David Nosibor: Taking calculated risks. [Product Lead]

David Nosibor: Hi, my name is David Nosibor and I'm a Product Lead for SafeCyber at UL solutions.

David Nosibor: I wanted to be a basketball player at the very beginning and ultimately this evolved into wanting to work in the basketball industry in any shape or form, being part of the NBA league or ultimately being part of a team. But, uh, then I quickly realized that none of that was going to happen. So, I shifted my focus to being a programmer, given that my dad was working for HP and taught me a lot about hardware, software, and pretty much getting my way around a computer.

David Nosibor: Since I grew up in France, I went through prep school and ultimately prepared to enter a business school and I studied marketing and new media communications there. Ultimately, wanted to, leverage on my marketing skillset and my previous websites that I created when I was a teenager and that's what I did for my studies, and Ironically enough, I started working in the sports industry in a TV channel, actually Eurosport, as part of their communications team and then went on to work for a financial auditing company and tackle social media marketing over there.

David Nosibor: The way I reached my current position is, it's actually not academic at all and not the typical way of reaching it. But I think it's always been about opportunities, always being willing to learn new things and ultimately not wanting to be pigeonholed to just one specific skillset that could get me to great places moving forward. As a Product Lead I have to say that I'm acting as a, sort of a CEO within the company for my product, for the platform that I'm running and that's helping me to tackle all sorts of elements, such as marketing, operations, obviously working with the engineering team, figuring out ways to acquire customers, retain them, and also working on my sales and business development capabilities. So it's a bit of everything that is happening typically within a day from liaising with the development team to work on what we've been hearing from customers and their request and things that we can improve to strategizing about the future, the relevant areas to focus on and detect opportunities as we go looking into partnerships as well with promising and bright talent in working in some mature startups that we can definitely leverage on.

David Nosibor: I would define myself as being quite approachable, making people comfortable in the way they can come up to me and express their ideas and share their points of view. I'm all for healthy debates and constructive criticism. So, I like when people are convinced about their beliefs and if they can back it up with data points I'm all for a healthy conversation. That's probably my French trait, liking arguments and healthy debates, but yeah, I would say approachable, having a vision, and being convinced about what we're doing. It's quite important in instilling confidence. Um, I'm quite convinced about that and also finding opportunities and being on the lookout for ways to essentially accomplish our mission, which is to democratize product security. 

David Nosibor: Stay curious and keep being curious, even though for some people it could be thinking they're not necessarily up to specific things and because they don't have the official credentials for it. Especially when they could be looking for a career change, to that, I would say this is no longer a valid today. It's all about who shows the most curiosity and ultimately is able to pitch ideas and getting to meet with new people to convey these ideas across, right? The ability to stay curious, network, and be bold. There's a great lyricist that I like to quote often, that's Mr. Sean Carter. Who's usually saying I can't knock the hustle. I truly believe in that. I believe the people should be taking calculated risks and if they've been curious enough to explore an idea and exchange with professionals in the cybersecurity field, for example, including myself, I would be very happy to hear that. This is what, in my opinion, creates opportunities with people that are bold and not afraid to show themselves out there with their flaws and all. It's not about being perfect or being the one that knows everything.

David Nosibor: My way to deal with adversity is to remember those other days where, when I got wins or I got things that went my way. So this is my way to cope with bad days, remembering the wins that were achieved earlier on and essentially reminding myself of the journey that got me there. It's not the end in itself, it's just a bump along the way and well, there's only one way to look when we're down, it's up.