It was two decades ago that Jeff Ogden, General Manager, Mimecast ME, first considered a career in cybersecurity.
“I was working at a company called Ifor (I for internet) with two friends in 1998. It was a web hosting business in the .com era and we grew it to 25 people in two years,” he said.
“That got me interested in managed security services and when Symantec came knocking I joined them as their managed services director for the Middle East. The rest, as they say, is history.”
Management styles vary between individuals but, in his current position, Ogden has learned that managing a team requires ‘humility, humanity, teamwork and purpose’.
“So, my philosophy is to communicate a clear purpose to my extended team, identify their individual contributions and help them become successful. If they are successful, then the whole team will be,” he said.
In terms of where major investment in the cybersecurity industry lies, Ogden looks to the ‘cloud’.
“While many organisations are not yet moving to cloud, it’s estimated that over 60% of GCC organisations will be in the cloud by the end of 2018. Their biggest concern therefore is how do they put workloads and critical applications into the cloud and ensure they have suitable security and redundancy,” he said.
“A recent Gartner study revealed that company IT investments have shifted from building infrastructure to deploying to and securing cloud. Securing the cloud will remain the highest priority for customers over the next two years.
“It’s also worth pointing out that email remains the number one business application used by companies as well as the number one vector used to execute cyberattacks. And with organisations moving in their droves to cloud and adopting services like Office 365, new challenges are entering the landscape. Email security therefore needs to be a priority area.”
No job role ever stays exactly the same and Ogden reflects that the role of a leader has changed – something he has witnessed first-hand.
“Firstly, this market is going through huge changes with a significant move to cloud for many organisations. My role has changed to ensure that our teams innovate to address the needs of our customers both with technology but also in our ability to be commercially agile,” he added.
“Going forward I can see my role becoming more focused on developing a happy and healthy team who has a good work life balance. I have worked for too many organisations that value success more than the quality of their products, the wellbeing of their staff and the happiness of their customers. I will not let Mimecast Middle East fall into that trap.”
