 about to this episode of Security Matters Hawaii. We're live from the Think Tech Hawaii studios and a belated happy Thanksgiving to all of you out there. Today we have a very special guest with us. We hunted down Kelly Bond from Brevo. She's a busy woman, travels quite a bit, but I got her stationary for you today. She's live with us from Dallas, Texas. Kelly, thanks for joining us today. How you doing? Hey, hi. Thanks so much for having me, or Aloha, I should say. Aloha, welcome. Hey, so our audience, many of them I think will know you, but some may not, why maybe give them sort of some of your background before we get started as much as you care to share. All right, well, I should probably say hey y'all because I came from Texas and that's where I'm hailing from today. So yeah, I have been in the security alarm industry since 1997. And when I think of it year after year, I just can't believe how much time has passed. And for those of you that are listening from the industry, you know it's one that once you get into it, it is almost impossible to get out of it. So I don't know that I ever aspired to be in this industry but it has been a great home for me for many years and I'm certainly glad to be a part of it. I came in working on the financial end of things for a lender that has changed ownership over the years and then did business acquisitions for many years. And about two and a half years ago made the transition over to the integration side of the industry with Brevo. That's awesome. And you said something really interesting that I think a lot of people don't know or maybe they do, none of us grew up thinking wow, I wanna be in the security industry, right? You just sort of find it and here's this amazing place with these amazing people that I think do amazing things. Yeah, I agree, I agree. Awesome. So in your role at Brevo, I tell you what, we'll talk about Brevo in a little bit later. Let's talk about the Women in Security Forum. I know you're on the steering committee. I think you were sort of one of the original members on that forum, because it's not that old. Tell me sort of how that got started and what drew you to that. What's going on with the Women in Security Forum that Cia's running? Okay, so I am one of the original members of the committee and we started at ISC West year and a half ago, gosh, almost two years ago when you think about it. And I don't know who it was the brainchild of, but there was certainly a group at Cia that said, we need to start recognizing the women in our industry in a way that will promote and boost up these women but will also create a great platform for other women that are looking to get into technology-driven industry and so the original ask went to Brevo to our CEO and to say, hey, who might you have or do you have anyone that you think would be interested in being a part of this? So I spent several years volunteering with the Electronic Security Association, which I think was a good conduit to kind of get into this with Cia. And once I learned what the goal was and how the purpose was really to create a place of inclusiveness and diversity, I was totally in. I said, I don't know what I'm gonna do yet and how I can contribute, but I definitely wanna be a part of it. So we had some early meetings that kind of talked about what can we do? What do we hope to accomplish? What would our ultimate goal be? And through that came up with a couple of initiatives and some ideas of when and where we could get together where we would have the potential of having a lot of members or potential members be in attendance. So we kind of started there and then went on to, let's fast forward to this year at ISC West having already grown by huge numbers in membership. We had a breakfast one morning, which I believe that you were there where we packed the room, we had great speakers and we had women and men that were so supportive of this group and wanting to get involved. Through that, we have had an abundance of applicants for membership, which is amazing, especially considering that a lot of association numbers are backsliding, not moving forward like they are with SIA, which is amazing. So yeah, so that's kind of how it started. And then when it came time to put committees together because I had worked on membership at ESA, I raised my hand and said, hey, I'd love to do this because I have such a heart for women in our industry and would love to see that grow. And I thought this was a great platform to be able to do that, so. That's awesome. You know, the show that ISC went, I think, I don't know, I think we had like a couple of hundred people there easily. And I know that in the last steering committee, I think we've added another hundred or a hundred and a half. So this is not, it's kind of like a tidal wave, I think of interest, you know what I mean? And for me, what happened is, I've met women in a lot of other roles in the security industry that I didn't know. You know, Christine, my wife's an owner, which is rare, right? A female owner in our industry. I think there's probably 10 maybe or something like that, you know? And I met Eddie Reynolds, you know, a manufacturer owner. So the cool thing is there are these roles, you know, engineering roles and cybersecurity roles and project management roles. And all of these roles that are not, I think our industry thought that the women, the role of women was more marketing or sales or something like that. And it's just not the case. You yourself lead a global effort for dealer development, right? Right, right. For a Brevo, so. Yeah, and I think you're exactly right. We don't see a lot of women owners, but I'm amazed, I mean, they're out there and this is a great form for us to kind of, you know, learn who they are and bring their strengths to the table. Over the years, I've seen the numbers grow and I'm excited every time I come across a company that has, you know, a female owner or, you know, partner because it just, you know, it just absolutely supports what we're trying to do here to say, hey, there is nothing that keeps you out of this industry. In fact, you're welcome here and we want to provide all the support that you need to create your own success. Yeah, I hope this, I hope the forum can also enable that message a little bit. You know, I think sometimes there's maybe some trepidation to try and we encourage everyone in our organization to try to move over, try other things. If you have other types of interests within the industry, work on those, you know, and then beyond that, you know, I know we have a bit of a relationship with I think the women in cybersecurity. So, you know, maybe there's role for coders in the cyber world to work with our manufacturers, you know, I think from an integrator perspective mostly, but the manufacturers, such as yourself, have a lot of other types of roles that suit anyone, you know, and maybe that's an additional draw that, you know, having the manufacturer voice coming out of this forum is helpful. Right, right. Well, you know, not too long ago there was a study done and I don't know how accurate the numbers are that I'm gonna share, but I will, I'll tell you what, I think we're in the ballpark that we only have about 11% women in our industry. Wow, that's low. That is a very small pool. I'm very proud of Brevo. I think we're about 32% women, which is so exciting and that runs the gamut from executive team to engineers to marketing to sales. And so I love the diversity that we have within our own company, but gosh, 11%, it's almost embarrassing to say that that's the segment of our big industry, 18,000 or so companies with 11% women. Wow. That's it. So, you were saying it before and I'm gonna bring it up, you know, I won't say you're the way you put it with the old ball guys. Yeah. That is not, that's present company excluded, but look around, you go to a trade show, you go to a summit, look around. That 11%, that may seem big based on what you see out in the marketplace. So it's not that those 11% are necessarily making up those that are out doing things. A lot of those are, you know, HR roles, they're roles that really are in the office, not that that's a, you know, not a very, very important and integral role in any business, but we still just don't see a lot of women out at events, you know, speaking, you know, there's just such opportunity out there. And I will tell you, when I first came in the industry, I remember the very first trade show I went to was an ISCE show. And we were not exhibiting at that show, but come West the next year, we did exhibit. And I will tell you, there were not a lot of female exhibitors and I was several years younger and the women in the lot of the booths were hired. And the perception was that's who were the women that were manning the booths were hired to be there. I see. And, you know, and that's, that was something that certainly did not bode well for anyone interested in getting in the industry at that time. But I'm, you know, that has changed dramatically. You don't see that very much anymore. In fact, I think some of the trade shows have actually banned that as a practice. But anyway, that's what you saw, you know, in the late 90s, early 2000s. So it's really nice to see that that's changed. Yeah, we've had, we do have that issue. I mean, there's, you know, Christine and I will be at a booth. We'll walk in to talk to someone and they just sit there talking to me the whole time and she's the president, you know. And then they'll, oh, what do you do? Finally, they'll ask her and she'll go, I'm the president by the way. And then, and they really need to be, all of our resources are hers. I don't have any, you know what I mean? So it's like, and it's just, I don't know what that mistake is or that mentality, but that's some of the messaging that I'm hoping that having some of the guys that are involved with Women's Security Forum that we can help these men to understand their thinking. There's nothing wrong with it. We all have these biases that we came up with, but we've got to have a safe space to point out that, wow, maybe what you're thinking needs to be revisited, you know. And we can do that with curiosity and with questions. We don't have to rub it in people's faces, but there's a sort of a patriarchal sort of mentality that was there, you know, 20-something years ago. And they were all maybe ex-military guys. I don't know how it came about that way, but that needs to change. And hopefully, we're the beginning of changing that for our industry. I mean, I joke a lot with these guys. I say, look, we all just need to retire. Christine says I can retire anytime. She's just gonna quit paying me. I'm like, I can't do that yet. So I don't know if a lot of the other guys are in my role, but there's a level of these guys that just need to open up their chairs, their desks for other opportunities and other people to move around in industry, you know. And it's, I think it's one thing, people love it. Like you said, they don't leave it once they get in it. And so maybe that's why they stick around because it's important to those of us that are in it, you know, it's a bit of an interesting dilemma, but learning to make space, learning to mentor. I want to talk a little bit about mentoring because I've heard some interesting comments about that. We're at, we're at about the 14 minute mark. So I'll tell you what we'll do, we'll take a quick break. We got to pay some bills for about a minute and then we'll be right back with Kelly Bond. Hello, I'm Dave Stevens, host of the Cyber Underground. This is where we discuss everything that relates to computers that's just gonna scare you out of your mind. So come join us every week here on thinktecawaii.com, one PM on Friday afternoons. And then you can go see all our episodes on YouTube, just look up the Cyber Underground on YouTube. All our shows will show up and please follow us. We're always giving you current, relevant information to protect you. Keepin' you safe. Aloha. Aloha. I'm Wendy Lo and I'm coming to you every other Tuesday at two o'clock live from thinktecawaii. And on our show, we talk about taking your health back. And what does that mean? It means mind, body and soul. Anything you can do that makes your body healthier and happier is what we're gonna be talking about. Whether it's spiritual health, mental health, fascia health, beautiful smile health, whatever it means, let's take healthy back. Aloha. Back with Security Matter. So why we've got Kelly Bond here from Brevo. Kelly, we were just getting into this problem that I came across where I think it was a sort of some pushback from the Me Too movement where a lot of the men in my industry or in our industry have expressed that they're a little afraid to be a mentor to women or afraid to help women with their careers. You know, that they could be something they say might be mistaken or misunderstood. And I'm a fan of having those conversations and risking that personally. What's your, what would be your message to these guys that, you know, we're sort of talking about they're hangin' around the industry, they're hangin' around the industry and, you know, what can they, they've got a wealth of experience, a wealth of contacts that they could share. What, how would they engage? And maybe some of the men that have helped you along. I know you work for Steve over there, you know, great guy. So share with me your thoughts on some of that. You know, that's, it's a touchy subject for sure. You know, anything in the Me Too movement, but I don't think we can all walk around being afraid of what could potentially happen. I mean, it's, you know, if you behave yourself, that you have nothing to worry about, you know, it's easy for me to say, I'm sure, but, you know, we are such an opportune and pivotal time in our industry. We are trying to make this shift to being a technology industry so that we start to earn interest from more, you know, college graduates, Votech school graduates. We've got such a wealth of knowledge that we need to be passing down, but we also need that to amalgamate with what those people bring to our industry, you know, and being afraid of, you know, what could be misconstrued, you know, that's a, unfortunately, I think it's a poor excuse for not sharing your knowledge and not opening a seat for somebody in your organization. You know, I think I've been so fortunate to have amazing bosses in the industry. You know, it started out with, you know, Rich Perry, Bill Polk at SLP Capital. Bill is actually how I ended up at Brevo. Awesome. But then there was a, you know, 13-year spance in there where I had a wonderful female CEO, Amy Kittari, who was wonderful and is a friend to this day. And so I've really had such great leaders leading up to Steve, who I'm, you know, so thankful for because he, this topic, what we're talking about today, he has such a passion for this and for culture that it is really, it's so uncommon, I think, for any business, not just our industry, but I think it, for any industry where you've got, you know, a male dominant leadership team, executive team, whatever, it's hard to kind of break that mold, but I think Steve is a great example of someone that is working hard to do that within our company, within our organization. And I think if you're afraid to do it, you're missing out on fantastic opportunities to work with some amazing people. So I encourage you, especially if you're looking to fill seats within your organization, you know, if you've got people that are at the point of being able to rise up, take them under your wing and mentor them, move and mold them into that position, don't be afraid of it, or we're never gonna get anywhere. So that's my opinion on it, good, bad, or otherwise. No, I agree a hundred percent. I mean, there's, and there, I think some, in some capacity that maybe people have forgotten how to ask questions and how to be curious, right? There's the what you know, because you're a 20 year security veteran or whatever it may be, but what can this other person bring, what kind of new perspective? And that's all the stuff that I'm afraid we could be missing out on as an industry, because we're not inviting, or maybe we're beginning to invite, but we're not, haven't done a great job of inviting a diverse workforce, you know, and including those other thoughts. You know, the way we did it 20 years ago is different from the way we do it today. It's gonna be different, probably a lot quicker than that, because of the pace of technology. But we, as an industry, have got to be curious, I think, and open those doors. And are we, I don't think we should be afraid to fail, we're a real money making industry. That's another thing I think people don't know is how well, I think, are we like double digit percentage growth like every year since 1970 or something like that as an industry? Yeah, and it's been amazing, even, you know, even in the late 90s, 97, 98, you know, up to the 2007, 2008, you know, when the rest of the economy was taken an absolute beating, if you looked at multiples that were paid for businesses in the industry, and you see there was such a small shift in the valuation of companies in that timeframe, it should go to tell you that there's something stable and consistent about this industry, and it should be one that more people are interested in getting into. So, so yeah, I think the opportunities are abundant, and if you don't take advantage of them, you're definitely missing out. Yeah, and that's what I hope that that message sort of translates out through, you know, the relationship with the women in cyber, and there's so many, the executive women's forum or foundation, there's a bunch of different women's groups, and I think we need to reach into these sort of other pools of knowledge and bring that thought into our industry, because there's a competition for it, right? So we can pay well, and we can teach, we can learn, and there's a lot of lateral movement within our industry that people can challenge themselves. There's no reason to ever really get stuck in any role in this industry that I know of. Right, right. Well, and growing companies should have opportunities for people to move into different positions and do different things, and I think that's another opportunity to make available to everyone in your organization to say, hey, you know what, if you always wanted to be an engineer, and right now you're in, you know, whatever role you're in, we're gonna support you getting there. You know, we'll make it available to you. We, as a company, want to see your growth, and you know, it also creates sticky employees to do things like that. You know, you want longevity, you don't want a lot of turnover, so great opportunity to do it. And you know, I wanna mention too, I think that we are seeing a little bit of a shift of what's happening with high school graduates. They're not all going right to college. More and more every year are choosing a technical school or, you know, go tech type school. They're getting into the workforce earlier and they're coming with different skills. And oftentimes, these are folks that are very committed to what they want to do, what they want to learn, and they bring a whole different subset of qualifications through the door. So I think we also, as an industry, really need to be focusing on that as a feeder to our employee bases. You know, it's another great opportunity to get some fantastic folks, you know, men and women, but certainly women. I think they're, those numbers are growing in the Votec schools every single year. So we don't wanna forgo missing unbelievable talent because we're looking just for a four year degree or, you know, and think about it too. How many people are actually working in the field in which their degree was given? Right, exactly. I'd say it's a pretty fair number that are not. They're doing something different. So, you know, just something to keep in mind, I think. Yeah, 100% agree. We've had success with some interns out of the high school programs and I follow the hacker high school group. I go out and teach them. I teach them how to hack alarms, but then I also give a pitch for our industry, which is kind of fun. So I agree with you 100%. There's definitely a pool of talent that's, and they're already sort of IT talented anyway, because they're just the way they grew up. And so they, all we have to do is teach them security. I think the internal training spend is worth every penny that, you know, companies invest in its people without a doubt. Let's um. Yeah, for sure. Let's talk a little bit. Oh, I'm sorry, sorry. No, no, I was gonna say the, I wanted to get a little bit of a feel for what's going on at Brevo today. I know you, because you get around, you know, globally and talk with your dealer base. So how are, you know, the cloud services were a little bit slow to adopt, but they, you see everyone going that way, obviously. So what's your, what's your take on it? And then when, what do you see from that dealer base that's out there from a, is it 11% women as well? Or are you, are we doing better in cloud services? Maybe I don't know. I don't, I don't know what the numbers are as far as women that are in the cloud. But I would say that probably more women because we know of these things, we know that you should be forward thinking, but that's just a generalization anyway. So Brevo's doing fantastic. You know, we were the first ones to cloud and certainly it took longer to adopt. Thankfully, you know, Steve and John Siegel, our team have, you know, a total commitment to this. They knew that this is the way things were going to go. So they just kind of held steadfast and said, you know what, we're going to stay on this path. Unfortunately they did because it really made us the premier provider of cloud services to access control. We were the pioneers of it. And what this has done and created for a building manager or, you know, a business owner is if you think about the accessibility and the ease of use and the convenience of having a cloud-based access control system versus, you know, having an on-premise system, they're night and day. It's almost like it's a completely different type of business because, you know, because one of them just gives you all of that. It's the convenience, it's the scalability of cloud-based physical security. So we are growing exponentially. Our customer base is, you know, our dealer base is amazing. We do not sell through distribution. So it's direct through our channel. So we know every single sale that takes place and we're doing everything we can to nurture our dealers. We work on that. We talk about it every day. We want to do everything we can to make them better. The fact that we have an open API and the ability to integrate with other management solutions to, you know, create a completely managed system is amazing. The fact that you can view live and save video right through one application, I mean, it's amazing. And so coming from the intrusion side of the industry to Brevo, I will tell you, I had to learn a whole new job because I did not know what I did not know, trust me. So now that I understand it better and I can see where people were a year ago or five years ago, I think why would you even look at something that was not cloud-based? I mean, the capability is phenomenal. You know, we scale from small to medium-sized businesses to enterprise. So, you know, when you could have a location in, you know, the UK and when in New York and be on your phone and remove a credential or set up a schedule or whatever you need to do. So it's such an exciting time to be in this space. The growth is phenomenal. And what we're also doing, we actually had a press release that came out a couple of weeks ago where we are integrated with Alula. So we are actually going to have the ability to control your alarm panel through Brevo OnAir. So, which that is super exciting for us. And for me, that gives, I love the opportunity that this gives us to go out to that, you know, security more intrusion dealer market that may not have even considered doing access control in the past. So it's very, very exciting and a fun time to be in this space. Yeah, it's amazing. It took our industry sort of a while to understand that we're, you know, everybody else was managed service, managed service, managed service. And that's where we're headed. And now they're, you know, they're finally, I think the adoption rate's catching on is everybody leaves all that hardware behind that they used to have to report. A really great insights there. Kelly, I wanna thank you for joining me today. I really appreciate the time flies. Enjoy your holiday season. If I don't see you till the spring, probably at ISC West. And for our viewers out there, I really appreciate you joining us today. We've covered a little bit of ground with women in security. We're gonna continue to cover that ground. If you're interested in our industry, please go to Women's Security Industry Association, Women's Security Forum and check us out. We'd like to have you. Take care, everybody. Aloha. Thank you. Bye-bye.