During the Great Recession, Bob Thibodeaux — now a Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at DefenseStorm — was laid off. While being unemployed in Seattle with thousands of other IT professionals was challenging, being laid off in 2009 changed his life forever, as it led him to find his passion for cybersecurity. “I decided to switch to cybersecurity and started my work to gain the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP),” he explains.

Another experience that put him on the path to a security career? His love for James Bond, military espionage and the greater good. “As a kid growing up in the 1960s, I loved the James Bond movies, watched the series, and read all the books.” In his own way, Thibodeaux is a version of James Bond, protecting businesses from threat actors — nation-states, cybercriminals or hacktivists — while working to increase business resilience.