Adam Torres and Rodrigo Loureiro discuss advising VCs and the C-Suite.
Subscribe: iTunes / Spotify / Stitcher / RSS
Apply to be a guest on our podcast here
Show Notes:
Assessing security measures and identifying potential improvements is an important function of the C-Suite. In this episode, Adam Torres interviewed Rodrigo Loureiro, CEO of CyberVerse Advisors & Cyber Connective Corp. Explore cybersecurity, Cyber Connective Corp., and the upcoming book Rodrigo will be launching with Mission Matters.
Watch Full Interview:
About Rodrigo Loureiro
As a distinguished Tech CEO and Bestselling Author, Rodrigo is a forward-thinking leader with a strong background in technology, business strategy, and enterprise transformation. Rodrigo is a sought-after keynote speaker at industry conferences, fireside chats, and panel discussions, sharing his insights and experiences with the global tech community.
CEO at NewPush, Rodrigo is a Technology focused CEO, an experienced CIO and CISO providing executive management services, as well as executive management operational services.
As as best seller author of ‘Game On – Leaders Who Last’ ( https://shorturl.at/hmEL7 ), wrote about the importance of adaptability and open-mindedness for leaders across industries, especially in the ever-changing technology landscape.With a unique combination of strategic and analytical expertise, Rodrigo excel at driving performance and aligning strong teams with organizational objectives. As the author of ‘Game On – Leaders Who Last’, he has emphasized the crucial role adaptability and open-mindedness play for leaders in today’s ever-evolving technology landscape.
As an Operational Partner at the Executive Enterprise Venture Fund with the Executive Council Network (ECN), he collaborates closely with the management team to develop and refine investment strategies. Rodrigo’s focus is on identifying and investing in privately-owned, groundbreaking Cybersecurity and AI companies that shape the future of the digital economy. Rodrigo is actively involved in conducting due diligence on potential investments, evaluating their business models, management teams, and growth potential.
As the Global Chief Information Officer of Laureate Education, Rodrigo supervised a worldwide organization with 1,810 employees and managed a $215M IT budget.
Rodrigo’s executive responsibilities encompass Information Security, Enterprise Architecture, IT Infrastructure, and Operations, ensuring the delivery of 24/7 world-class infrastructure services.
As a C-level IT executive, Rodrigo delivered robust results with experience as CIO, CTO, and CISO for global organizations, as well as an executive consultant to Fortune 500 companies across the financial, telecom, and education industries.
Rodrigo’s accomplishments are fueled by his ability to spearhead initiatives in IT and Information Security leadership, management, corporate technological performance, administration, policies and procedures, information management, planning, and enterprise architecture.
About CyberVerse Advisors
Innovative and Disruptive Cyber Digital Transformation Advisory Services
New technologies are emerging every day, including advances in areas like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and bioengineering. These technologies have the potential to disrupt industries but most organizations lack the time, skills or resources to invest in these opportunities.
Virtual and Interim Technology focused CEO, CIO/CTO/CDO or CISO, advisory services to Boards, Business Owners, CEOs and their executive teams in small and mid-market companies with a laser
focus on profitable sales growth, strategic execution, people development and business diversification.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to missionmatters. com and click on be our guest to apply. All right. So today is a very special episode. We got some announcements going on.
These are one of my favorite episodes. So first off, we have Rodrigo Lario on the line, who is the CEO of Cyberverse Advisors, and I’m proud to announce the newly minted. Cyber Connective Corp. Rodrigo. Hey, first, I just want to say welcome back to the show. Thank you. It’s great to be back, Adam. Oh, man. So we got, we got a book coming out that we’re working on together.
But today, the the main event and what I’m really excited about is to get into your concept and the new startup that you’re launching as well. So CyberConnectiveCorp. So we’re going to get into all of this, of course. And I’ll hold myself back for a moment, though, because we’re going to start this episode the way that we start them all.
With what we like to call our Mission Matters Minute. So Rodrigo, we at Mission Matters, we amplify stories for entrepreneurs, executives, and experts. That’s our mission. Rodrigo, what mission matters to you? Well, in one word, the mission, the mission that matters to me is technology and the intelligent use of technology.
I think that there’s nothing. And I’m biased, of course, but there’s nothing more important of and more crucial and critical for our society than to than technology and the intelligence use of technology and technology like so many other things is a tool, and it can be used for the good and can be used for for the bad and for me, my mission is the intelligent use of technology and ensuring that the.
The technology is used for the good and for the progress and the advancement of our society. Yeah, that’s great. Love bringing mission based individuals and entrepreneurs on the line to share their mission. You know why they do what they do, how they’re doing it and what we can all learn from it. So we grow together.
So great having you back on. And I know we had this script and all these other things we’re going to go through. But man, I can’t wait. So Cyber Connective Corp. Like, tell me this story. I know we’ve been talking about this for a while, but let’s just start with that one. Like, like, how’d this come about?
Yeah. Well, it’s really a long story in the making, right? I think we talked and you interviewed me probably about a year ago. Yeah. This idea was already germinating in my head. And you know, coming and having left the corporate world in early 22, you know, that idea was germinating in my head in terms of the intelligent use of technology and the, and the advantage advancement of our society with technology.
And you know it always takes longer than you think, you know, I think when we talked about here, Oh, next month, I’ll get it done. And here we are a month later, a year later, and it was. You know, 30 minutes to, to a go that we finally coined the, the, the name of the company. I’m sure you’ve been in, in some of these meetings where you’re talking with the, with your lawyers, you’re incorporating the company and they, and they go like, that name is taken.
You need to come up with a different name. Then it was like back and forth, back and forth. And then suddenly CyberConnective. And then. Touch on the computer. It’s available. Do it. Oh my gosh. So CyberConnective Corporation, you know, it’s going to be incorporated this week. And it’s all going to be about the intelligent use of cyber security.
CyberConnective Corporation, the idea of the CyberConnective Corporation is really… All those connections, all of the, all of that data, all of the information that exists in the corporations in the, in the world and the finding of the needle in the haystack and understanding what is wrong with the environment, what is wrong with the cyber security and this technology allows you to pinpoint and find what needs to be fixed in your cyber in your environment to increase your cyber security and safeguard your organization?
That’s great. And I know, so one of the concepts that we’ve kind of talked about is this idea of we, we know the, the, the, you know, the C. I. S. O. So the chief information security officer, but that concept of like bringing virtual capabilities, maybe to the seat into, into, you know, other companies, like maybe talk, get, tell us a little bit more about that in that concept.
Yes. So, you know, I’ve, I was a CISL for, for about seven years for. a very large global corporation before that spent many years as a CISO in the financial world, and it’s a very uncomfortable world. You know, there’s this meme about the How do the C level sleep and then you have the CEO and he’s sleeping on his side and the, the, the, the, the CFO, he’s sleeping on, on, on the back.
And then you, you, you have the empty bed and this is how the CISO lives, lives rather. So it’s a, it’s a very difficult and, and uncomfortable situation. So the CISOs need all the help that they can get. And the idea is that we can through technology and. You know, obviously it’s very fashionable to work to talk about the artificial intelligence right now, but I, we have evidences in, in the, in the interview that we recorded a year ago that I was already talking about ai Yeah.
And use of ai, the creation of this virtual cso mm-hmm. To help the CSOs in, in the organization. And also because this is part of, of the missions matters. Mm-hmm. What matters to me in terms, in terms of my mission, because. Large organizations, they tend to have deep pockets. They can hire a high level and high good C.
I. S. O. S. What about the small businesses? What about the medium businesses that they can’t afford a C. I. S. O. So I think that that’s where technology can can come in. And that’s where I can come in. And and start providing to smaller organizations that perhaps cannot afford. A full time CISO, but they can’t afford a virtual CISO.
And my organization is, is also about the fractional CISOs, but I think that the virtual CISO and the intelligent CISO is actually even a better solution for a small business and can act. As a sounding board for the CISOs of the large organizations. So the mission is really to bring AI into the CISO world.
And I, and I have some questions on that, but before, before we get into that, I think probably we should spend a little bit of time on so that people understand the fractional side of things too. Is on the cyberverse advisors and what you’re doing there. So maybe, maybe talk a little bit about that before we before we dig deeper.
Yes. And you know, the. I spent 20 years in, in the, in the consulting world worked in, in, in finance and in, in that many different industries as, as a consultant. And then I spent about 10 years working as a CIO and the CISO. So. Although I’ve, I’ve done the work of the CIO, I’ve done the work of the CISO, you know, the advisor and the consulting, that’s, that’s in my, in my bloodstream.
And for me, you know, consultants tend to get the bad rap. And, and they say that consultants, you, you, you spend too much on, on your, on, on consultants, but for me, they, they really play a critical role. So for me, the fractional CIO and the fractional CISO is, is, is something that over underutilized resource for many organizations organizations that might not.
Have the means to have a full time CIO or CISO, but definitely can and should be able to have in their ranks somebody at that level that can provide and support at the strategy level. And that, for me, is really a very critical mission that consulting organizations can play to provide fractional.
Cyber security executives to organizations that are in need. Yeah. And, and the way I see it now is like, and I was trying to kind of wrap my head around your model and what you were doing. And I feel like, you know, other positions may be in the C suite or otherwise have, or even just departments overall, like they’ve kind of gone through some of these transformations, I guess.
The closest example just off the top of my head would be maybe like the CFO, right? Like so certain companies that maybe they’re not quite big enough yet for have a full time or the type of CFO they want, but they need support for their internal staff. So maybe they hire some fractional services or consultants to help lead the direction of the finances and otherwise.
And then maybe there is some type of, you know, other, well, of course there is other types of technologies and things that they’re using to support the functions of both the, fractional CFO and also the internal staff that are actually managing the day to day work. Am I, I’m trying to make, you know, make sense of all this.
Am I, does this kind of apply to what you’re doing except on the technology side of things specifically around the CISO’s role? Am I kind of off on this or like help me with that? No, you’re not off. That’s exactly that’s exactly what what I talk about when I talk about the fractional CISOs, the fractional C level executive, you know, unfortunately, as I said, it’s underutilized by organizations.
It has a bad reputation in the marketplace and but I think it’s undeserved. I think that organizations are much better served by having access to a C level executive that has the experience of being a C level executive. So if they can’t afford a 100 percent CSO, it’s better to have access to somebody that can guide the staff than try to identify within the staff somebody.
That play that role, but, but doesn’t have the qualifications for it. So for me, it’s a, it’s very critical for our organizations today to understand that they’re better off by having a fractional CISO than none at all. Yeah. And I know and you mentioned obviously your background, your consulting and you know, your tenure with, you know, working with large corporations and large companies.
So I know one of the things that you’re also, you know, highly involved in is advising VCs and really the C suite just in general on technology moving forward. How did you kind of, like, like, how did you get into that piece of things once you maybe, let’s just say, exited the the corporate world and, and began your entrepreneurial journey?
Like, how did all that take place? You know, it was when I was, you know, before I, I was at at Lafayette as a, as a CISO CIO there. I played a role internally in my previous consulting company. I played a role as part of the due diligence team for the M& A group. So when, when the, when the corporation wanted to acquire new companies, I was part of the due diligence.
that would go and evaluate the company. And I was in charge of evaluating them from a technology and cyber security perspective. So when I left Lafayette last year, I really thought, well, that was something that I really enjoyed. And and, and when I, when I started cyberverse advisors, that was something that I.
told to myself, well, you know, here I am 30 years in the corporate world. I’m now starting my own business. And you know maybe this will lead a little bit for us to talk about the book that is, that is coming, but it’s really about ensuring that you have a good work and life balance and making sure that you are, you are doing what you like and what you enjoy.
So that was the question that I asked myself. What do I want cyberverse advisors to do? And that was something that I thoroughly enjoyed. I made, I made a point of getting involved in those areas. Yeah. And I know some of the some of the organizations or things you work with often like the alchemist accelerators, you work with different accelerators ECN tell me a little bit more about the work and kind of how you, how you really just dove in, into this whole field.
Yeah, you know, it, it’s interesting, I dove in at the wrong time, because we’ll know what’s happened in 2022, mm-hmm. Where with, with the crisis in the financial markets. Mm-hmm. So kind of the, all the, the, the, the funds available for venture capitalists and, and private equity funds kind of took a dive.
Hmm. So that’s why I jokingly said that I got involved at the wrong time because the, the, the. The money was not flowing as it was in, in the, in the, in the previous years, but that’s, that’s really what, what I got involved because, you know, my, my function, actually I say that I got involved at the wrong time.
I probably should say it’s at the right time because. When there’s plenty of money to go around, you kind of invest in everything that moves, but when the money has not readily available, then the function of the advising and identifying the good startup from the bad startup, the startup high potential with a, with a startup from the low potential, that’s when, when there’s not so many funds available.
that then that becomes extremely more important and valuable. And so so trying to understand, trying to judge. Yes, this is a high potential startup versus this is a startup that has either too much competition in there. Trying to go into a market that, that is not going to grow. And that, that becomes a mission that matters.
What’s one of your favorite things about kind of working with these accelerators and just evaluating these new companies. Cause to me, I mean, I get to have conversations like with individuals, like, and. For, for the record, I mean, come on, you, you launched a, you launched, I think we’re one of the first people outside of your lawyers and yourself that and the people in the room that you’ve already talked to in the last, since coming on the show, but we’re one of the first people to know the name of your new company and your new startup, I love, I love being a part of this, this is what gets me excited and fired up what, what excites you about working in this community and that startup community and evaluating these companies?
You know, it’s the you know, I had a colleague back, back at Lloyd that always used to say is the conversation of the possibilities. And what really excites me about being in this world, it’s, it’s, it’s a conversation where everything is possible, where you are literally daydreaming. And for me, that’s, that’s, that, that’s.
That’s, you know, I, I, we can’t leave without dreaming, you know I’ve I’ve always been a very ambitious person. I’ve always been a very there’s no, no challenge that I ever said no. And I always raised my hand to, to face a new challenge. So being involved in those startups, being involved in in, in those big ideas and what we can turn it into.
10 years from today for me, that that’s really what what really drives me is really drafting those ideas, imagining those concepts and then taking them to, to bringing them to reality. Yeah. What, what do you like about working with the VC community? Like specifically, I mean, just the, the people that are actually deploying the capital.
I, I feel like that has to. Maybe even provide some unique insight to the way that they’re thinking as well on the, on that side of things. Of course, you’re bringing the technology standpoint and, and ultimately kind of hopefully validating or saying, you know, giving your opinion either way on, on on the technology side, but anything specific that stands out like working with the VC community.
Yeah. It’s a, it’s a very interesting question, right? You know, obviously the VC community can have a very bad reputation, right? You know, it’s the financial world. Unfortunately you know, the capitalist system is the least worst of all the systems. I love the way you put that. So for me you can view all the defects and the problems that capitalism has and you can say, Oh VCs are only in it for the money.
Well, yeah, that’s true. They’re only in it for the money, but that’s what really unlocks our future. You know, without the VCs, without, without that investment, you know, we wouldn’t have Google we wouldn’t have Airbnb. We wouldn’t have all of those big companies that I think we can all agree that brought something to, to our world and to our society that is positive.
So yes you know, they’re in it for the money, but they’re also what allows dreams to come, to become reality. Thank you. Yeah, well said. And I guess the same kind of, we’ve talked a bit about the the VC side of things, but I know you also work actively with the C suite and other large companies that might be looking at, you know, acquiring new technologies or expanding or a lot of different things or testing ideas that they’re currently worked on internally, like a lot of different ways to kind of slice that one.
Like how, how, how does that all take place? Like, how do you kind of get in a company and, and work with the C suite for those larger corporations? That’s also the, the continuation of, of bringing dreams and visions to, to, to reality, we know that in, in the world today. It’s, it’s very difficult to what, what, as they call it to grow organically.
So companies are always looking at acquisitions as a way to grow. And you know, for example, you, you, they don’t get a lot of credit. They don’t let, they don’t get a lot of publicity around it, but one of the biggest acquisition machines in the world is Apple, they don’t advertise it, but they have an absolutely fantastic acquisition machine and I.
Acquire and incorporate technology in and bring it into their, into their product. So for me, any serious organization, any large organization that is intent in growing, they need to look at acquisitions. They, they constantly need to be scanning the market, looking at what the market is doing, identifying the technology.
Bringing the technology to enhance their, their, their own products. So any really good company needs to look at m and a as part of their, of their strategy. You cannot be a large company without a, a significant investment in scanning for new technologies and incorporating those new technologies into their product set.
Yeah, and one of the things, so just kind of circling back to something that you mentioned earlier about like the fractional model and how all these things work to me, I’ve always been a big fan of the fractional model because I guess, well, for one, because we’ve used it internally, but as a company, but also and I see the benefits, but also it just kind of, to me, when you step back and look at it, it kind of makes sense from the standpoint of when you have one individual that’s, you know, in house working, which is, of course but they’re, they’re day in and day out working on your company.
Of course, they may be looking to you know, you send them to a conference a couple of times a year. They, they subscribe to the industry newsletters. They do whatever it needs to be to keep their, their skills fresh and to. Stay like current on whatever’s happening in the industry. That’s great. But then you look at the other side of bringing in a consultant or somebody fractional who may have a whole book of clients from different industries and different and different different size of companies, but there’s more learning to be done when you’re doing that day to day, because I feel like that.
Cross pollinization of ideas and learning and things like to get that internally, whether it just, it’s just not the same. Am I, am I off on that? No, I, I don’t, I don’t, I don’t think you’re, you’re, you’re off. You, you know, it’s, it’s a real dilemma and, and, and the real problem. You know, I’ve been a consultant, I’ve been a consultant and you know, one of the uncomfortable situations is that sometimes organizations treat their consultants as, I’m going to call them second class citizens.
Yeah. You know, I I remember, you know, working in, in, in, in my company and, you know, we had a back room and, you know, kind of the, the room that had the, the, the old chairs and the old tables, and it was the consultant’s room where we shoved all the consultants in. You know, the guys that, that we came in and we put them, so unfortunately there is there, there is a tendency for companies to, to, to devalue the, the, the value that consultants bring and I would advise against it.
You know, there’s no better tool than, than, than a good consultant or a fractional resource in your organization. Yeah. And the good consultants. Because there have also there are also the good consultants and the bad consultants. For sure. The good consultants, they wear the shirt of the client and there’s no better value for a, for an organization to find and work with with a good consultant that can bring them expertise and experience they do not have internally.
And you know, generally consultants do. Always work with the best interest of the clients in mind, the organization can really only grow by using consultants. I will tell you a story in my own organization, you know, when I came to, in 2015, I came in as the chief information security office and then on day one, I find myself in, in, in a room.
And the entire security information security department was me, myself, and I, and very quickly, I actually decided on a strategy that I was going to use contract to hire as a strategy to build my team. And I build a team of close to a hundred people a few years later, and my best people came from consultants and contractors that I Onboarded, and then when I saw the value that they brought, then I hired them as an, as employees.
And still today, I found that that’s a very good strategy to use consultants, bring the value. And then if you really need, then you turn them into employees. Of course, companies don’t like me to say this, but that’s definitely a good strategy that I would advise organizations to have a good contract to hire strategy.
So Rodrigo, I do want to spend a little bit of time on on the book that we’re launching together today. So just for everybody watching this, just to let you know, we’re not going to spend too much time on it. This is just a little teaser and it’s intentional because we will be bringing Rodrigo back onto the show.
When the book is actually live and out. And obviously we want you to pick up a copy, but for today’s conversation Rodrigo kind of keeping it high level. What are some of the things you hope to propose in the upcoming book? And I’m not holding you to this. I know we’re still in editing, but what are some of the things you hope to propose?
When I became a CIO, I became a CIO two weeks before COVID hit you know, COVID brought to our life and our societies, a reevaluation of our priorities. All of a sudden, you know, we were starting to question the value of the workplace, the value of us, you know. Of us type A personalities that only have time for job and we don’t have time for ourselves or our family or our loved ones.
And the book is all about that. I, it it’s all about really making sure that we have a good and proper work, work-life balance. Mm-hmm. And I think is a theme that was important at at, at at, at covid. And obviously it was very important because, you know I may be exaggerating, but you know, technology saved the day, right?
You know, how could all the business continue without the tools that we are using today, right? So technology saved the day. And, and, and for me, I’m very dissatisfied with some of the other business leaders that are in our society that are now trying to force everybody back to the office and the book and my thoughts are a little bit about business leaders.
reevaluating themselves and, and really thinking, you know, do we really want to go back to the, to, to the way of working that we had before? I mean, we were forced into it by COVID, but we stumbled into a work model that actually serves better people, serves better our lives. And I think I truly believe this.
Also serves better the organizations. So the book is a reflection in terms of our work models, our philosophy and our balance between the lives of the employees and the success of the corporations. It’s great. I’m going to cut you off there. Got a ton of questions, but saving them for the next time. And just want to tell you, Hey, it’s been, I’m, I’m excited to go on this journey with you and to get this book published.
So yeah, so we’re still, we’re still putting everything together. We’re still doing the final touches in the backend, but for everybody watching more to come, don’t worry. But for today, Rodrigo again, been great having you on the show. I just have to ask what’s next. I mean, what’s next for you.
What’s next for CyberConnectiveCorp, CyberverseAdvisors? You got a lot going on. What’s next? You know, what’s next? It’s actually not what, what’s next. It’s, you know, I, you know, I, funny enough, I had, I was having this conversation earlier, earlier this morning. You know, I also started a foundation, a non profit foundation about a year ago, and I have not devoted enough time to my non profit foundation, which is about cycling, which is the other passion in my life.
I have technology and cycling is also my passion and my wish for, for the, for the second half of this year or into 2040 is that I have more time to devote to, to my cycling and bound foundation and building. That foundation and really turning cycling into something that is more accepted in the U.
S. Society. I’m I have European origins and in Europe. Cycling is a very well accepted way of transport. But I think we’re trailing there in our In the U. S. And I hope to play a role in terms of growing the acceptance of commuting by bike and enjoying nature and extending our healthy lives through cycling.
Man, it’s great. Love to love to help you and to continue to promote your efforts. And also I’m going to hear more about about your nonprofit. That being said, if somebody is watching this and they want to connect with you and your team to learn more about your companies or nonprofit or otherwise, what’s the best way for people to do that?
Well, connect with me on, on, on LinkedIn you know Rodrigo Lohé, who can look me up by Cycling Unbound, by Foundation, Cyberverse Advisors my, my company. And by the time this goes live, you can Google Cyber Connected Corporation, and you’ll be able to get in touch with us. That’s fantastic. And we’ll put, we’ll put all that information by the way, in the show notes so that our audience can just click on the links and head right on over and definitely connect with a Rodrigo on LinkedIn.
Speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with mission matters or engaging in an episode, we’re all about bringing on business owners, entrepreneurs, and executives, and having them share. Their mission, the reason behind their mission, you know, why they do what they do and what we can all learn from that.
So that we all grow together. That’s the whole point of this platform is that we all want to grow together. If that’s the type of content that sounds interesting or fun or exciting to you, we welcome you. Hit that subscribe button. We have many more mission based individuals coming up on the line and we don’t want you to miss a thing.
Rodrigo really, man, appreciate you coming back on the show. Can’t wait till the next time we get to do this. Yeah. Thanks again for coming on. Thank you and talk to you soon.