Episode 5 - Cloud, AI, and Security: The Next Frontier. With Tom Reilly

Hi, I'm Tino Urbina. This is Executive Checkpoint, the podcast where we dive into the insights and experiences of leadership in the future of technology and security. Welcome. Today we're joined by Tom Raley, a seasoned leader and president of Command Americas. Tom has built his career advancing unified communications solutions that support real-time security and operational efficiencies across high-stakes environments like healthcare, transportation, and critical infrastructure. With over 14 years of experience in business development and strategic transformation and leadership, plus a decade of prior experience in Ernst Young, Tom brings a wealth of knowledge and leveraging technology of critical security and integrated systems. In this episode, we'll explore the latest frontiers in security, from transformative potential of AI and the cloud to role of unified communications enhancing situational awareness. Get ready to dive into the intersection of innovation, security, and the future of technology. Tom, welcome. It's great to see you and welcome to the show.

Thanks, Tino. Yeah, thanks very much. Happy to be here.

Excellent. Well, Tom, as always, like to begin from your background, you know, tell us a little bit about how you started in your career in security, or how you evolved to get to security. And, you know, it's a good point to let us know who you are.

Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah. So I've been associated with this industry, really my entire professional life. I started in the early days of, of Commends, um, in the early, you know, actually before my career even started when I was still, still in school. Um, my predecessor was my father who, um, was the president that really started, um, Commend Americas and really building up the brand, um, in the States. And I had a really great opportunity to work with him early in my career. Um, as you alluded to, um, I described my career as a little bit of a back and forth between the security industry and management consulting. So I had, um, this is my, actually my third stint with Command. So third, third pass in the security industry. And I had the same number of, um, passes, really 2 or 2 and a half in the, in the management consulting world. Um, my most recent one, I was, you know, back, back at EY for, um, about 6 years and, um, was recruited to come back to, to, um, head up Command at the end of 2019. and really was excited about it, really for a long list of reasons, but many of them that can be summarized into the agenda for this podcast. And that's really driving what's next for the industry and not just being an influenced— a company that's influenced by trends, but one that really is pushing to drive and redefine how these technologies can be adopted for our customers. So You kind of wore 2 different hats, 2 different industries, but I'm happy to be back in this one and making as much of an impact as I can.

But I think that that's always— to me, that's a positive, right? That experience from a completely different industry, I think, brings a more rounded leadership or expertise to the table. How do you feel your management consultancy experience complements what you're doing today?

I think it complements it perfectly, really, regardless of what industry you're talking about. If you're trying to drive initiative and you're trying to innovate, you're leading people, you're understanding business problems, and you're managing change. So working within the management consulting space was a real aggressive learning opportunity in all those dimensions that you know, applies, you know, very, very well to the, you know, rapid change and the rapid evolution that's going on here. So it's all, you know, it's all interpersonal dynamics and, you know, leading change requirements and, you know, leading teams.

Yeah, John Carter had a, you know, senior professor in Harvard University, had a great book talking about leading change. So when you mentioned that, it's a process, right? And I always remember leaders talking about trying to lead change and their teams get excited. They say absolutely, and then they run out of the door and people behind are still thinking how they're gonna make the change and what steps should they take. And, you know, it's a difficult situation, but how do you feel organizations should prepare for these changes and the trends, or not trends, but the new technologies coming upon us?

I think any business problem, and I feel any change problem, comes down to impacting people and building the right culture. And that's why I felt so excited about the opportunity to come back to the organization I'm a part of now. There's always going to be technological changes and opportunities that have a gravitational pull to them that will impact organizations. And they impact organizations either because they're just caught up in it, or it'll impact organizations because they see it as an opportunity to continue to live out their vision, live out their purpose in an accelerated way because of, you know, the introduction of new technology. So I feel that it's important for an organization who's considering jumping into a space, like, you know, like the topic of this discussion, AI is this buzzword that is everywhere and every organization is racing to decide how they can integrate it into their value proposition so that they can show to their customers that they're relevant and continuing to innovate, but also to show their teams that they're relevant and continuing to innovate, right? You know, we all know the challenges of attracting, maintaining talent. One of the things that I feel very passionate about is that change has to, you know, really be for the right purpose that reconciles to the, you know, the overall initiative of the company. Commends, you know, has been in the space of providing unified communication high-quality, trusted communication since our inception. And every step along the way, we've proceeded with awareness of technical trends and the very disciplined process of reconciling what's now possible because of technical trend, technological trends with what our real core mission is to decide when we want to double down and when we want to really focus on a different level of investment. And Cummins, you know, has done that through a lot of different frontiers. And, you know, obviously the latest is AI. The worst thing that I feel a company could do for customers, but also for their team, this is, you know, getting back to your question about how do you drive it, is it has to make sense, right?

Right.

The way that you are positioning the latest capability has to make sense to your customers and to your team to really support the mission that they've already from a customer's perspective, already engaged with you about, already trusted with you about, or from the team's point of view, your team members, people that already hung their hat on the mission statement as a catalyst for them to build their careers. So I think it's being disciplined in ensuring that you stay true to yourself and you don't allow technical trends or opportunities to avert your gaze and take you in a different direction.

It's easy to get distracted. And that brings me to, I think, the perspective of potential customers and end users, right? Privacy, security, cybersecurity in specific are key points with all new technologies, but specifically with AI and cloud. How is the organization assuring that these steps are important, as important for you guys as they are for the customer, for the client, for the user?

Yeah, and I think that's a great question. It's kind of what I'm talking about, right? So there needs to be a posture from a manufacturer, from a solution provider's perspective that makes it very clear what they start with. And Commends has been I think amazingly disciplined on that. At some points, at the cost of speed of innovation in certain ways, you know, it's obviously sales teams and customers always have a long list of expectations of where the R&D agenda should go. But at times, it's better to take a little bit of a slower approach, ensure that you develop with the right mind to your fundamental requirements. And for from our perspective, we satisfied that through a statement of privacy and security by design.

Yep.

And we also backed that up with a disciplined approach of achieving the right industry, you know, independent certifications that validate that and being consistent in stating that really in every direction from a branding perspective and being very, detail-oriented and diligent to getting independent verification that is outside of even the realm of expectation from the industry before it's even, you know, even needed allows you to have the presence to suggest some innovative and forward-thinking things with the customer and the market knowing that it's from a trusted source that's going to engage with it in the right way. And I feel that that's kind of the sweet spot, right? It's being part of an organization that has the established brand and established discipline. You know, they're already— we're already there. You're already part of the discussion to help organizations innovate for their own business purposes. Because let's not forget, like, customers, enterprise customers across the world, regardless of the vertical, are feeling very, like, kind of the opposite side of the coin of the same challenges that we are as solution providers. And that's leadership requesting an answer as to how innovation is happening. So, how is new technology being adopted to drive operational efficiencies? And then also just the general constraints of doing business and the genuine business requirement to either control, you know, account for resource constraints or to, you know, control, you know, regulatory and oversight exposure.

Right.

And yeah, I just think you can have those discussions much more systematically if you are a known player, a known person in the room that already has that reputation to stand on.

What will be a good example of that enhancement of unified communication through AI? What could you share with us, a couple examples of how you accomplished that?

Yep, yep. So whenever I talk about this, I try to frame it in the context of the journey that Command's been going through for the last, really last 10, 12 years. And that journey is what I call— and I'm sure the marketing team will listen to this and they'll say it's not the right way to explain it, but it's how I think about it— I call the Symphony Evolution. So we've been on a journey for the last decade of transitioning our platform and all of our devices to be truly future-proof and also evergreen in the ability to work with our legacy technology. That started with, again, something at the time. This is, we're going back to like, I think it was 2010 or '11, virtualizing our head end. So, you know, large enterprise system. We used to have a server that was really the brains of it. We were the first in the industry to decide that there's a lot more we can do to this if we don't focus on just our hardware, but we decide to adopt on the trend, which is at that point vertical virtualization of infrastructure. And that has really started what I call the Symphony evolution, which is something we're probably hopefully never going to be completed on because it's going to continue and we're going to continue to look for new ideas. But it's walking the fine line of using industry standards. So we are an open, you know, complying with industry standards system while still providing for our full feature set that enterprise unified communication systems need and also allowing for, again, future-proof devices that are very capable piece of hardware running, basically running software on the edge to federate the intelligence and also push a lot of the capabilities out to the edge. So what does that mean? It means that you have a system that can truly be designed in a hybrid way to you know, evolve with an enterprise, and you're able to then deploy some of our newer capabilities on the devices to really increase operational efficiencies. So long way to answer your question, but it's just to frame it. We now have much more capability on our hardware to allow things like conversational AI on our devices that until very recently, and even if you look at the rest of the industry, it was Kind of a weird idea. Like, why would you want to have a customized— and I don't mean customized for Command, I mean customized for the customer's use case— conversational AI engine on an intercom? Well, it really depends on what the industry and what the customer is trying to solve.

Mm-hmm.

It could be about control room optimization. So answering calls automatically that would normally go to a security operations center to allow for the SOC to only handle calls that are really requiring human intervention. It could be to improve user experience on the field. So, you know, obviously there's an optimization piece from a call not having to go to an SOC, but there's also like somebody at a, you know, just use a museum, right? Go up to it. Press a button, be able to converse with the conversation AI to get directions to what they're most interested in for, you know, what exhibit is being offered on a daily basis or how to navigate. These are all user experience type problems that, again, modernizing the system and pushing intelligence out to the edge, having a real hybrid approach to utilizing cloud technology is a prerequisite for. And then the other one is, and so just before I transition, that those use cases of introducing a conversational AI that can even translate like languages, so there's always a clear communication reconciles back to Command's value proposition of trusted communication always. We always want to ensure regardless of the situation that a high-quality discussion is possible through Command. And then the other one, just a separate example, and this one is like when you say it, it seems so obvious, but it's actually a very hard technical problem, is using neural networks, using AI to filter out background noise.

Okay.

You know, people that play in our industry know the challenges of open duplex communication in tough acoustical environments.

Industrial settings, that sort of—

Industrial setting, mass transport, city streets, really anywhere that the background noise is dynamic. It's a very challenging thing. Comenz really built a brand in tackling that, but us adopting AI makes it— we have a— and this is where I might get it right— we say cleans noise from voice, and the capabilities are pretty tremendous. But again, marry back to our value proposition of of a trusted communication platform?

You know, to me, it reflects directly in operational savings, right, and/or redeployment of, you know, your existing guard team or technical team to be utilized elsewhere. So either way you look at it, you're still benefiting from the human factor being minimized, or, you know, just make them better, right, smarter. I think one of the biggest Questions out there is the real-time data integration. It's definitely a big challenge. How are you guys handling the complexity of integrating all these systems from unified communications and AI with other potential audio-video partners out there?

So this is— when the team listens to this, they're gonna feel like it's a broken record because I say it a lot. I'm a firm believer in staying to our core competencies and realizing the value that we provide to our customers in the industry, and that is audio. We want to be the audio experts. We want to be the trusted audio provider, and being clear in that statement means that we're not going to do a lot of other stuff. And also, nobody's going to invest in just an audio system. We are clearly part of an integrated solution that our customers eventually need. And with the way that the industry and the technology changes quickly, what I really feel is developing is the need for closer industry alliances to stay connected in the pursuit of bringing purpose-built solutions to given verticals. So like the whole verticalization narrative that a lot of people talk about now. In my mind, what is that? It's focusing on providing a solution, not a product, right? So designing a team, you know, and this is not just a sales thing, this is a team, it's every dimension of the team that can be present to really understand the drivers for purchase and the problem statements that our customers need. And in the pursuit of having those discussions with channel partners and also with end users and with end users in harmony with channel partners, you realize very quickly that there's really 2 levels of what the customer's looking for. They're looking for the solution that, you know, you can obviously satisfy, but they're also looking at somebody that can bring it all together. Right. An end user, you know, pick whatever vertical you want. They need access control, they need video, They need audio, they need XYZ. But bringing all that together is where the risk really lies for anybody, right? You know, and that's why integrators, you know, there's such a spectrum of, you know, the impact an integrator can make because the really good ones are truly that trusted partner to the end user to make sense of all the noise, right? And there's, because there is noise, there's so many different ways that you can put it together. What we're trying to do from our perspective, this is one part necessity and one part truly what I feel the industry needs, is we want to engage with strategic technology partners in a real verticalized alliance mindset of being very open and not protective, but very open as to where we see the technology going. and very honest as to what our priorities and capabilities are. And then backing up a little bit and going back to kind of square one of what are the verticals of focus? What is the driver? What is the business problem? What can we do in a unified way today? How far does it get to solving the business problem? If there's a gap, where do we take it? You know, and that's influencing R&D, you know, agendas. And then we bring back to the table and ideally go to the market with that unified message of kind of vetted partnership. And as things continue to change as quickly as they are, I think there's gonna be more and more a need for companies taking that, you know, this is the value I provide and I wanna do it in kind of lockstep with others sort of mantra. And I think that, you know, the complexity of the business drivers for our end users is gonna, really lean into that more than it already has.

Yeah, and, you know, I think to your point, a lot of end users are driving the markets and companies to make their systems better, naturally, because they have the needs and it's an evolving technology. But, you know, one of the places that I think unified communications plays a very important role because it's critical in safety are You know, critical infrastructure locations, industrial settings. How do you feel this, this trend fits into that category to better communicate and, you know, provide safety from a unified communications perspective?

Yeah, look, I think, you know, critical infrastructure is obviously— there's a bunch of subpoints you could dive into, but specific to like utilities and energy distribution, You know, Commends has become even more focused in that market because of the, I guess, the beautiful way that is, you know, its requirements have evolved with our— with what our capabilities are. So on the surface, we've as a company developed a very strong presence within the utility space because of just the spread out nature of it. Right? I mentioned before that Comen, you know, took a look at early technologies and decided when to invest. Well, we happen to be one of the earliest to invest in IP technology, you know, way back when. And because of that, we were able to solve a business problem for utilities very early on, which is we have a lot of sites that need to communicate centrally, right? So Comen realized and still does enjoy a very healthy market share just for that pure reason of being able to really centralize communication within SOC. Now fast forward, the problem statements for the utility market as it has for other critical infrastructure has evolved even further. And I feel in very much lockstep with what we've been earnestly working to stay ahead of as a solution provider. And that's cybersecurity, right? And it's also regulatory compliance, right? So cybersecurity, you know, again, command leading with cyber privacy and security by design and seeking independent certifications that credentialize that. And us, and this is where like the, you know, building the team part of it, also putting the effort to articulate the why these statements matter, not just to somebody that we're looking to like promote a solution to, but to the people that even have already invested, our existing partners, understanding why the obsession that we have as a manufacturer really matters to them and how it helps mitigate risk, because it really all comes down to mitigating risk, obviously. Then further, you're really working to understand the you know, the, the really the compliance mandate that they have. You know, everybody hears about NERC CIP. NERC CIP, what does that mean? Well, it's just a bunch of rules that these energy—

Very expensive rules too.

Very expensive, yeah. But very, very, very specific list of rules that have a lot of risk associated with noncompliance. And because of that, there is a lot of very heavy responsibility on the security teams for those utilities in ensuring compliance. And, you know, they get, you know, I'm sure they get sold to on those concepts very frequently. Everybody walks in with a buzzword, right?

Oh yeah.

But what is it? Well, it's, you know, it's just a collection of rules that need to be cleanly mapped to capabilities. And in this, in this statement of alliances, we've become very purposeful in who we want to partner with in order to have the right seat at the table to articulate that value proposition in a very non-salesy, much more consultative way.

Right.

And that's really important to them.

A big part of it, I think, is also that some companies out there add the AI and cybersecurity lightly, and they're really not bringing the value of the certifications and expertise. In one side. The other side is, I think sometimes end users tend to be reactive because they might not have the expertise internally, so they lean on an integration group potentially or somebody else that it's almost like the blind leading the blind. So in my perspective, I think the best things that companies need to do is, you know, find that expert, remove the blind leading the blind or lean in the partnership of manufacturers like Command to do the heavy lifting and assist them and have a better perspective on implementation. And yeah, I think that it's unfair to call AI a trend anymore. It's coming fast and furious. But if you were to sit on the opposite side from an end-user standpoint of view, maybe a director of sales, CTO, What would be your recommendations for them to, you know, analyze good partners? What makes a good partner or a good solution for them to bring them on board or to onboard someone that might be a good expert?

Yeah, yeah. And this goes back to, I think, the earlier question you asked about how do you drive change and how do you build teams and how do you reconcile that with culture? I take things, though my team would probably say I make things more complicated. I actually try to make things more simple, but sometimes you have to make things complicated before you can identify the path to simplification. But I view this as purely a going back to foundational statement of what is the business problem and who do you trust to help you Navigate the solutioning around that. And the statement of trust really is the same, whether you're talking about AI or whether you're talking about any organizational change. But heck, even if you're talking about just like a friendship, right? How do you verify if you can trust? Well, you could take the path of verifying who they're already friendly with and trusted by, right? So. You know, somebody's bringing a solution to you, you want to check references. So that marries back to where are they already doing business and for how long? Are they a new player? Are they established player? What's their brand? And then also, who do they know? Who is, you know, the company that's offering you a solution? Who are they running around with? Who are their alliance partners? How do they articulate that? What is— does it seem like it's a superficial thing or is there depth to it? Talking to the people, right? Do the people sound like they're trying to sell you something, or does it really seem like they're curious about your business problem, wanting to understand it, and maybe not focus on the transaction but instead the longer business opportunity or business partnership, I should say? And then, you know, I guess really the last one is looking— and again, if that process doesn't work, then you look for independent verification. You know, what certifications are out there? How's this been vetted? Do they have a discipline of privacy? You know, what's their culture? What's the culture of the country where the solution is originating? And then reconciling that with what's the path of acquisition? You know, is it a product that's then sold and then, you know, kind of left to be, or is there an ongoing kind of discipline of partnership development. Things change so quickly, it really matters where you get it from because something that's exciting today becomes commoditized tomorrow, and then you're just left with the partnership, in my opinion.

Right. You know, I think in technology, and especially in security, you see this trend— well, not trend, this discipline to implement change because it has come so fast, right? We went from analog to the internet, IoT, OT, interconnectivity of things. And now we, we, uh, bandwidth increased, the speed is incredible. Now we're with the AI, it is just bringing new, new things. Um, well, Tom, what, what will be, uh, we're coming to the end of our conversation, but I always like to ask, uh, our guests a little bit of wisdom. And it usually comes from what you know today. What, what would you tell your younger self when you started your career? If you want to reflect back to, you know, your earliest career or insecurity that you think will be important for young Tom to know?

It's easy for me to answer because I have a young Tom at home who's just turned into a teenager, and I do often give him advice, whether he appreciates it now. I hope he will at some point. But he's a great kid. He's actually a great listener. And the most simple thing I told him, and I had the— I was really blessed early in my career that somebody made this very clear to me, that it's all about people and individual personnel, personal relationships. And I had a mentor, and actually I'll maybe use this as a reason to reconnect with him because it's been a long time. at EY who was— I was pointed to him when I was first interning and somebody I was working with, I think, noticed that I had a more, maybe a more of an interest in understanding people and the business problem than others. So they said, hey, you should go speak with Robert Gleason. So Robert Gleason was a business development partner at EY, figured he'd give me some words of wisdom. And he just made it clear in our meeting that business problems always change and the complexity of the business is always going to increase. But the one common element is going to be engaging with people and influencing people in a genuine way. You never want to be viewed as taking advantage of somebody, and you also never want to be caught up in the moment. And he actually slid me a copy of— it's cliché, but the Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People book. And I still, I still believe to this day, and I read constantly. I, you know, my wife will ask me, I usually have about 8 books going at a time, but one that I always keep next to me is, is that book because it's very foundational. Um, once you, once you learn how to, um, you know, truly connect with people and engage with them in a non, you know, not non, um, you're not trying to influence negatively, but a, a true curious way that, you know, the, you know, the collective can move forward as long as we all, you know, look at the business problem and opportunities that will result from, you know, achieving something. You can get through a lot. So my advice to the younger self is really just focus on, you know, solving a business problem, really looking at what your true sort of brand identity is, And realizing that it's only possible through influencing people in a positive way and through a positive message and, and, you know, positive example.

Well, Tom, this went a little too fast for my liking, but I really enjoyed the conversation. I hope you did as well. Thanks for sharing. I think there's a lot of nuggets that came out of this short chat. In the future, we'll plan to have a roundtable with a few Maybe not opposite, but different discipline leaders and, you know, have a common conversation. So hopefully you're able to join us for the next round. Yeah. And where can people contact you? Through LinkedIn? Through Comen's website? What's a good— what's the best way to get in touch with you to further this conversation personally or professionally?

Yeah, yeah, love to continue the conversation with Your podcast and a roundtable sounds awesome. But yeah, from engagement, I'd love to hear from anybody. LinkedIn's the best way. I feel that with all the notifications we receive and emails we receive, LinkedIn is the one that I think stares you in the face most in a most kind of material way. So you get to understand who the person is and you get to see it really quickly. So LinkedIn's the best. Um, and, you know, if there's ever, ever questions that— or topics that you think would be, would be interesting to continue on, just, just let me know.

Absolutely. Well, uh, again, thank you so much, uh, Tom. And, uh, for the audience, you know, click the like button, and if you have questions, comments, let us know. Thank you for watching. There you go.