part of pretty much all the the teams I've been in at different organizations, tried to be an SDR for a week, failed miserably to go back and do it again. So I give them a ton of credit, because it is a hard grind. You know, I think there's, there's there's, there's more stuff coming over the next couple of months as we think about the SDR team. But I would say, like, have being able to create that kind of loop between the marketing dollars that we're putting into market and then really getting the actionable feedback from the SDRs on, like, what is working and what isn't working and what do they need more of and where do they need less has been hugely impactful. I mean, ultimately, that the program serves kind of a dual purpose, right? And this is what we talk about as a leadership team in terms of, like, how we, how are we progressing against these things? The first is, you know, how do we drive, you know, real quality pipeline for our sales organization? And that's definitely a work in progress, right? We are on this journey from, how do we transition, sort of this volume based world to more of a quality based world, and getting our sellers quality at bats. And so we spend a lot of time, you know, thinking about and executing against How we doing that effectively, both from the programs that we're running to what are we asking the SDRs to do, and what are we enabling them on, and how are we helping them be successful? So that's kind of a big piece of it. And then I would say that the second big thing is, you know, the second big pillar is, how do we prepare them for for whatever is next in their professional careers right now, ideally, you'd love to see as many of them go into the acquisition sales business as possible, right? Because, because there's a natural connection between those two areas. But also this is, this is a business that is very good at creating opportunities across PDR roles and CSM roles and different parts of the organization. And so, you know, we have a we have a ask of the team that they help us build that qualified pipeline, right and really drive that acquisition business. The the payback, I guess, is, is giving them the skill set and the experience and the access to learning and coaching and development that sets them up well for whatever they decide to do next. You know, we we had a goal, or we have, we will have a goal in the program moving forward. Had had this in my prior role, where we looked at the number of SDRs who were still in the business 12 months after they left. The SDR program had been successful, and it was one of the areas in my prior role that we identified like we weren't having a lot of success, and we're going to start to do the same here. And really, you know, ultimately, as we said, you know, we're bringing these individuals in. We're investing in them. It's our goal for them to be successful long term in whatever they want to do. And so you'll start to see more from us. I can't think over the next quarter in terms of how we doing that, how we setting them up to be successful? And ultimately, how do we help them have really long, successful careers at Arctic Wolf,
Mary Newville 39:47
I love that such a hard job too, that having those really clear pathways, I think, is really motivating, and I could imagine helps with while. It is a hard job knowing like I am getting these opportunities and it's leading somewhere. So I think it's cool you're investing. I actually think a lot of a
Tom Rogers 40:07
lot of folks come into the to the program, with the with the the expectation, or the aspiration, to be in sales, right? To be in acquisition sales. But as you guys highlighted, it's, it's a tough gig, right? It's, it's on the phone every day, trying to build your own pipeline, trying to build your own demand. And so I do think a large part of it is, is giving individuals exposure to different areas and helping them see different parts of the business that might fit for them, because, because ultimately, as I said, you know, really, we want to be driving as many people into acquisition sales as possible. That's kind of the natural path for that role and that team. But we also want to retain great people, regardless of kind of what they want to do next, and so we have a responsibility to give them exposure to those different areas of the business so they can, you know, best, determine for themselves where they can have the biggest impact love.
Chelsea Lowman 40:59
Well, I know we just talked about the SDRs moving under you. That was a change that happened for us here at Arctic Wolf. So kind of along that same thought process, what's one growth experiment that has surprised you, whether it because it really worked or it didn't work, and it can be like at any point throughout your career,
Tom Rogers 41:19
I've had a few. I'm trying to think of a good one that's tangible. I'll give you one that's, that's, that's, that's recent. I don't know whether it fits the sort of the true definition of experiment, but I'd say one of the things that's been been really interesting to uncover that I that, I think has helped us kind of form a perspective on how we move forward. So we have, we have a program on the on the marketing side that has a an interesting side of sort of reputation internally, right? Some folks love it. Some folks are not so keen on it. One of the things that that we learn as if we actually went and dug into the data and identified kind of who was that program, working with the types of accounts, the profile of those accounts, what they look like, the individuals in those accounts, we were actually able to really start to delineate between where that program was having impact versus where it wasn't. And so that's the type of growth experiment, I think, is is really meaningful, because actually, we were able to go back to the business and say, Hey, this program has this perception today. Here's actually where it's working and where we want to do more of it and and here's where it isn't working as effectively, and we're either going to stop that or we're going to do less of it right. And I think those types of of of activities build credibility with your partners across the business, because they're data backed, and they're actually focused on the things that matter the most. And they're also good for us to go through that kind of learning experience and understand, you know, hey, maybe this did work great previously. Maybe it's not as effective. Now, what can we sort of be inquisitive about and understand how to make it more effective? We got a bunch of really interesting stuff going on the digital side right now. You know, with Kyle wreck in the digital team, who are doing a phenomenal job, you know, we've dialed up a lot of our sort of target account digital spend. We've seen some phenomenal results in places like Canada, as we've dialed in on the Greater Toronto Area and getting impressions and visibility there. And so there's all these experiments kind of happening all of the time. I think, you know, what we're really focused on is, how do we amplify the ones that are working most effectively? And how do we, equally importantly is like, give context to the business on on the why behind those right? It's, it's, it's challenging sometimes, when you live in the in the marketing world, because they can occasionally be the assumption that everything works perfectly. The reality is, as you guys know, in your world, right? In my world, not everything works perfectly. And so really, we've got to create space for the team where they can test and learn, but they can do that quickly, and we can also understand whether it's worked or not, and course correct appropriately, right? And so in the team have really embraced that. Over the last nine months, we've definitely made progress. There's still things that we want to try, we want to test. You know, we're starting to do more things with AI and understand kind of how that can impact the business, but there's a high level of natural inquisitiveness in the team to do those things that I that I really appreciate and enjoy seeing.
Chelsea Lowman 44:22
I always love talking to individuals and marketing, because I feel like growing up, we're kind of taught marketing is like this create. It's like, just for creatives, or like, it's kind of tied to advertising sometimes, and then, like, you actually talk to marketing professionals, and it's like, really data driven and analytical, not that it's a binary, like, you can be creative and both, but it's always just so fun, like hearing the marketing brain.
Tom Rogers 44:49
I mean, certainly the world that the revenue and growth team live, live in, you know, like, I sort of articulated to people, like, we're kind of like wealth management for Arctic Wolf, right? You know, we're given a pot of money. Right? And then we have to go invest that money in things that we think are going to give us the best return in revenue. And, you know, I sure you guys have done this, but you know, when you go through your kind of 401, elections, or whatever it is, and you've got the box that says, Do you want to invest in the high risk, the medium risk, or the low risk, right? And, and there's a bunch of stuff that we do that we know kind of works, and that's sort of the low risk bucket, and then there's a bunch of stuff that, you know, we've put more money into, and we've seen that sort of trend positively, but we don't know how far that kind of upward curve is going to be. And then you've got your high risk stuff, which is, you know, like, well, what? We just don't know if it's going to work, but we're going to try it and we're going to see what happens. And the real kind of, that's where the art meets the science, right in the plans and the teams is, how do we balance those three things accordingly? So we have enough of the known. We've got some things that we think are going to help us in the future, and then we've got a bunch of stuff that we're trying that could fail, right? And generally, where you get out of whack is the balance between those three things isn't right. You either rely too much on the things that you know, and then they start to degrade over time, or you're too over invested in the things that you just haven't proven out yet. And so finding that right mix is really the art and the science that we're asking the teams to do.
Mary Newville 46:12
What about? I'm curious about this psychological safety. I feel like your team has to have a lot of it to encourage the pursuit of failure, but then also like, we're going to flag it and move on. Real quick. What does that look like for you, to foster that environment where you're encouraging people to take those risks and then quickly be like, it didn't work and move on. Yeah.
Tom Rogers 46:30
So I think it comes down to two things, Mary or you know, the first is, I'm I try and I encourage all of the leaders on the team to be very vulnerable. And what I mean by that is like, you know, we don't necessarily have all the answers right now, or know all the answers, and we try to be as try to be extremely transparent with the team about when those things are happening, right? Because I think if you know, if people see willingness from from leadership to be vulnerable, I think that there is a higher likelihood that they're willing to be vulnerable themselves, right? I think that's kind of the first thing, the the second thing I would say is, you know, it is, is an expectation on on the team, that, you know, we are trying things and we are failing because, because, to me, it means that we're trying to do things differently, and we're thinking about things differently, and, and, and, you know, there's, there's no penalty for for failing. I guess as long as we fail quick and we learn from it, and we understand why we fail, because then we can, then we can do something differently, but, but I completely kind of acknowledge the point that that can sometimes be an uncomfortable world for folks to live in, and you really have to kind of exhibit that and drive it forward, you know. The third thing I say is, you know, and I talked to the team about this a lot, you know. And I'm sure if they were with us right now, they'd probably be like, Oh, this is another one of his stock phrases that he rolls out, you know, every game, because I've got a few. But the third thing I say to the leaders a lot is, you know, my job, or the biggest thing I can do to help the team is, is give the team to the space to play the game the right way. You know, very, very early in my career, I went in to do a to do a presentation to a bunch of senior executives in the business about marketing performance. And I was, like, dialed in. I had all of my numbers and all of my data and kind of everything ready to go, started. And about 90 seconds into the presentation that one of the senior leaders in the business said, you know, we can all read the slides like we understand that the numbers, what we really care about is like, are we playing the game the right way? You know, the scoreboard is going to be, what the scoreboard is going to be, that's going to kind of take care of itself, but, but are we playing the game the right way? And so the biggest thing I try to do is give the team the space to play the game the right way, and allow me and the other leaders to worry about the scoreboard, because if we're playing the game the right way, then, in reality, the scoreboard will kind of take care of itself over time, right? That's at least like my thesis with this and and you don't want the teams that are, you know, trying to experiment and try to do the work, worried too much about the scoreboard, because that can be inhibiting in making decisions or testing and learning or trying new things.
Chelsea Lowman 49:04
But how do, how do you know you're playing the game the right way? Well, that is, the scoreboard will reflect that, but don't
Tom Rogers 49:11
see that is, that's a fair question to ask, right? It's somewhat subjective. You know, I would say, I would say, really, you know, the teams executing together as one team, right? Are we aligned in that motion? Are we testing and learning new things, and are we constantly challenging ourselves to look at what have we done previously? Is it still as effective, and do we need to do things differently, right? So? So I think it is subjective, and there are definitely times where, you know, the pressure on the school board, or the desire to make the school board better, can, you know, inhibit some of that occasionally, and you've got to kind of walk that line a bit, but, but ultimately, yeah, I think if you if your belief is that you're doing the right things and you're testing the right things, and you're you're challenging yourself, and those. Around you to think about things differently then, then the hope is, or the belief would be, that the school board will reflect that at some point, and you don't want to lose the spirit of doing that.
Mary Newville 50:12
Are there any tells, clear things where you're like, we are playing the game the wrong way?
Tom Rogers 50:19
That's, that's a bold question. I mean, look, I, I think as my, my sort of, my, my big observation on, on that Mary would be as as the business has grown and evolved. And I'll preface this with like, this is a completely natural thing for the business to be going through. It actually is a good thing, right is, is it's evolved from a sort of, you know, small group of regions, or a singular region and a singular product, to now a multiple region, multiple geography, multiple offering, portfolio, type of business, right, with, with different routes to market. And so I wouldn't say it's like playing the game the wrong way. But I think, you know, coming into the business, what I've really tried to emphasize with with the teams, and really tried to, like, unpack and understand, and it's taken us a while to get there, is how each of those things are behaving and how they're behaving differently. So like, for example, our expectations on our distribution business may be higher in Europe than they are in North America, right? Because that's kind of the prevalent way of going to market in some of those territories. And so understanding that and unpacking that and trying to make the connection between the money you're putting into that and the output that you're getting has been kind of a big area of focus. And we're just more nuanced than we were because of those variables, right? I mean, it's like trying to make a chocolate chip cookie in every different geography or product that we're trying to serve. You know, ultimately you want to get to a chocolate chip cookie, but the recipe may be slightly different depending on, you know, where you make it and how you do it, right? You might put a few more chocolate chips or a bit more butter or do something differently. Ultimately, the outcome you're trying to get to is the same. But I think the big thing that we've spent a lot of time unpacking is, how are these different dynamics behaving in these different markets and segments, and then how do we put investment and marketing plans into the things that we think are going to work the best? Some of those things have worked. Some of those things that we tried in q2 did not work as effectively, but you learn from it, and we know now, and I think we have a much better understanding of how the business and the demand engine operates now than we did three months ago, and we know more than we did six months ago, and that's good progress to me.
Mary Newville 52:38
Tell us about your leadership style and maybe some things you learned along your journey, or some advice that stuck out with you over the years.
Tom Rogers 52:46
Yeah, so I would say, I'd say that the there's a couple of things that I sort of, you know, I spend most of my time thinking about, I guess. And the first is, like, you know how we're playing the game, and whether we're, you know, we're doing it the right way. The second, and probably the best piece of advice I got as I progressed through my career, which I have to ask myself three or four times a day, right? Because I think it's just a good check and balance for me is, is, you know, the first, the first experience I had of, kind of managing a team of more than 20 people. I was very comfortable being in the weeds with the team, doing the work day to day, and sort of, you know, operating in kind of my my my previous sort of natural sort of habitat. And I had a senior leader come to me once, and they said, I'm going to give you the best piece of advice I was ever given, and I want you to really think about it every day. And what they said to me was, how much of your day is spent doing work that you are uniquely qualified to do. You are the only person on your team that can do that work, and if it's less than 80% you're doing yourself a disservice, and you're doing your team a disservice because you're not allowing them to do meaningful work either. And so I'm not always the best at holding that line, but, but it's one of the things I check myself on constantly, is like, Am I doing things that I'm uniquely qualified to do or or am I inhibiting others, other team members, opportunity to grow or take on more meaningful work for themselves? Because I'm sort of doing things that they are more than capable of driving. And so I say, like that, one sticks with me. Me a lot, you know. And I would say, you know, style or ethos is, you know, a couple of things. One is, you know, I think we're really, really, really keen and really focused on, you know, how do we give the teams the ability to feel like they have accountability, feel like they're trusted to own those decisions, and feel like they are supported to make those decisions that are appropriate for their businesses, right? And so, you know, we talk about sort of shared accountability. Eat a lot. I think that's probably the first thing. And then the second thing is, is really trying to build this, you know, cultural or belief system around, you know, we win together, right? So, you know, we talk a lot about sort of individual successes and examples where, you know, individuals or teams have had a ton of success, you know, really, like, it's a team sport, and it should be a team sport, and that's not just within my department or the marketing team. It's really within the revenue organization, right? One of the, you know, the the oddest experiences I ever had that was a real learning moment for me, was couple of organizations ago, I went to a QBR, and the marketing team got up and presented all of these things around, you know, have phenomenal performance the marketing engine had delivered, you know, in the last quarter, and how, you know, everything was green and smashing it and perfect. And the sales leader got up and presented that they hit 50% of the number and and I promised myself leaving the room, that we would never get into this situation again, and that, you know, we win as one team, we lose as one team, but we do it together. And so really trying to, like, you know, drive that, that thought process, that behavior and that accountability, not just to ourselves, but to the wider revenue engine, I think, is a key component of a successful team as well.
Mary Newville 56:18
Yeah, I love that. I feel like you're touching on so many of our culture tenants in being stronger together and so many things like innovating to advance and owning the outcome. But I love hearing you just talk about winning as one team and collaborating across all these different departments to find success together. Yeah.
Tom Rogers 56:40
I mean, ultimately, you know, when it when it's successful, right? You know, it's is, as I said, you can, you can have that sort of healthy level of friction between, you know, the the sales, the customer success team, and the marketing team. And sometimes that's good, right? Sometimes that that provokes different thinking or different perspective, but, but ultimately, you know, we're all working towards the same number, we're all working towards the same outcome. And, you know, I don't have many sort of pet peeves in the world, but, you know, I think again, the team would say one of the things I'm pretty militant about is, you know, we got to talk the same language as the rest of the organization, right? There are things that are very important in the marketing world that we should care about, that we should work towards, you know, how effective our digital programs are, how effective our email programs are, how we're doing and, you know, in our field events, but ultimately, when we talk to the rest of the business, we're talking about what is our impact on revenue and what is our impact on pipeline, because that's what they care about. So we really focus time and effort trying to understand that and trying to really determine what is impacting those things, because that means that we're in the boat together with those teams. And it really is a partnership at that point around how do we get to the outcome, which is essentially growing the revenue for the business?
Chelsea Lowman 57:54
Wow, well, I don't, I don't have a question, but I did just want to share that I loved the philosophy around reflecting. If you know, if more than 80% of my day I'm doing things that I am not uniquely qualified to do, then you know, maybe I need to take a step back. I've just never heard it articulated in that way. I really liked I really liked that. So shout out to whoever you heard that from. Well, yeah, I was
Tom Rogers 58:24
gonna say that it was, it was very provocative at the time, because, because I lied to myself for a while, and was like, No, I really am. I really am. And actually, when I really sort of deciphered what the message was underneath, I was like, Yeah, I'm not doing this particularly effectively, yeah.
Mary Newville 58:39
Well, I definitely was thinking to myself. I was like, oh, we gotta flag this part of the podcast, because this needs to be our we like to clip a little short that we also share. And I'm like, that has to be the short so we can pass the nugget.
Tom Rogers 58:53
There you go. There you go. Good marketing for the podcast, yeah.
Chelsea Lowman 58:59
After we had Alina on the podcast. She has us thinking about all new ways to market this podcast.
Tom Rogers 59:05
I can probably help you with, help you figure out whether you know the numbers and the downloads and the other stuff. But she's, she's the brains behind the real creative idea is, I definitely refer to her on that
Chelsea Lowman 59:18
well before we get to our rapid fire, our final fun questions. We always do like to talk about mental health and well being just quickly. So if you could just share a little bit, what does well being look like for you? Like, how do you live that out? And then, how do you also model that for your team and support your the well being of your team
Tom Rogers 59:38
as well? Yeah. I mean, so So this, this is one, this is one that, you know, that that balance between work and non work, right? That I've I definitely, it's definitely a work in progress for me, right? I I enjoy the work. I think that's the first thing, and so, you know, I probably dedicate. Myself to it, you know, an unreasonable amount of the time in certain situations or certain occasions. I would say there's probably a couple of things that that I've, I've learned over my career that are probably the most meaningful to me. One is, you know, I think particularly I learned this during during covid, is this sort of, you know, traditional sort of day working period, right? That, and particularly being a remote employee, I found that actually, like breaking my day up into different chunks and giving myself some space and time during the day just to do kind of little resets or rethinks on things, is is super meaningful to me. And so, like, I'm one of the I'm a night person, so I'm actually probably at my most productive between about 830 and 10 in the evening. So that's when I kind of tried to do a lot of my sort of thinking and and planning and try to figure out kind of stuff. And so that's just a balance that works for me, right? I'm less productive in the morning. And so, you know, I think, I think I've learned that, like taking, finding a schedule that works for me as much as possible, that doesn't impact what I need to do with with other people within the organization, has probably been a big thing for me. And then the second is, and like it's gonna, it's gonna sound a little cliche, is like trying to have some perspective on, you know, the the criticality of like, you know, what we're doing. You know, I was again, when I think about like, people that I've worked for and with that have really shaped my perspective on stuff. You know, I used to get frustrated when when things weren't either perfect or things weren't going as quickly as possible. And I remember one of my one of my boss at the time said to me, he said, he said, you're not saving people's lives, man, like, you know, it's not like you're out there, you know, flying a air ambulance, or you're a surgeon or something like that, right? Like, get some perspective, clear your head and kind of just rethink, you know, the criticality of some of this stuff. And so, you know, I would say, you know, when we all have these moments where, you know, things can feel a little bit overwhelming, or you're trying to figure out which one of these 15 things that we need to make progress on, do I do? I do first? And again, it's a little cliche, but it's, it's a good grounding thing for me to just reset myself and really think about, okay, well, like, what is the problem at hand and you know, I'm not saving people's lives over here, right? So that's always a good point. And then I think for the team, you know, it's, it's again, giving, giving them space to find the right motions that work for them. I will say, you know, you know. And I think just being very transparent about it, right? So, as I said, like my most productive time period of the day is probably in the in the in the early evening, right or mid evening. But I'm very clear with the team that if they hear from me at that point, or they see emails, or they see me adding comments and documents, that is not an expectation, that they're then needing to reply to them or action them or do something right. So I think, I think that's a large part of it as well. And then I think, you know, encouraging people to take vacations, to be transparent about where they are. You know, we had an individual on the team a couple of weeks ago that was dealing with some some issues that were family related, that needs to be the priority, right? You know, we shouldn't be living in an environment or a team where you know, if one person needs some time to resolve some things in their life, that the whole thing crumbles right? And so I think being respectful of where people are at and and making sure that they're comfortable being vulnerable and and transparent about what they need, and then backing them when that happens is is equally as important.
Mary Newville 1:03:41
Clip it. Yeah, building us on teams. There's no single point of failure, and you can all rely on each other. Yeah, so much good stuff. This has been such a delightful conversation. I'm so excited for the Pack, those that don't know you already, to get to know you better and to learn about some a peek behind the curtain, into into your part of the oars, lots of leadership wisdom. So thank you so much for your time.
Tom Rogers 1:04:05
Although it's been great, I've really enjoyed it. It's lovely to connect with you both.
Chelsea Lowman 1:04:09
Okay, well, before we let you go, we have our rapid fire thing that comes to your mind, okay, okay, best concert of your life.
Tom Rogers 1:04:19
Oh, that's an easy one. I am not a big concert goer, but I saw oasis in New Jersey last August for Labor Day weekend. Oasis were like the, you know, post Charles when I was when I was in my late teens or in my formative years. And so seeing those guys was by far and away the best concert I've ever had in my life. Very lucky. My went with my wife the weekend, and she told me that it was better than the day we got married. And I was not disagreeing with her.
Mary Newville 1:04:57
That's. Counter. Great answer,
Chelsea Lowman 1:05:02
wow, I'm jealous. I didn't know they've toured.
Tom Rogers 1:05:05
Yeah, yeah, well, they just about kept it together for for the tour. It's amazing, Chelsea, what you do when you when you need to make money quickly, right? Tolerate things that maybe you wouldn't have tolerated before.
Chelsea Lowman 1:05:18
Those royalties off wonder wall aren't cutting it anymore. Yeah, okay, favorite word
Tom Rogers 1:05:26
I've got two. One is inquisitive because, because I just I love, I'm very naturally inquisitive myself, and I love being surrounded by people that have natural inquisitiveness as well. I just think that breeds such a great culture and such a great team that that's definitely one. And then my second one would be sequence. And that's really based on a board game that we play with with my boys here that we try to play a few times a week, which is, you know, go back to like, the well being piece, like, that's my opportunity to sit and play a board game with my kids for for an air in the evening. And so sequence is a is a great board game and ton of fun if anyone goes search it up on Amazon.
Chelsea Lowman 1:06:08
Okay, how did I have so many questions, but I know we're out of time. How did you to me? Sequence is such a Midwest thing, but maybe it's not, yeah.
Tom Rogers 1:06:17
Okay, so I'm gonna give a shout out to my friend who got me on to sequence? Who was born and raised now lives in Boston, but it's from Indianapolis. Okay, that is probably where that came from,
Chelsea Lowman 1:06:29
yeah, because I only played sequence when I'd like visit my family in the Midwest. Great. My kids a place on your bucket list.
Tom Rogers 1:06:39
You know, I've been, I've been very fortunate. I've been some amazing places. You know, I always loved Tokyo. Had the opportunity to go to Ho Chi Minh city a few years ago, which was just awesome. Was the most fun I've ever, I've ever, I've ever had in a place I have this kind of longing, desire. And I don't, you know, I used to think it was Bora, Bora, and now I've just decided I don't mind, but I really want to go and get, like, one of those huts on stilts, you know that, like, go out into the ocean with the little pool thing there, you know, like all of that going on, straight into the ocean, right in no cell phone service. You know? What? If you guys seen the movie Couples Retreat, whatever it is, or the one with Jason Bateman and a bunch of the people anyway, there's a scene in there that's got like, that type of vibe, you know, Tiki heart into the wall and, like, I need some of that action.
Chelsea Lowman 1:07:32
I mean, same. But they don't have bathrooms in there, do they?
Mary Newville 1:07:37
No, they do. Chelsea, they're like, they can, you can get, like, luxury ones,
1:07:40
yeah, okay, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mary Newville 1:07:48
And then,
Chelsea Lowman 1:07:53
conversely, I want, like, the ice dome, like the see through dome in Iceland, where you can, like, see the Northern Light, see, that'd be cool.
Tom Rogers 1:08:02
See, I'm all for the people, for the for the folks, you know, like, they want to go on a vacation for, you know, education or experience. Like, I'm all for that. That's phenomenal. I just want to cocktail and, like, one of those little hot things, and just to lie there.
Chelsea Lowman 1:08:16
You want a vacation. That's the vibe I'm going for. Okay, last two what's something that people often get wrong about, you?
Tom Rogers 1:08:24
Ooh, good one. Probably that I am, that I'm a little more fiery than probably people, people think I am. So, you know, I try to be, you know, try to set, set the example, or be sort of the calm, you know, the the calm sort of leader in the in the in the choppy waters, right? You know, playing a lot of sport growing up, I'm very competitive. Like, very, yeah, I mean, board game night in our house can get pretty, you know, pretty wild. I'm very competitive. And so I think there's a little bit of, like, natural fireness that comes with that competitive streak and that competitive nature that I definitely have to temper.
Chelsea Lowman 1:09:05
Okay, do you know your zodiac sign?
Tom Rogers 1:09:08
I'm a Virgo. Oh, okay, so year of the monkey.
Chelsea Lowman 1:09:14
That's I'm also year of the monkey. Wow, probably
1:09:18
not the same year, luckily for you, but same cycle.
Chelsea Lowman 1:11:33
Well, Tom, this has been so fun, getting to know you even better. I'll see you when. When will you be in Minnesota again? Week today? Okay, well, I'll see see you next week. See you next week. Yep. Thanks again. So much.
1:11:57
Podcast. Great. Spend time. You both. Thank you. Wow.
Chelsea Lowman 1:12:02
Another great episode in the books. Love chatting with Tom. He's always in the Minnesota office, so it's just, I've gotten a chance to know him, so I'm glad you finally heard so
Mary Newville 1:12:13
much about him. So it was really nice to spend the time and get to know all about the things he's doing here.
Chelsea Lowman 1:12:17
Yes, well, another reminder is Women's History Month. Happy Women's History Month. This March, we've got lots of other things going on around the Pack. It's Pi Day, St Patrick's Day, global Employee Appreciation Day. So make sure that you've read the Howler newsletter. You're in the Haller Slack channel, to stay up to date on all of the fun things.
Mary Newville 1:12:37
And if you're not part of the Pack, but want to join us on our mission to join and cyber risk you can find all our open positions at Arctic, Wolf Comm, backslash careers. We hope this finds you well, and we'll chat with you all in April. Bye.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai