theCUBEd Awards | Poornima DeBolle, Menlo Security (Innovative Women in Tech Leadership)

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play_circle_outline Menlo Security's innovative Secure Cloud Browser

play_circle_outline Empathy and Customer-Centric Approaches: Essential in Business Amidst Digital Transformation in B2B Tech

play_circle_outline Advice for women in STEM and technology industry

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Poornima DeBolle, Menlo Security (Innovative Women in Tech Leadership)

Poornima DeBolle, co-founder and CPO of Menlo Security, recently received the “Innovative Women in Tech Leadership” award as a part of theCUBE’s Tech Innovation CUBEd Awards. She joins theCUBE’s Rebecca Knight to discuss her career in cybersecurity and the leadership principles behind her success.

During their discussion, DeBolle reflects on her 20-year journey from engineering student to cybersecurity innovator. She highlights how her technical background fuels her curiosity and has shaped Menlo Security’s architecturally secure approach, setting new ... Read more

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What motivated you to switch from mechanical engineering to computer science during your second year of engineering school? add

What is the concept behind Menlo Security's Secure Cloud Browser and why did the company decide to pioneer this technology? add

What is your vision for the future of B2B tech and how are you positioning Menlo Security to drive innovation? add

What advice or words of wisdom do you have for younger women aspiring to have a career in cybersecurity like you? add

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Poornima DeBolle, Menlo Security (Innovative Women in Tech Leadership)

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Rebecca Knight

>> Hello everyone and welcome to theCUBE's Tech Innovation CUBEd Awards. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight, and we are celebrating the winners of our inaugural program that showcases the incredible ingenuity and creativity taking place across the tech landscape. Today we are joined by Poornima DeBolle. She is the co-founder and Chief Product Officer at Menlo Security and the award winner for our Innovative Women in Tech Leadership. Thank you so much. Congratulations, Poornima. Thank you for coming on the show.

>> Yeah, thank you for having me, and I'm very excited about this award. Thank you for the award in the first place, and hopefully, this is helpful and a good launch for lot more women on a go-forward basis.

Rebecca Knight

>> So before we get started, I want to let our viewers know that this honors outstanding women in the B2B tech industry who have made remarkable contributions through exceptional technical innovation or visionary organizational leadership. And Poornima, this is not the first time you've been honored this way. You were named one of Inc.'s Top Female Founders. You are on a Forbes Top 50 list, many others. You've had an incredible career so far. Looking back, what do you think really has been your secret sauce of innovation and leadership when you think about your career?

>> Oh, wow.

Rebecca Knight

>> I know. A big question to get going.

>> Yes, let's get into it at the top. I've been doing this for a long time, so obviously 20-plus years of doing this. There's a lot to think about, but I think maybe from a success or ongoing willingness to hang in there ability, I just love tech. It's just I'm very fortunate. When I started engineering school, I was originally in mechanical engineering and I decided that all of the dust in the workshop and things like that were not to my liking. And computer science was one where you would be in an air-conditioned room for most of your workday. And I was like, "All right, this sounds good, so sign me up." But I remember going into my second year of engineering and getting to know the insides of the computer. I went to engineering school for my undergraduate in India, and there, we do something called computer engineering. Not so much just software, but you have to know the full system. And I remember writing my first digital whatever lab program to make an elevator go up down on a board. And the logic of it, the technology, the understanding, and I just count myself to be very fortunate, like how nicely it clicked into my brain and I've never looked back. I know we all say it and I'm sure there's orders of truth to saying, "We love what we do," but I truly do love what I do. And that's been maybe the fuel and the basis for any success, modicum of success I've had.

Rebecca Knight

>> Tell our viewers a little bit about Menlo Security, and we've heard about the sparks you had early in your career as an undergraduate student and graduate student. Tell our viewers a little bit about where you are today and your company?

>> Yeah, so Menlo Security is about a 10-year-old company, and as co-founder, I've been here from day zero and looked at office spaces and bought water for the company and all of those things you do as a founder, but from a company perspective, I'm truly very proud of where we are with Menlo Security. We pioneered what's called cloud browsing, right? There's variety of names for it. I think the current name is called the Secure Cloud Browser. And the idea starts from when we started thinking about Menlo, the thought was, rather than deliver security based on something you know, right? So I know this file is bad, I can block it. I know this domain is bad, I can block it, which all relies on prior knowledge for you to do something, to know something. We looked at the problem space and we said, "How can we make something architecturally secure?" So you as the user, be it Rebecca, yourself or anybody, even in your family, when you are interacting with the broader internet, you don't really know what's happening on the backend, but you are secure by architecture. That was the genesis of our idea, and I'm very proud that 10 years later, we count some of the largest financials, the US Department of Defense as our customers, and we've delivered that vision into reality for millions of users and protect them as they browse the internet on a regular basis from very sophisticated attacks because we have that secure-by-architecture design.

Rebecca Knight

>> So you've played a pivotal role in conceptualizing and implementing so many of those Menlo's products. I want you to think just broadly, when you think about this era of digital transformation and the B2B tech world, which is witnessing tremendous shifts right now, what is your vision for the future of B2B tech and how are you positioning Menlo Security to drive innovation?

>> Yeah, so it's a great question, and the B2B tech, like you said, is undergoing huge transformation. Right? One of the things that we see in terms of great transformation is when people went home for COVID, all of a sudden, we had this giant population, which used to go to work every day, now needing to be enabled for remote work, hybrid work, variety of words that we used to describe that scenario. And when it came to that, one of the biggest things people needed to do is, "How do I give access to all of these things that you use, applications, on a regular basis that used to use from the office? How do I give you secure access to that?" So to your point about innovation, we were really, really well positioned with the architecture that we had built to then say, "I can not only protect you when you go to the internet, but I can use that same platform to give you both access and security to... Be it SaaS applications or be it your own enterprise application." So our ability to take that secure by architecture and almost turn it around 180 degrees and say, "Now you can connect to your applications in a safe way," and in that case, we are actually protecting your application from your user's end point. Now, that also from a B2B perspective has enabled more innovation and transformation for our customers because now that you have the ability to protect your application with the same architecture, you can also start looking at cost optimizations with bring your own device or contractors and things like that. So from an innovation perspective, COVID was hard for all of us, but it also gave us this unique perspective in a lead into using and expanding our platform in a way that we add more value to our customers than in a productivity sector and a security sector. So widened our aperture on how we engage with our customers.

Rebecca Knight

>> Well, I want to actually piggyback a little bit on that because your mantra is if you're going to do something, do it well. And now I might embarrass you a little bit by reading what your colleague wrote about you in her nomination of you. She said, Poornima has an unwavering commitment to comprehending customer problems. She listens attentively, seeking to grasp the causes and the motivations behind the concerns. It's this empathetic approach that has contributed to Menlo's success." Can you talk a little bit about this approach and the role that empathy plays in business and technology, particularly today? You mentioned the pandemic, that's just one example, but how do you think about your leadership style and your empathetic approach in terms of bringing you success?

>> Oh, wow. That was a really sweet comment, and I'm glad it gets noticed. I don't think of it on a daily basis, obviously. So I think I maybe give you one example of an incident where early on in my engineering life, you think like an engineer. Right? You're problem-solving for the problem in front of you. And I recall my first job out of college, my then CEO took me to Stanford, who was one of our customers, and then I recognized, I had this unique recognition of everything I think about when I'm building it in the lab. There is a whole host of them that doesn't even translate when they deploy it in the real world. So it was a transformation experience for me. And from then on, I always channeled the fact that whatever you build needs to solve a problem for a customer. And a lot of times as engineers, product people are very proud of what we've built, and we go down the path of, "Let me tell you about all the bells and whistles and ."

Rebecca Knight

>> I know some engineers, so I know.

>> Yeah, you know that, relatable. Well, yes, but every time we've listened, and I'm very proud at Menlo where we call them design partners. Some of our largest customers have been our design partners, and the minute we engage with them on trying to understand the why of what they're trying to do something, they come to us and it's like, "Oh, I don't like this feature. This doesn't work." And then rather than try to explain to them why it does work, I always take the perspective of, "Tell me what are you trying to solve? Why does this not work?" And I can confidently say that any Product Manager or any product person who can channel that empathy is going to be very successful because you're solving problems and your customers appreciate. Even if you can't solve it that day, the fact that you're willing to listen and come back to them with solutions that solves their problem. So it's one of the-

Rebecca Knight

>> Acknowledge what they're going through.

>> Absolutely. Absolutely. And at Menlo, we buy a lot of software products to run our company, and I appreciate that with my own vendors. So it's universally, like you said. Same thing, we live as humans, but to be able to translate that into our professional lives goes a long way.

Rebecca Knight

>> So last question. I don't need to tell you about the dearth of women in STEM and technology. You know this all too well. When you think about the challenges you've experienced, obstacles you've overcome, growing up in India and then coming to the US, being a woman of color founder in male-dominated Silicon Valley, do you have advice or words of wisdom for the younger women who are perhaps just starting their careers watching this, who aspire to having a career in cybersecurity like you?

>> Yeah. Yeah. I think it's sometimes when you're younger, you quite don't have the appreciation of the picture that you just painted, right? You're doing your thing, but as I have engaged with both the C-suite, be it our own company, VCs and things like that, I can assure you that that has been painfully obvious in the recent years of my experience. I think the biggest point that I make... I have a daughter who's also in engineering, different field. The point that I make to all young women out there is be confident. Whenever you are at the table, you are there because you earned your spot. You are not there to listen. Be active. Don't be subject to the imposter syndrome. Don't feel like, "I don't have a place." So that unique ability to understand that you're there for a reason and be able to engage and participate is probably one of the biggest way that you can win in this field. The second thing that I also tell to your point about male dominated is I think it's male dominated for a variety of reasons that came before us. Right? So the best way you today can engage that is with the problem-solving mindset and find your male allies. Even the males who are in the positions of power today, a lot of times don't even realize or recognize what's going on. I give a lot of credit to my boss, our CEO that I worked with for like 25 years now. I also give a lot of credit to my husband, who also helps me understand and navigate things. So rather than think of it as a disadvantage that you are at, turn that into a problem-solving thought process and say, "Here are all these male colleagues you have. How do I find a mentor? How do I find an ally?" Breaking the barriers from that perspective is much more productive than making it an us versus them. Right?

Rebecca Knight

>> Finding your teammates. I love it. Great advice, Poornima. Congratulations again on this award. Well deserved.

>> Thank you, Rebecca. Really appreciate the award and the recognition, and happy to have this conversation with you.

Rebecca Knight

>> And thank you to our viewers to tuning into this special segment of theCUBE's Tech Innovation CUBEd Awards. I'm Rebecca Knight. Stay tuned for more.