Why Soft Skills Win in Cybersecurity: Evgeniy Kharam on Human Connection in Tech

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Cybersecurity is not just code, it's communication.

Powered by CJ Moneyway Entertainment and the Believe Network. On this episode of the CJ Moneyway Show, CJ sits down with Evgeny Korwin, cybersecurity expert, author of The Art of Soft Skills and Technical Sales. Hey man, how you doing today?

I'm doing really well, thank you for having me. Yeah, thanks for taking the time out today to come on, man. So let me ask you a question, man. So let's start with your background, you know, your journey into cybersecurity. What sparked your interest in cybersecurity and how did your career evolve from being a firewall engineer to becoming vice president and architect of the group that you run?

I am a geek by nature. I always liked technology and always liked to tinker with stuff. Even in school, I was learning electronics and electronics and computers. Later on, I joined the Navy in Israel and was a gig there as well, was helping to fix and repair ships. And when I finished with the Navy, I had the opportunity to join a company called Check Point, one of the leaders in cybersecurity during this time and probably still. So I continued the journey. I was not still in cybersecurity, but there I learned how to understand cybersecurity, what to do with it. Later on, moved to Canada. And if any of you watching Shark Tank in US, you may know Robert Herjavec, the Croatian Shark. And I spent 17 years in Herjavec Group until about 2 and a half years ago, learning, teaching, and advancing my cybersecurity career.

Hmm. So you said that is a version of Shark Tank in Canada, or you said that you were part of Shark Tank?

No, Robert Herjavec is in Shark Tank, and there is a version of Shark Tank in Canada called Dragon Dance. And actually Robert joined Dragon Den first before he joined Shark Tank. But Robert's main business used to be cybersecurity. Shark Tank was more of his hobby. And the company used to call Horjovi Group and now the company called Sideris. I'm no longer with the company, but no, it's a bit different.

Okay. So let me ask you, man, you've worked with some of the largest enterprises across multiple continents. What were some of the key challenges you faced and how did they shape your perspective on cybersecurity?

It's a good question. One of the key challenges is alignment between the business goals and the cybersecurity initiatives. I'll give you an example. You remember probably around 5, 6 years ago, I think it was Amazon. I think it was Amazon. They decided they want to do a store where people can get in. Buy stuff and don't pay, just kind of walk in and leave. So the business objective was to create an experience for you and me where you can buy, take a phone, take a yogurt, and just leave. On a technology side, they now need to enable that this will happen. Now on the cybersecurity side, how do we make it secure? How do we make sure the payment is going? There is no fraud, we understand. So the security could be an enabler for the company. Or just say, no, it's impossible. We're never going to do it secure. Let's not do it at all. And even right now, let's look on the AI. ChatGPT came around, what, 2.5 years ago, almost 3 years ago right now. Everybody like, oh my God, this is so amazing. But there is a big security aspect. Now we understand how to secure it. So this alignment between we want to create something new, we want to create something very, very innovative. In many different spaces, but how do we make it secure? How do we make sure we protect the information? So taking this message from the business people, understand where they want to go, translate it to technical terms, and then execute this in strategy, architecture, design, and products as well.

That sounds cool, man. I see what you're saying about the cybersecurity, even with all these applications, you know, I think it was a big thing with it with TikTok, you know, not too long ago about information gets spilled out, things like that. So yeah, that's pretty cool, man. That's neat that you the man behind the scenes doing stuff like that, man. That's fascinating. So let me ask you, man, cybersecurity is constantly evolving. What are some of the biggest changes you have seen in the industry and how do you stay ahead of the curve?

Definitely moving very fast. Definitely always something changing. A long time ago, we used to pull cables. Put our own servers and make our own computers. Right now, we can go to Amazon, to Microsoft without any knowledge in compute, networking, or cabling and have a very fast server PC and do everything. So for cybersecurity, we need to adapt and understand what do we need to learn and how we stay ahead of the curve from the bad guys because we want to protect the organizations, but we also want to protect the company itself and align to it. So the challenges is how fast the industry is going, what will change, and how we stay with them. We just mentioned AI 5 minutes ago. So if the bad guys use AI to attack companies, or not just companies, we need to now use AI as well to protect. You probably heard about deepfakes. Can they take my voice, your voice, both you and me being on the internet for quite a long time and then use our voice to call our parents or call our kids and say, oh my God, CJ, God forbid, had something bad happen. We need money to help CJ or whatever they can come up with. And it's a real problem. So it means there's education part of what do we need to do in case we see a problem. There's education part to understand what are we going to Do or not do. You know, the best examples, even 20 years ago, we will teach our kids not to take candies from strangers. We will teach our kids not to go to white vans or unknown vans, or if somebody tell you parents are late in the car to pick you up, we educate kids not to do it or go call for adult. Guess what? It's the same with cybersecurity. We need to educate people at work, individuals as well, which emails they click, where they transfer the money. If the CEO calls you and says, "Hey, I need the money right now to close this deal, blah, blah, blah." Are you gonna do this or are you gonna actually validate that the CEO is a true person and not somebody trying to fraud him one way or another? So there's many different examples on the education part, but also we need to enable the companies and the users to have the right tools to secure, to protect, to defend.

Hmm, that sound like a lot. I tell you what, as we say at my job, that's above my pay grade, man. So I'm glad we got people like you. That's watching out for stuff like that because you never know.

Maybe one day you want to learn and convert, go to ChatGPT, put some prompts and say, oh my God, now I'm gonna be a cybersecurity expert.

I mess with ChatGPT a lot, man, but I never thought about that, man. I don't know, you know how it is, man. Sometimes you gotta stay in your lane. I don't know if that's my lane, man. So Let me ask you, uh, Iman, the importance of software in tech. Your book, The Art of Software Skills and Technical Sales, emphasizes the importance of communication. I see it, man, uh, look like a blueprint. Empathy and adaptability. Why do you think these skills are often overlooked in technical fields?

Well, let's give you an example. Let's say you ask me, Evgeny, how is something in cybersecurity work? And I jump in to talk about protocols, bytes and bits and transistors, tell me like, dude, I have no idea what you're talking about because I'm talking a different language. If I go talk to my friend in the same field, he will understand. If you put an accounting person and a technology person, let's say a programmer in the same room and tell them only use the acronyms you use with your buddies, they're gonna lose each other in 5 minutes because each of them gonna use different language. So the ability for me to communicate and do examples, do metaphors that other people understand, it's very, very important. This is why the soft skills. So if I talk to you, I may use a metaphor of a house. So let's pretend we want to protect the house, but we actually want to protect an organization. In the house, I may have a fence, I may have a camera, I may have an alarm, I'm gonna have a door, I'm gonna have a dog, each of them doing a function to secure the house. But an alarm can only do an alarm, cannot actually stop a guy. A dog will be able to stop a guy. A fence will be able to stop a person until a certain time if you can jump over. But the combination of the defenses will create a much better defense for your house to protect from the bad guys until the alarm will let the police go, uh, the police let it know. So I can use metaphors to explain to people what I do. But if I talk to business and I ask them, hey, we now need to spend half a million dollars on blah, do they care if I buy a blue widget or red widget? No, they pretty much care about their business strategy. How is it going to affect the business strategy? How is it going to enable them? So ability to communicate in the language people understand and it resonates with them, it's very, very important. And we have so many smart boys and girls in all the industries, not just cyber, that sometimes stuck behind their laptops and say, we hate people. I want to deal with the computers. Leave me alone. And they don't want to come out of their niche and talk about this. And I kind of always tell people, we are on sale. Like, no, I'm not in sales. I'm a techie. Okay. So you're going to your manager and ask for a raise. What do you do? I will explain how good I am. Oh, so you're pitching to your manager. You sell the idea that you're good and you need more money. Okay. Let's say you tell your wife, let's go to Italian restaurant and she wants to go to a Mexican restaurant. You're selling her the idea that you want to go to Italian restaurant and not the Mexican restaurant. And there's gazillions of examples how day by day we always in sales in one way or another. You're trying to convince your kid Eat the better food and not the junk food and give them reasons why it's a good idea. A lot, a lot of things that can be an example. And the other part, the communication between you and me is so, so dynamic. This could be our accent. This could be the way we communicate, our body language or pitch, tone. And even right now, if I'll talk to you and something's gonna happen in my house, I hope not. My communication will change because I'm gonna be less focused. Maybe I will be afraid. Or if I talk to you on the phone and you step in a puddle, now you sh— you is what? You're not gonna be as pleasant as before. So it's whole small nuances to catch when we talk to people to understand what's the better way to deliver the story, trying to deliver.

I like that, man. So the adaptability part of it, I like to find you say, man, you step— because that's true, you step into a puddle and get your shoes and socks wet, man, it changes the whole game. You know what I'm saying? Like, you're just not the same. That's just like in the wintertime when your feet get cold, it's just not the same, man. So you've spoken about the power of storytelling and using metaphors to simplify complex concept, as you were just mentioning. Can you share a specific example where this approach made a difference in your work?

Yes, 100%. Literally last week, I was helping a vendor to present to venture capital, and this particular person I was presenting to was amazingly smart, but he was not in the field. And I saw that he's not understanding the technical nuances we were trying to talk about. And we were talking about control validation in cybersecurity. And he's like, I have no idea what you're talking about. So I'm like, okay, I need to reframe this. I'm like, okay, you have the house. He's like, yes. If I tell you your door is not secure, he's like, okay. So if I come to your door and just kick your door with my boot and take out the door, he's like, what did you learn? He's like, my door is not secure. Like, but that's it. How does it help you to fix the problem? Like, I don't know. What if I not gonna keep the door? What if I inspect your door and I tell you, oh, you have 5 screws in your door, but 1 screw is smaller and other screws are different and your lock is not very good because it's not working really well. And I give you all the reasons and what can fail in your door and this why it's not secure. And then I give you an example how you can fix the parts in your door. He's like, oh, okay. This now I understand what this particular solution does. So we took a cybersecurity metaphor and something the person understands really well because everybody lives, most of us, in a house or a condo to how we secure a door. And we all know door has hinges, has a lock, and other things to do. So we just took a metaphor and now we're able to move forward because now he understands what are we trying to explain Even so, it's much more complicated in technology level.

I like that, breaking it down in simplicity where you can understand it at Cho level. I get it, like you say, because like you talking to me, that's foreign language, you know what I'm saying? Because I have no idea of what you talking about, but you're breaking it down to me as well as the audience, you know what I'm saying, in the simpler forms where we can understand the basis of what you're talking about. Because like you said, it's not just simple form, CJ.

So do you have a favorite sport?

Uh, I would say basketball.

Okay, amazing. So if I will explain what I'm trying to do, and I'm going to use basketball metaphors, say, okay, it's important to build a very strong team in cybersecurity, for example. What do you mean? So let's think in basketball, we have 5 players, but every player has different things to do. Some are defense, some are offense. One is the person that is responsible on the ball to kind of maneuver everyone. Well, okay, okay. So now I give you an example from your hobbies, from something you like and you really, and I explain to you how we align my idea to your hobby. If it's a goal, I can talk about golf. If it's, I don't know, car racing, we can talk about car racing, how the engine is important and the tires are important. It's important to change tires depending on the weather, if it's raining or sunny. And how it's important that the person that driving the car has air circulation and cooling down because it's very hot when you race. There's many, many different metaphors we can use depending on the sport or hobby.

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Yeah, that's a good way to look at it, man. You know what I'm saying? That's what you say. You always been— this is what you always do. You always been a big thinker. I get it. I get it. So let me ask you, man, balancing work, family, and creativity. So you're a father of 4, including twins. How do you balance the demands of a high-pressure career with family life, and what has parenthood taught you about resilience and adaptability?

First of all, when you have twins, whatever the pressure you have at work is not even close, because twins put you under so much pressure. And under so much dynamic situations that you're going sometimes nuts, but you also learn to understand how to simplify things. And then you take problems like, okay, what is my biggest problem? What is the one I need to do right now to be able to move forward? We have this joke with twins. If they're screaming, what does it mean? It means they're alive. You know, at least they're screaming. That's good. We can move from there. So it's a good part. It's a bit of a job because sometimes it's always a handful. With them, 9 by now, it's different. But even at work, you're going to have a lot of problems. And some of the problems you understand that it's very high priority and some of them are less high priority and you can do it, but you don't have to do it right now. So you create a way to prioritize risk and problems. And then you understand, okay, this problem has to be done right now. This problem can wait till tomorrow. This problem, even better, can be done by somebody else. And if the person doesn't know how to do this problem, then you educate them and train them. And ideally, as a manager, as a leader, as somebody that's leading, you want to solve bigger problems all the time and take people with you that they're going to solve the problems you already solved one or twice. You don't want to solve the same problems all the time. You need to grow and empower people to solve the other problems. So this is definitely, definitely helping. The other part that definitely helps with balance is to have a healthy routine, some kind of healthy routine. So basketball, I do mountain biking, I do snowboarding, go to nature. You cannot just be the computer with the phones, with the comforts all the time. You need to find a way to decompress, to forget, to recharge your internal batteries. And I think nature helps a lot. Being outside helps a lot. Playing with your friends helps a lot. Being very, very tired from physical activity also helps a lot because being tired from playing basketball is rewarding. Like you're feeling your muscles and being tired after 12 hours of work. It's not being rewarding. You're just tired.

That's the truth. Hey, so, Iman, you was telling me about, you know, some of your hobbies. Let me ask you this question. You're co-founder of a cybersecurity-focused ski and snowboard conference. That's such a, you know, unique concept. Can you tell us how you came up with this idea and how it merges lifestyle with professional engagement?

Actually, the beginning of the book I was doing a training how to become a snowboard instructor because I was wanting to teach my kids how to snowboard. And I got very intrigued on the communication I had with the people when I'm going on a lift. We will go on the lift, well, I will talk to a person and then we ski down, snowboard down, and we'll talk to them again. Like, oh, this is actually very rewarding to understand more about people. Let's say golf. Golf was one of the popular business sports people do to take people out. But what if you start with 3 people you don't like? You need to spend with them 3 hours. With skiing and snowboarding, I can go up, talk to a person. If I like them, we continue going down the hill with them. If I don't like them, I say bye and ski a different location. Also in many technology function, people are dressed. They have a suit, they have a tie. They have nice shoes, and you're like, oh, this person is probably very high-end. I never want to talk to him. It's not in my league. But when everyone wears a ski jacket, it completely brings everything down. Now I have the opportunity to talk to anyone. Doesn't matter if I'm a student, if I'm a manager, or I'm a VP of some big bank. So by bringing people together, we were able to achieve a very, very lay I guess laid-back situation when everyone talk to each other, when everyone communicate, when everybody can share stories. It's not a very big conference, it's about 220 people, but it's actually keeping it relatively small. And you can talk to a number of people during the day. And of course we include food, of course we include some drinks, there are some talks, there are some sponsors, it's a mix of everything.

I like that approach, just bringing everybody down to one level, you know what I'm saying? It ain't no big I's, ain't no big you's, because it's just us. I like that. So let me ask you, man, running your own consulting and media services gives you a lot of creative freedom. What excites you the most about this phase of your career?

Oh, the flexibility. The flexibility. I'm not owned by a person, so there is no conflict of interest with anyone. So it gives me the flexibility to explore, to connect, to learn, to educate, to do the work. So it's a combination of having fun and making money and explore and understand. I really like the media part. I'm doing quite a lot of media podcasts and also panel moderations as well and speaking in the conferences. So it's a very wide range of activities I can do. Sometimes it's overwhelming. Sometimes it's hard to switch focus, but overall is the creativity and the freedom.

Yeah, that's what I'm trying to work on myself right now as we speak, eh, the freedom part of it to do. What I want to do is set the times that I want to set the time and spend more time with my son as he's getting ready to go to high school and plays basketball. So let me ask you, Eman, for those listening who want to improve their soft skills in technology or business, where should they start?

I'll say one is kind of just sit down with yourself and do a self-reflection. Maybe have a pen and paper. And write it down. Okay, what I'm good in, what I'm bad in. You will be able to find out that the stuff you hate to do is probably the stuff you need to work on. This is exercise number 1. Write it down. Just kind of analyze. Am I a good listener? Do I cut people off? Can I talk with a stranger? Do I listen to people and can plan with them? Would I talk on a meeting first? Or I'm trying to shy away. Then go to your friends, not the yes-men. Go to like your friends that will tell you how it is. And let's ask them, what can I improve in my communication? What am I missing? Am I a good person to have a dialogue? Am I a good person to have a debate? Not kind of fight, debate, you know, can we debate an idea? Because debate is just a technique. We respect each other. We may disagree, but we're going to respectively disagree. And talk about the platform and the idea. This is very good. Definitely good to go and talk to a professional. I'm not talking about a coach right now because we have too many coaches lately. I'm talking about a professional. So for example, Voice Develop. I spent time with the Voice Development. He only worked with me on my voice. We didn't talk about goals of life. We didn't talk about spirituality. We spoke about my voice and improving delivery of my voice. So it's a very, very targeted approach. And why voice? Because when we're communicating, we're using our voice. We're not using our fingers. So understanding what you can improve in your voice, it's definitely important. And guess what? Most of us, and you've been in podcasts for a long time, hate ourselves on the recording.

You do.

It takes a lot of time. So if I record myself and like, Who the fuck? Excuse my French. I don't want to be this.

It's bad.

But then you talk to someone and you realize, oh, I can actually work here. I can do access to improve how I communicate. I can remove filler words instead of saying, hi, I'm Evgeny, I'm very smart, you know, I can actually learn to pause. I can learn to subsidize filler words. On pauses. I can understand that sometimes I need to speed up and sometimes I need to slow down depending on the person I'm communicating with. And this can be done with somebody that specializes in this or even by yourself, by recording yourself, analyzing your voice, using some of the software as well. And then definitely not enough just to analyze. Now you have to execute. And execution can be done in many different ways. The simplest things ever is you're standing in line, get off your phone, remove your AirPods, look left and right and talk to someone. Just say, ask, hey, how you doing? Why are you buying this device? Is the weather shitty? Just talk to people. They're not gonna bite. When you're buying groceries, when you go to the cashier, try to make them smile. Like just pretend what you can say. To make them smile. It teach you how to connect to other individual. And if you make them smile, this person that's standing there, a lady or gentleman, is standing there for 6, 8 hours. It's hard work. So if you make them smile, you make the day better and kind of did your homework. So teaching twice.

Yeah.

And this is many, many things you can do outside of work that will make you a better communicator. We just spoke about basketball. You didn't tell me again, you have no idea what's basketball because I kind of at least were close to what people do in basketball. Do, can you do the same about golf? Can you talk about football? Can you learn about different hobbies? Can you watch a documentary? When next time someone to tell you about rowing on a kayak, you will know that kayak has two blades and not a one blade, for example, that you have an idea and you can keep up the communication, but also at the same time, you can say, CJ, kind of never connected to basketball, but it always intrigued me. Can you explain me the basics? And you're probably going to be happy to explain why you like basketball. Yeah, if I ask you correctly. But if I say, I don't want to talk about basketball, it's boring, then it's, it's a different way to communicate.

Yeah, I agree with you, man. I was just talking to a friend of mine the other day, and it's good to have a vast variety of expertise and thoughts, you know what I'm saying, that you can pull off of. Because like you said, everybody You can't approach everybody the same way. It's the same way in podcasts. You just can't, you know, approach everyone the same way. You know, certain things you can tell right off the bat. Like you say, you said something earlier that made me think about— you can tell right off the bat how certain conversations gonna go, you know what I'm saying? But it's up to you to bring, you know, say what you bring. Like you say, if you can make that cashier smile, you know, you breaking the monotony right there, you know what I'm saying? As we call it, breaking the ice. So just got one more question for you, Iman. I'll let you get on to your busy schedule, man. Finally, what's next for you? And are there any upcoming projects or new ventures that you'd like to share with our audience?

I have an idea about the next book, but not right now. I realize that working with fear is quite important. So I want to help people to work and overcome these fears completely, not technology level. Subject, but not yet. I'm debating on so many ideas. I have some of my theories. Well, I plan to talk in TEDx about this as well. So I'm working on my applications. It's actually the first time I'm telling this about anyone publicly. And I'm working with you, this few cybersecurity vendors, potentially join them to help them as well to move to the next level.

I like that, man. You got the exclusive right here on the CJ Moneyway Johnson Show. My man, he say he hadn't talked about a lot of this. Before today, you've been keeping it under wraps, man. So you got the exclusive right here on the CJ Moneyway Johnson Show. Hey, Eman, I'd like to thank you, man, for sharing your journey and insights with us today. Your expertise in both cybersecurity and communication is incredibly valuable, and I know our listeners have learned a lot from you today with all these little nuggets that you have thrown out there. But before we go, where can we connect with you at, Eman, and where can we find you on social media?

Social media, the easiest place is LinkedIn. Evgeny Kharam, E-V-G-E-N-A-Y K-H-A-R-A-M, I'm like Murray. I'm spending there a lot of time. There's also a website for the book, softskillstech.ca or softskillstech.com, where you can find the book, find the audio version and some other materials, but feel free to go on LinkedIn and find me there.

So you heard it right there, man. Learn more about my boy E and about his work and find his book, The Art of Soft Skills and technical sales. He said that we all sell every day at some point in our life. Sometimes we don't even know that we selling. When you're trying to get your wife to go to the Italian restaurant but she wants to go to the Mexican restaurant, we're doing a little bit of selling right there as well. So thank you again, Eman, for joining us on the CJ Moneyway Show. And to our listeners, thank you for tuning in. If you found today's episode insightful please leave us a review, subscribe, and share this conversation with someone who could benefit from what my man E was talking about and the knowledge that he gave us today. Until next time, stay secure, stay innovative, and keep refining your skills. This your boy CJ Moneyway Johnson with my man E from Toronto. We outta here. Peace.

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