On this episode of The Vurge, Rebecca Woods is joined by Robyn Ewers, President of WiCys Healthcare. A partnership & alliances expert, Robyn talks about creating partnerships that deliver mutually beneficial outcomes. Passionate about the impact consistent and intrinsic cultures of communication can have across the organization, she shares her thoughts on servant leadership, partnership principals, and so much more!
Highlights include:
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On this episode of The Vurge, Rebecca Woods is joined by Robyn Ewers, President of WiCys Healthcare. A partnership & alliances expert, Robyn talks about creating partnerships that deliver mutually beneficial outcomes. Passionate about the impact consistent and intrinsic cultures of communication can have across the organization, she shares her thoughts on servant leadership, partnership principals, and so much more!
Highlights include:
Thanks for listening! Like what you hear? Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and be sure to subscribe to The Vurge for the latest episodes and more!
Interested in being a guest on the show? Click here to learn more.
Hey everyone and welcome to another episode of the Verge, where today we have Robin Ewers, who is the founding president of Women in Cyber Security Healthcare. Welcome, ms Robin.
Speaker 2:Thank you, rebecca, I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 1:We're so excited to have you. So I'm going to spring this on you because, before we get to your agenda and our questions and get to know more about you, I want to switch it over and I want you to tell the listeners about this awesome swim party that you and your girlfriend have to raise money, because I think it's an awesome idea and I want to invite next time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I want to turn into a national circuit. So basically every summer for last few summers we've gotten together and it's grown a bit, but we get together and everything we spend on the bar tab we basically match and donate to a women's organization of our choice. But really it's the way we can all shut off for the day and say, okay, we're going to drink all day by the pool and our bar tab is actually like the best possible thing because we're donating it to charity and it's all going to a good cause. But I think we could have like pods of national pool party where women all over the country are getting together for I don't know, women in healthcare, technology and cyber security to have these great pool parties and excuse to say we got to take the day off, we're going to go, it's, it's for a good cause.
Speaker 1:Yes, I'm on the next flight for your next one. I'm so excited.
Speaker 2:For me personally, it's way better than the golf tournaments, yeah, which is essentially the same thing.
Speaker 1:I love it. I can drive the cart, but I cannot drive the ball and I have a big just.
Speaker 2:I'm also great at ordering drinks for everybody during the golf tournament.
Speaker 1:One time when I was working in Vermont, I had the golf tournament and I was helping you know, because I was one of the executives and I can't golf, so I didn't do that and I actually drove the beer cart around, but me and my executive assistant, nicole Webb was my wing woman and we it was so hot that day we actually filled up a bunch of water guns and we're driving by like squirting everything.
Speaker 2:I mean you got to add some laughter and fun to these golf tournaments because they can get real boring if you're not into the golf. I agree.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you got to have fun, all right, so let's switch over. Tell us all about you, tell us your background and you know where you started and how you got into all healthcare, cybersecurity, it stuff Go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean that's such a loaded question, but I kind of consider my you know, 17 plus year career as a series of maybe daring, maybe dumb at other times leaps into the unknown. So as a strategist, I'm pretty unafraid to be bold and scrappy and I've plowed my way through the in the field, learning of communication strategies and market expansion and revenue generation, and my primary focus has been in healthcare technology and cybersecurity. I spent a significant part of my career spearheading sales teams, business development teams and partnerships for a growth stage infection prevention technology company, obviously partnering and selling directly into health systems and through a pretty expansive channel strategy, and there was a strong SaaS component in that organization. So it was all of the above right. It was the technical sale, it was selling to different units within the organization, different leaders, it was selling to the channel, and what I learned is I didn't sell anything. I really created partnerships and alliances to become a mutually beneficial facilitator, if you will. The size and nature of the organization that I spent so much time at really offered me a unique freedom to explore, learn and mold myself into the type of revenue leader that healthcare organizations wanted to engage with, which you and I kind of bonded on in our very first conversation and my work really has revolved around creating strategic partnerships that consistently delivered mutually beneficial outcomes, even when the outcome didn't serve me immediately right. So that's the key factor.
Speaker 2:And today, in my current career role in mid-2022, I transitioned, somewhat serendipitously, into consulting and project-based work. I don't know that it was as intentional as it became, but fast forward to today and I proudly say we are untethered strategy and I wanted to create something for small and grow stage companies in the tech space, most that have been launched by some really brilliant technologists read, not great soft skills or revenue strategists. I wanted to create an organization where they could have that sort of power and backing behind them. So I consider the work we do sort of chief revenue officer work in consumable doses, right. So, project by project, however you're needed, but we can build strategy, we can implement a specific project and I really love the flexible nature of what I'm doing. We have deep experience in revenue strategy, technology growth and we can provide insights and roadmaps that drive top line revenue and achieve cross-functional goals. So, at the end of the day, the most important concept for anybody to get is that you cannot achieve optimal outcomes without consistent and intrinsic cultures of communication. So true.
Speaker 1:So true, what got you into? Like the cyber side? Right, because there's not people here cyber and they get very scared. Then there's not even fewer women in cyber. And so what got you into cyber and got you drinking that Kool-Aid?
Speaker 2:I think there was just such a need for me, for somebody with my skill set, and I left Seale Shield, which was my company that I was with for a very long time, and I was so proud of that company and the growth and impact we had. But I wanted to actually expand into cyber and I was given an opportunity to do a go to market plan and launch for an executive search firm that really had a focus in life sciences. But they wanted to expand into the cybersecurity space and obviously healthcare is a natural realm for me. It's where I spent most of my career and their leadership also wanted to implement a heavy, a heavy component of inclusion practices in the sector or in that vertical, if you will, of their business, and so it seemed like a great fit. I was able to do that. It was really, really fun for me, and what I also learned going into that space was the lack of resources for cybersecurity in general.
Speaker 2:When you get into healthcare, it's even smaller, and then when we talk about women or minority populations, the numbers are dismal, and so a lot of what I knew to be true in creating successful teams and successful organizations wasn't active in cybersecurity. So there wasn't enough collaboration, communication. Everybody was working in silos and cybersecurity was a little bit viewed as the underdog. And still is right. Cybersecurity is typically rolled up through IT and they're given about 6% of the overall budget, which is surely not enough. And I just love low hanging fruit girl. There was so much low hanging fruit for me to say everything we do, everything we do today in cybersecurity whether you're a health system cybersecurity team or a health system vendor in cybersecurity or service provider, everything can be amplified if we come in with some communication strategies, with the principles of partnership and alliances, everything can be made better. Right, yeah, we can do so much better.
Speaker 1:Bridging that gap.
Speaker 2:So when I finished up the work launching that vertical, I automatically had a few clients come to me and say, hey, can you do some work for us? And that's where it snowballed to. That's awesome. I love it yeah.
Speaker 1:Where do you see the industry going in terms of the CISO, the CIO, the CTO Now I've seen the chief innovation officer and how do you see those strategically aligning, working together, keeping that communication open? What trends?
Speaker 3:are we seeing?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, you and I have chatted about this before and I think all those roles are important and all of those roles are completely functional necessities in our landscape, in healthcare Right. I don't think that any one of those roles shouldn't exist. What I think needs to happen as we progress is that there needs to be more handshakes instead of rollups. There needs to be more collaboration instead of silos and there needs to be true communicators, faces that come together and say this is how we align. We're all links in the chain, as opposed to we are a component of IT as cyber or if we're a chief innovation officer, we're a component of something totally different and often handed off to. You know the private equity firms and doing some interesting work there, but how often are our teams actually being forced to collaborate? I think the BISO might be the most important role in cybersecurity today.
Speaker 2:You know Tracy Tumak, cleveland Clinic. I know Tracy Tumak, cleveland Clinic. She's the business information services liaison and she, if you ever talk to her what you should she actually has the most amazing outcomes based off of her communication strategies throughout to communicate cyber security throughout the business right, and all of a sudden, everyone in the C-suite is sitting there, you know, with their hands under their chin, like so excited to hear what she has to say because she's reporting really great outcomes. And without that communication person, without that really soft skill thinker who also has the ability to go technical, we're all just gonna kind of exist out there in space and not come together. Yeah, your thoughts on?
Speaker 1:it. You're really good at talking about this. Yeah, I mean, it's about having them stakeholders right, being able to get out there front and center, communicate and, like we've talked about before, is having all of those individual stakeholders departments come together, but then also being able to explain it so that your mom can understand.
Speaker 3:Oh, yes, because at the board level, or even at different levels.
Speaker 1:You know, nurses hear cybersecurity and they think something different than what we might need to be implementing. And how do we communicate that this change for them, which might seem like a pain in the ass, is actually going to help them or keep something more secure? And then again, at the board level, you have real estate, you know, or other people outside of healthcare, and how do you take a huge initiative for cybersecurity and that will change the organization and word it so that your mom can understand it right?
Speaker 2:I love that we both came together and be like so you're. Frankly, I do not think my mother will ever understand cybersecurity. She would probably just tell somebody can you fix my printer? But to be fair, you know, there's this concept or vision of what cybersecurity is and I think everyone within a cybersecurity organization needs to be enabled and given the gift of translating the cybersecurity value proposition so that they're not viewed as roadblocks.
Speaker 2:I mean you show up as cybersecurity on you know the OR manager's calendar and asking for a meeting and it's like, oh great, these people Like what? Now? You know, like we just went through this giant rollout of whatever the last rollout, and now you want me to do something else and they don't want to. But if you start solving the problems right and if you can put your value proposition into their goals right, if you actually understand your audience and you use these like pillars of communication and partnership, where you understand where your handshake is and where your values come together and how you can fill in the gaps right, then you can do amazing things together Right and change.
Speaker 2:I mean I love Jen Easterly Like I listen to so much of her public talks and I think she's doing such a good job of changing the vision of cybersecurity from like the guy coding in his mom's basement and doing evil things in the black hoodie to this really personable human who can relay the most difficult concepts and difficult problems to solve into like a very human component. Anybody in the public can listen to her and say I kind of get what she's talking about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, make it relatable right.
Speaker 1:Have you seen the commercials that New Zealand put together in terms of cybersecurity and making it relatable. There was one where I'm probably not going to describe it right, but there was one where, like the kid was talking on like a chat or something to people and then the people actually knock on the kid's door and it's like two inappropriate people show up at the door I don't know if I can say on this point but then the mom opens up and they're like what are you doing here? And it's the two inappropriate people and they're like we're here for Johnny and Johnny's in the back like oh my God, I didn't know that that's who I was chatting with, right, and so like making it aware and relatable.
Speaker 2:I'll Google that when we're done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you'll have a few good ones. You'll like you'll, you'll laugh they're, they're good.
Speaker 2:I mean we have to understand. You know, healthcare is so nuanced, rebecca, like there's so much important work going on that is life changing, right, for individuals. It's world changing. There's a real, there's a real culture of collaboration in health care too, right? So we've got research, we've got your frontline practitioners, we've got, you know, all the, all of the you know, fda approved technology that's changing the game. They all have to come together and collaborate. Why isn't cybersecurity being viewed as part of that collaboration? And and I T for that matter, you know there's, there's the need for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was just talking to a client this week where a bunch of I T staff that you consider would be in I T actually report to other C level people or directors and she's working really hard at like getting all those people together to report under her so that they're all talking, you know, the same language. It's so important and so important to have IT governance and security there at the table as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think you know our.
Speaker 2:The way we formed IT and cyber security in this country, the way it's all come together, has been maybe it's all newer right in terms of you know the history of healthcare and hospitals and serving the community.
Speaker 2:You know the IT and cyber security components are all newer and so that's been a little bit more organic. And organic can be very good, but it also leaves a lot of room for improvement. And again, going back to professional growth, I think everybody should be equipped with you know the skills to have a voice and be coachable and coach back and to be cross functional. And while some people that's those are intrinsic abilities, like I think you and I are probably extroverts and we've been taught to communicate in anywhere where we need a little bit of honing. Someone's invested in us because it's our natural skill set, but they are teachable skills. You know, everybody can become an advocate of themselves and build their personal brand and their personal voice and and be a loud voice and a loud face of cyber security or IT and healthcare If you're trained to do it, even if it's not intrinsic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely. Well, switching over, that's a, you know, a good pause to switch over to. You know leadership, and what do you think makes a good leader in today's world? You know, switching over from how we need to communicate and all of our changes and help bridge the gap. I think that the leader is different than it was 10 years ago. What do you think?
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely. The leader is different than it was 10 years ago and and where it's not different, we should probably be looking at those as really great client opportunities. For me, right, but? But leaders I personally and there's some pushback on this term these days, I'm not going to try and get PC about it, but I subscribe to servant leadership. I worked, you know, within servant leadership for so much of my career, the idea that you listen and serve first, and that's not an easy thing to do, especially when you truly believe that you know the answers. It's often about you know giving your teams and your partners the ability to solve issues on their own and to bring new, fresh ideas to the table. So I don't think there's any bad outcome with servant leadership done right, and I personally subscribe to it because I was raised in it, if you will. In fact, I thought about this recently my father, who has passed, but he was the most important person in my life, obviously until my husband and my children, and he still holds that role in some way, but he always told my sisters and I that he was so impressed by us. He never said he was so proud of us and I didn't think much of it until, maybe you know, the end of his life. But he didn't claim ownership of us. Like saying you're proud is claiming ownership and I do it all the time and it comes from a good place but he had this ability to say this is you, you've done it, maybe I've given you some tools along the way, but he was impressed by us, not proud of us, you know, and it's a different feeling when you give that to somebody else. And so maybe servant leadership was something my father started teaching me very young and that's why I was drawn to it in my career, because it's it's shifting the mindset. And then there's a book called, and really a program called, ownership thinking, written by Bradhams, and Bradhams has also passed. I don't just talk about dead people, I swear my former C-suite Bradway Church and Scott Filion brought in this workshop Bradhams when he was still alive.
Speaker 2:It's ownership thinking and it's really about making everyone in your company, in your organization, a leader and an owner in the company, right? So you know, open numbers. It's an open book company and it's talking about your, your results, on an open stage. And it's also talking about your failures on an open stage and it's, you know, in private, smaller companies. There's profit sharing and all that. That doesn't really apply to that, doesn't really apply to, like, say, a health system cybersecurity team or an ITD team, but it does apply conceptually that everybody should be an owner, like don't hide the numbers, make the numbers known to make sure that everybody can speak to the numbers you know, like whether they're your outcomes, whether they're your financials. Make sure that you are part of the process and you're benefiting from positive results. And we could go on for days about ownership thinking. If anybody's interested in it, you can still just Google ownership thinking and it's a great concept and it's a great practice to implement.
Speaker 2:So you know, I think those are my, those are some of my pillars as a leader communication and collaboration. I have talked about already a ton, but I will not stop talking about them. Some of the biggest joys I've been able to have over the last two years is coaching others and working with teams to help them empower their voices and, you know, doing workshops to let them talk about. You know, bring out their warmth, bring out their joy in their career. Not everybody has to be the most passionate about what they do, but if you become authentic and you empower others to become authentic. You know you can truly change somebody's well-being and happiness in the workplace. So I think that's a that's a space I'm really excited about as a leader. And you know, just making sure as a leader you're inclusive, right Like you lead with inclusivity, not diversity, but you know, yeah yeah, definitely, robin.
Speaker 1:how would you lead in today's world with a partnership mindset, including technical and IT, with cybersecurity and all of the employees that come with it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's nuanced depending who you are and what your team is, but I think the one thing you can relay, no matter what your role, is whether it's technical, whether it's revenue based, whether, even if you're a physician in the health system, you can as a vendor, as a health system cybersecurity team or an individual contributor, I think shifting the mindset from whatever the role is you do to the mindset of a strategic partnerships leader. So you have to constantly assess and address, right, you cannot work in a silo. So anybody who's ever looked at a new partnership, they basically go through the same framework of assessing. You know your organizational mission, you know the mission of the partner, right? So do they align. Determine your organizational or personal projects, specific priorities right, we can relate that to anybody. What are your priorities? What are your counterparts priorities? That person on the other end of the project or the team on the other end of the conversation determine your readiness to partner in terms of resources, skills, time, expertise.
Speaker 2:And here is where you find so many team gaps, so many personal gaps, and you can identify them and you can choose to evolve. This is where we find education opportunities, and you find these in even the most advanced teams. And then you assess and you reassess and then you assess again. You know how you come together and again where you need to do work. And then everyone should be equipped with that ownership thinking mindset.
Speaker 2:You know you are part of the value proposition, you are part of the success. You are also part of the failure. So don't get khaki. And you know. You identify the key individuals or the key skills within you or your organization and how you're going to contribute and what you're going to give back and how you're going to serve. And then you know obviously knowing your limitations in that as well but you know, if we relate this back to any human or any team or any vendor or any service provider, you can look at everything in your ecosystem, all the work you do as part of a partnership right, and so you are serving yourself, you're serving the greater good and you're serving your organization.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love it. That's awesome. Let's switch over and talk about you know, something that brought us together that we're super passionate about. You know, I have my nonprofit Bluebird Leaders. We're creating a community and getting women in healthcare IT together, and you have yours, which is more focused in cybersecurity, and we're coming together in November, where you and Tracy are, you know, speaking together. Tell us a little bit about your organization and your topics and that you'll be speaking at the conference.
Speaker 2:Yes. So we have formed WESIS Healthcare Women in Cybersecurity Healthcare, which is an affiliate of WESIS Global or Women in Cybersecurity Global, and it's been maybe the greatest honor to be chosen to launch this affiliate, mostly because I'm relatively new to cyber, I'm not new to healthcare, but I've made friends and allies in great organizations and they say you have skills, we don't put something together. So we have a community and a place to learn and a place of advocacy, because cybersecurity is lagging when it comes to inclusion, with healthcare being slow to adopt, as we know, cybersecurity when healthcare is lagging drastically and even behind healthcare IT. So it for, I think, the positive numbers, and so this is going on the high end of the spectrum. If there's 40% of IT teams made up of women, 40%, then healthcare, cybersecurity is at about 25% and a lot of the numbers are lower than that. So there's a lot of room for improvement and there's not a lot of space or ability to speak up all the time.
Speaker 2:It's a very intimidating environment being in this major health system, maybe not being the most extroverted person and saying I want more, I want more respect, I want more career growth, I want more access and recognition, which, by the way are the four top areas of exclusion for women and cyber, it's hard to speak up for yourself.
Speaker 2:So if you have a community of other women who are coming together specifically in this very niche space and lifting each other up in their career advancements and how they're getting it done and learning together and educating each other, then you've created, you know, velocity. And so WESA's healthcare is. Our goal is to educate advanced careers of women in cybersecurity, to enhance the workforce, because we know there's a massive gap in the cybersecurity workforce and everything's worse in healthcare. So, you know, our goal is really to create a, a place where everyone can come together and make it better, and WESIS Global has been the most impactful association in terms of facilitating scholarships and educational programs for women in cybersecurity. And so, while there's plenty of organizations out there that focus on cybersecurity in general or cybersecurity and IT, we decided to go very niche and serve this one audience and align with WESIS Global, because there are resources that are phenomenal at hand.
Speaker 1:I love it. I love it and I can't wait to have you and a piece of your organization and Tracy at the conference in November. It'll be so, so much fun and so much to meet you in person. You can't wait.
Speaker 2:So obviously we hit it off right away when we met, Like I think we ran through our first 30 minutes and immediately had to put like an hour 20 on the clock. But I think this is a space I know this is a space we're both passionate about and if you have these organizations, a lot of people say, well, there's so many organizations and the best thing we can possibly do is what you're doing, Rebecca, and bringing people together, bringing different associations and organizations together to make a bigger impact, and I think it's really special and I'm so excited to be part of it.
Speaker 1:No, thanks. Yeah, I mean, networking is key, right, it's how we've gotten to where we are today.
Speaker 2:I mean we could have one of those pool parties you know, Well there's a pool, the fundraiser pool parties.
Speaker 1:I'm just saying what do you do to keep yourself sane and relaxed and everything, when you're not thinking about healthcare, it and you're not working? What do you like to do outside of?
Speaker 2:work? Do rooftop happy hours count?
Speaker 1:Yes, but what else?
Speaker 2:Well, I am pretty passionate about rooftop happy hours, but I think just going out there and having experiences I, at the beginning of my husband and I's relationship, we said hey, no gifts on occasions Like let's go have an experience together, and that was something we had in common and we're instilling in our kids. Although they're spoiled, rotten, they really do value experiences. We get out there and we hike and we ski poorly and we go to the lake and you know we try and make everything just an experience and if there's some sort of tangible fun that comes out of it, great. But really it's about what we're doing, who we're doing it with. I'm an incredibly social person but I have amazing girlfriends who also just love the experience. I love going to a restaurant and like scouting the menu and seeing you know what we're gonna eat and what we're gonna share and how it's gonna bring people together. You know, I think I'm passionate about experiences and that really serves me. Yeah, I love it. It keeps me sane.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just going out and being with people Like I look forward to my girl dinners because I work remote by myself and being an extrovert Like you gotta have that.
Speaker 2:It's so hard right.
Speaker 1:Those experiences right, Like you're saying.
Speaker 2:Do you ever find like being an extrovert, like you've been deep in a project and everything's? You know a conference call that's 20 minutes to just get some facts going back and forth, and then you know you find yourself three days later in the worst mood of your life and all you have to do is go, you know, grab a bite with a friend or go on a walk with a friend and all of a sudden you're like, oh, I have energy again, thank gosh. Yeah Well, maybe I just needed a breathe, but it's really that experience that's helping you breathe Right right?
Speaker 1:No, absolutely, absolutely. Well, closing, you know, in talking with you, I wanna know what your superpower is. I ask everybody this one question at the end of the podcast. And so, what is your superpower, ms Robin?
Speaker 2:I think it's. I can see the web of connecting people and organizations and teams. I really see like the cross functionality and I can picture it and how connecting different entities will serve. It's not something everybody has is what I've learned. I never knew it was a gift until it started getting pointed out to me and just bringing, and I think it's aligned with the experiences right and the work I do in revenue generation and partnerships and alliances, just connecting the right pieces of the puzzle Normally they're human pieces and product pieces to create the overall force that drives success.
Speaker 1:Yep, I love it. What's your superpower? I love it. What's?
Speaker 2:your superpower.
Speaker 1:I tell people like for this year I mean maybe it will change, right, but I'm just relatable again and I can connect people and I can always get in front of somebody, walk out that door today and start talking with them because of being the extrovert, right, but then find something that is relatable as well. Like you know, you start talking golf with them or something, and you can string up a conversation more than just like how the weather is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, who wants to talk about the weather unless it's diorily affecting you?
Speaker 1:Right, that's like we gotta move past that. Like okay, we're past the log on, but that really is a superpower.
Speaker 2:How many people are actually relatable right, especially throughout leadership? How many people stay relatable right? That's why you can serve teams because they want to work with you Right. Well, you are. You're really special, though I will say like your energy has felt as soon as you get on the phone or in front of a camera. I can totally put myself at ease talking to you.
Speaker 1:Stop.
Speaker 2:You're awesome to talk to.
Speaker 3:I can't wait to see you in November.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for your time and enjoy hiking out there in Colorado. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3:Thanks for tuning in to the Verge podcast brought to you by Divergent, a leading healthcare IT consulting firm. We hope you enjoyed this episode. Be sure to hit the follow button to stay up to date with the latest IT developments and the exciting ways tech is transforming healthcare today.