Lou Saviano
ISE® Northeast People’s Choice Award Winner 2015
My first involvement with the T.E.N. ISE® Programs Series began in 2015 when I was nominated by Tripwire for the ISE® Executive of the Year Award category at ISE® Northeast. We have been a customer with Tripwire for the last few years, given a few presentations to them, and participated in conversations with their executives. According to Tripwire executives, they believed I was worthy of a nomination for the ISE® Award due to my diligence and passion displayed during our collaborative efforts.
At the ISE® Northeast Executive Forum and Awards, I was very impressed with the cross-section of professionals from different industries and the high integrity of the individuals in attendance. During the Executive Forum everyone displayed so much honesty on important security topics, opening up to discuss valuable issues and providing so much to learn from the varied industries and experiences. With the constantly changing landscape of the security field, events where these current developments can be discussed are vital to the industry. It really proves that security professionals show a genuine interest in working together through the topics and the challenges we all face, no matter what company you come from.
Winning the ISE® 2015 People’s Choice Award rewarded me with a lot of personal satisfaction. In my passion for this career I have devoted much of my time and resources working diligently to make Skillsoft the best technology company it can be, and the recognition I received at the ISE® Northeast Awards Gala made all the hard work feel very rewarding. What made it so special is it wasn’t just some distant, third-party company choosing me for the award strictly from a business standpoint—it was my industry peers genuinely recognizing me for my hard work and celebrating my accomplishments.
After the event itself, the recognition and award I received led to significantly more contact from peers within Skillsoft and from network connections in the information security industry who wanted to congratulate me for my award. Professionals and executives from other companies came to me asking to examine their strategy and plans, seeking my counsel and feedback on their product roadmaps. The award and recognition at T.E.N.’s program has expanded my previous mentoring commitments to now include security industry companies who now respect me and consider me a trusted advisor as a result of winning the award. The new relationships I’ve established thanks to participating in ISE® Northeast are with some of the best people in the industry, both within my own company and outside of it.
As for the T.E.N. team itself, I was very impressed with the professionalism I encountered. This team has a genuine interest in what these executives are accomplishing in their companies, and want their events to benefit the industry as a whole so we may collectively improve our security teams and strategies. There is a lot of integrity within T.E.N. and you can see it both in each member of the team and feel it in their events.
I recommend that any security executive interested in these programs should attend them and nominate either themselves, their team, or a fellow industry peer for an award. The more people you can interact and share ideas with, the more valuable the event—and T.E.N.’s ISE® Program Series has proven to be extremely valuable. The security field is so specialized and niched, and as a result many professionals and teams do not receive the industry recognition and appreciation they deserve. At the ISE® Executive Forum and Awards, you benefit from all that and more. The feedback from your peers, recognition for your hard work, and collaborative learning the forums provide are all invaluable pieces of information to improve the confidence you have in yourself and in your career moving forward.