I spend most of this show sitting across from the people who defend the enterprise. This time I did something deliberately different — I sat across from the person who has to sell it, explain it, and make people believe in it.
Her opening line set the tone: trust is always cheaper than recovery. And then she made the case that lands harder the longer you sit in this field — almost every disaster I've seen up close didn't start with broken code. It started with broken trust. Someone believing a message they shouldn't have, or ignoring a warning they should have heeded.
Technology, it turns out, doesn't fail at the firewall nearly as often as it fails at the human being.
In The Chair
Iryna Sheremeta — Chief Commercial Officer at ein-des-ein, and a career built entirely on the human layer. She began in 2009 as a TV journalist and presenter, trained as a Master of Law, and became a professional MC who has hosted everything from intimate roundtables to open-air events with 40,000+ people. She advises international trade missions to Ukraine, speaks five languages, and does all of it from Lviv. Her own summary of her strength: I act like an owner, not like an employee.
THE BRIEF — 3 Things Worth Your Time
1. Most disasters start with broken trust, not broken code. The money goes into stopping the breach, patching the system, locking the door. But the failures that land hardest usually begin with a human decision — believing the wrong message, ignoring the right warning. So what: The control that gets the least budget — how people judge what and whom to believe — is often where the real exposure sits.
2. "Verify everything" and "build trust" are the same instinct. Security industrialized distrust: zero trust, assume breach, verify everything. A commercial leader lives by the opposite-sounding rule — trust precedes the sale. Iryna's resolution: you cannot make a good deal with a bad person, so verifying hard is how trust gets earned, not the enemy of it. In an age of deepfakes, she leans on references and third-party proof before anyone's word. So what: Your zero-trust posture and your sales team's trust-building aren't at war. Framed right, they're the same discipline wearing different clothes.
3. Compliance is risk prevention wearing a cost label. On the EU's Cyber Resilience Act — the end of "ship now, secure later" — she doesn't sell clients the regulation. She sells what it protects: reputation, customers, future growth. Building security in from the start is simply cheaper than retrofitting it after something breaks. So what: "Handle my data properly" is moving from fine print to a line on the deck. Responsible data practice is becoming a competitive advantage, not just a legal obligation.
Also in this episode
- Why the physical handshake still closes deals no LinkedIn post or email can
- Reading a room of thousands — and what it teaches you about a boardroom
- Over-deliver without over-promising: why "rush is the enemy of good"
- Ukraine as one of the world's most technologically resilient nations — and why that's a mindset, not just infrastructure
One line worth stealing
"Trust is always cheaper than recovery. You can spend years building a reputation and millions marketing a product — one security incident can undo all of it." — Iryna Sheremeta
Watch the full conversation
The full episode goes deeper on all of it — the human layer, the war, and a rapid-fire round that ends on a line worth pinning up.
▶ Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/NNc5qcjE8zI
Join the conversation
Iryna's closing answer: people trust a company when it wants to help rather than sell. So here is my question to you: where has trust — not technology — been the thing that actually held, or actually failed?
💬 Add your take here
Before you go
If this is your kind of thing, you have the super-power to write to ‘[email protected]’ with a security, privacy, or technology leader (or enthusiast) you would want to see in the chair. I read every one.
— Ashish | CISO Chair™