Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing

Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing

Cybersecurity marketer, we've got your back! Created by the Cybersecurity Marketing Society, the Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing podcast shares the stories, successes, and failures of marketers in this fast-paced and constantly changing industry. Listen to learn, laugh, and improve your cybersecurity marketing game! New episodes every Wednesday.

Trailer

Recent Episodes

Ep 170 | 7.9.25

Metaphors, Missed Signals, and Making Cyber Make Sense with Evgeniy Kharam

Security architect, podcast host, and author Evgeniy Kharam has seen it again and again: a company buys a shiny new security product, and a year later, it’s still sitting on the shelf. Not because it didn’t work, but because no one knew how to explain it, use it, or get buy-in. That gap between buying and deploying, between knowing and communicating, is what pulled Evgeniy into his next chapter. After years in technical delivery and architecture, he realized that soft skills weren’t nice to have; they were survival tools. In this episode, we talk about what happens when security teams can’t translate what they do, how marketers can meet them in the middle, and why metaphors (tents, dogs, houses, you’ll see) work. We get into RSA booth fatigue, Zoom call awkwardness, and what it takes to connect with someone who’s nodding along but completely lost. Also: hummus etiquette, a three-year campaign to get Evgeniy to CyberMarketingCon, and his dream escape plan involving a shawarma truck.

Ep 169 | 7.2.25

Scrappy Then, Strategic Now: The Evolution of a Cybersecurity CMO

Most first marketers don’t stay long enough to see scale. Thomas LeDuc did. Six years in, he’s still at Semperis, leading a 35-person marketing team and showing it’s possible to evolve from scrappy to strategic. Gianna and Charles explore what makes that kind of longevity possible: the mindset shifts, the habits that stuck, and the moments that nearly broke him. This episode is full of clarity, honesty, and the kind of leadership most people don’t talk about.

Ep 168 | 6.25.25

Founder-Led GTM in Cyber: How Taha Sajid Built Trust Without Selling

Let’s talk about telecom infrastructure: complex, overlooked, and still running on outdated tools most vendors were never built to secure. This episode, we’re joined by Taha Sajid, telecom security architect and founder of Xecurity Pulse, who’s on a mission to fix the gaps in enterprise tools. From growing up in Pakistan to leading security efforts at Huawei and Comcast, Taha’s story is all about solving real-world problems, sharing what he’s learned, and pushing back against the copy-paste approach to infrastructure security. He breaks down how an education-first go-to-market (GTM) strategy helped him land his first customers and why understanding the telecom stack is critical to protecting what matters most.

Ep 167 | 6.18.25

Free Forever, No BS: Inside Bitwarden’s Growth Playbook with Gary Orenstein

Most cybersecurity vendors lead with fear, gate their best features, and hide behind complexity. Bitwarden did the opposite and still won. In this episode, Gianna and Maria sit down with Gary Orenstein, the Chief Customer Officer at Bitwarden, to break down how an open-source password manager with a “free forever” product became a trusted global brand across consumers and enterprises. No gimmicks. No fear-mongering. Just a strategy built on transparency, trust, and a product that actually works.

Ep 166 | 6.11.25

Inside Tom Wentworth’s AI Stack: How to Automate the Stuff Marketers Hate

Tom Wentworth, CMO at Incident.io, got tired of doing the same stuff over and over, so he built AI agents to do it for him. Sales call summaries? Automated. Blog posts from discovery calls? Done in minutes. Battle cards? They update themselves. He’s wiring together Slack, Notion, Zapier, Gong, and ChatGPT in ways that help his team move faster without adding headcount or complexity. There are no big declarations, just real systems that save time and don’t annoy people. We talk about what’s working, what’s breaking, and how far you can push things without sounding like a robot. Also: cold plunges, prompt rage, and the Notion doc that’s 90 pages long. 🎧 Press play to hear how Tom stretches modern marketing ops with the right automation setup.

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Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing
Host(s)
Gianna Whitver
Maria Velasquez
Gianna Whitver is Co-Founder and CEO of the Cybersecurity Marketing Society and Co-Host of the BreakingThrough in Cybersecurity Marketing Podcast.

Gianna advises on marketing & GTM for cybersecurity and technology companies. She speaks publicly on marketing and entrepreneurial topics, having presented at RSA Conference 365, (ISC)2, InfoSec World, and others. Previously, she worked in marketing and operations at cybersecurity, tech, and commercial RE companies.
Maria Velasquez is Co-Founder of the Cybersecurity Marketing Society and Co-Host of the Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing Podcast. On a mission to change the way cyber marketing is done, she is focused on truly being embedded within the security community.

She is also NetSPI's Director of Demand Generation, spearheading growth for their pentesting-as-a-service. Maria previously worked at Owl Cyber Defense, Kasada, Unibuddy, and Feroot.
Schedule: Weekly Wednesdays at 3am ET
Credits: Thanks to our editors, producers, and all-hands team: Jen VanAntwerp, Busiswa Mahonono, and Nicole Lacanilao.
Creator: Cybersecurity Marketing Society
Cybersecurity Marketing Society