Nick Gicinto: An inspiring journey of transitions from media to consulting via the CIA, Uber and Tesla guided by purpose and family.

Imagine having the chance to make television at a young age and being on a trajectory for a media career, only to experience a pivotal event that leads you to public service. That's the story of Nick Gicinto, a seasoned professional whose career spans from media to the CIA, and eventually to the private sector. Join us for a fascinating conversation with Nick as he shares his journey and the inspiring role his mother played in shaping his path.

From elementary school involvement in media programs to discovering debate and forensics in high school, Nick's early experiences helped shape his direction towards a public service career. However, it wasn't until he attended his mom's alma mater, William Jewell College, and connected with department chair Dr. Gary Armstrong, that he began to seriously consider a path in pre-law and intelligence. Delve into the hidden aptitudes and creative problem-solving skills that made Nick stand out in his academic journey and ultimately led to his recruitment by the CIA.

As Nick Gicinto transitioned from a decade at the CIA to the corporate world, he faced numerous challenges along the way. Learn about his experiences at Uber Technologies and Tesla, where he built insider threat and intelligence programs from scratch. Finally, explore Nick's current role as Executive Vice President at Red Five Security, and how his family continues to guide his career decisions. Don't miss this insightful episode as we unravel the captivating story of Nick Gicinto's career journey and the valuable lessons he's learned along the way.

Reach out to Nick:

LinkedIn: Nick Gicinto

Website: Red Five Security

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Episode recorded on 13 June, 2023

Transcript

Nick Gicinto: 0:00

So I think what you're wanting to know is that I learned how to jump out of planes and, you know, break into safes with lasers and things like that And the answer is and shoot two guns while jumping through the air.

Andy Follows: 0:12

That's the answer is Andy.

Nick Gicinto: 0:14

I already knew how to do that stuff before I got there, so they didn't have to teach me. Welcome to Career View Mirror, the automotive podcast that goes behind the scenes with key players in the industry looking back over their careers, to share insights to help you with your own journey. Here's your host, Andy Follows.

Andy Follows: 0:50

Hello listeners, Andy here, as always, thank you for tuning in. In this episode we are celebrating the career to date of Nick Gicinto. Nick is the executive vice president at Red Five Security in Arlington, Virginia. He's a 10-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency or CIA, where he served as an operations officer before moving to the private sector to build insider-threatened intelligence programs at Uber and Tesla. He was a vice president at Risk IQ, now a Microsoft company, and later helped Chainlink Labs, a blockchain company, build their security intelligence program. Nick also serves as an adjunct professor of political science at William Jewell College, his alma mater.

Andy Follows: 1:32

In our conversation, we talk about his interest growing up an incredible early opportunity to make television that set him on a trajectory for a career in media until a life-changing event saw him pivot towards a career in public service. Nick shares his experience of applying to and working in the CIA and his reasons for moving on after 10 years. Whilst he had transferable skills, it was hard to communicate them and identify what corporate employers might need, but he managed to make the transition to the corporate world and we discussed some of the differences in culture that he experienced. I'm delighted to have this opportunity to introduce Nick to you and, as always, i look forward to hearing what resonates with you. Hello, Nick and welcome. Where are you coming to us from today?

Nick Gicinto: 2:20

Hello Andy, coming to you from the beautiful Midwest of the United States, Kansas.

Andy Follows: 2:26

Oh, Kansas, you're definitely the first guest we've had from Kansas.

Nick Gicinto: 2:29

Is that right, yeah, shocking, very shocking.

Andy Follows: 2:32

Definitely. It's great to have you with me today. Thank you very much for joining.

Nick Gicinto: 2:37

Thank you for having me.

Andy Follows: 2:38

Really excited to learn about your career story, as I do with all my guests, though I'm going to ask you first of all can we go back to the beginning, please, and tell me where were you born and where did you grow up?

Nick Gicinto: 2:51

Yeah, boy, that seems like a long time ago now, but I was born in Overland Park, kansas, and I grew up in between Kansas City and a little town in southwest Missouri called Springfield, missouri. Okay, it bounced between those two but ended up back in the Kansas City area and finished high school and college here.

Andy Follows: 3:20

Right? Well, I'm going to ask you a little bit more about school and family and things. There's not a lot I know about Kansas, I'm afraid, so I can't chip in with much. I'm just thinking of the Wizard of Oz. That's about the limit.

Nick Gicinto: 3:32

It's where most people go, and that's okay, sure, if you're going to be known for something, there are worse things to be known for, andy.

Andy Follows: 3:42

Thanks for your gracious approach to that. Let's talk about when you were a youngster, Then your family growing up. did you have brothers and sisters?

Nick Gicinto: 3:52

I have an older brother. He's 19 years older than me.

Andy Follows: 3:56

Wow, okay, how did that? quite a big gap. How has that been for you?

Nick Gicinto: 4:02

Well, he played a tremendous influence in my life. Growing up As a young boy, i looked up to him. He was my hero. He was at the University of Kansas at the time, but when he found out at least the story goes right When he found out that he was going to have a little brother, finally he decided to leave KU and move back home and finished his education at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. It was much closer to home. He was around for the first few years of my life That was awesome.

Andy Follows: 4:38

Yeah, that's cool that he came back and obviously played a significant part in those fundamental years for you. I also ask about what your parents were doing, so to know what sort of jobs that my guests had sight of when they were growing up.

Nick Gicinto: 4:55

Yeah, my father was in sales and was very good at it, at least again, i'm told. The older we get, the fuzzier some of these memories become, but I grew up thinking he was a pretty good sales sales guy. My mom was working in administrative assistant roles and positions around the Kansas City area but she made the decision when I was, i think, four or five years old that she finally wanted to finish her education. She attended William Jewel College, which is a small private liberal arts school in Liberty, missouri, which is kind of the northeast corner of the Kansas City area.

Nick Gicinto: 5:40

But on the Missouri side many people hear Kansas City, they assume it's only Kansas. It's actually not the larger part. So she went back to school and I remember, as a four and five-year-old preschooler, kindergarten years. I would have to go to class with her and I'd have to sit there in the back and quietly color or write stories, whatever. She was a major in early childhood education and she often used me as her test subject for a number of her school projects. So I had that experience Yeah.

Andy Follows: 6:15

And I'm wondering what that her modeling the importance of education right in front of you did that have an effect on you?

Nick Gicinto: 6:25

I think there's no doubt that it did. William Jewel became my alma mater as well, So certainly at least I got a thorough tour of the campus and felt very comfortable there when it came to finally making my decision aboard to go to school. But she was the first in her family to graduate college and I know she was proud of that and I was proud of her. So my brother became an educator as well elementary school, physical education. He just retired after 31 years and his son is an educator as well, And so I think her example definitely played a factor for both my brother and I in valuing education. He went on to achieve advanced degrees I mean, both of us have advanced degrees and I think she was a great exemplar for that.

Andy Follows: 7:14

So as a youngster at school, did you enjoy your studies? How good were you, if you like, academically, i think academically I was in pretty good shape.

Nick Gicinto: 7:26

Whether I was always interested is another question. So I remember around fourth or fifth grade where I would start to daydream off into space because I wasn't quite I was. I wasn't challenged, i wasn't feeling super challenged with the material. Maybe I just didn't care, i don't remember. But I definitely remember that and that, coming to my mother's attention, who, when she graduated she became a kindergarten teacher in the Springfield Public School system and I attended the same school. So many children, if they tell their teacher that they forgot to do their homework, or they, i'm sorry they forgot to bring their homework they left it on their desk at school. Most kids might get away with that during the day, but I couldn't. My teacher would walk down the hall and tell my mother and then she would come to me and say I'll run home and get it for you.

Nick Gicinto: 8:21

Whereabouts is it? So I learned my lesson pretty quick. I had to do my homework.

Andy Follows: 8:30

Yeah, you're not the first guest who's been at school with his parents there, and it does create a certain different dynamic doesn't it? And when you were daydreaming, was there any trend to what you'd be daydreaming about?

Nick Gicinto: 8:46

Probably probably it was about being outside and playing. I was very big into sports. Baseball was my game and if I was doing anything else other than being in school, I had a baseball in my hand and a glove and I was either throwing it up against a wall and fielding it as it returned to me or I was, you know, trying to round up some of the neighborhood kids to play a game. I ate and breathed baseball when I was a kid.

Andy Follows: 9:18

Right. Had that come because that's what the family did, or was that something you'd chosen for yourself?

Nick Gicinto: 9:24

100% because of my brother and his influence. That was his sport. He played baseball in high school and continued to play recreationally as a young adult and I would go to his games, he would play catch with me. I recall, even at the age of six and seven years old, being recruited to play on more competitive teams because I was very well advanced for my age and I had to attribute that to my brother and the time that he spent with me. And even to this day that's a great thing for us to connect on and we love going to baseball games together and talking about baseball, talking about sports.

Andy Follows: 10:03

And we were talking before we started this recording about your family and you've just been traveling, and that was with baseball, that's right. So are your boys doing baseball as well? I didn't ask you that.

Nick Gicinto: 10:15

No, we haven't gotten to the point in the story of having children yet.

Andy Follows: 10:18

No, they haven't arrived. They haven't arrived, they're all getting intermixed.

Nick Gicinto: 10:21

But no, yeah, of course I have two boys and they're fantastic. One played baseball for many years but then discovered that golf was his sport, but my youngest is very competitive in baseball at the age of 10.

Andy Follows: 10:43

Okay, you're right, we did jump ahead there, that was my fault, so let me bring it back to where we were When you started to get the opportunity to choose subjects and a direction to go in at school or high school. what was most appealing for you and what choices did you have?

Nick Gicinto: 10:59

Well, i was really interested in communications media, television And that came from my time in elementary school where I had been fortunate to be able to attend a program in the Springfield Public Schools. They had a gifted program They called it Wings which was working with the individual needs of gifted students, and one day a week I was able to leave my regular school and I would go to this other school And instead of reinforcing subjects like math or geography or what have you, you would get to dabble in more experiential types of learning. I remember taking courses on bridges and bridge building and taking classes on debate, learning how to debate. In elementary school My most favorite class was media, and in the media they had a full operational television studio in the classroom. Wow, they had airtime on the local public access channel And as students elementary school students, grades three through six we had the opportunity to put on weekly television shows And all of the kids in that class, they manned some station in the TV studio and ran the show.

Nick Gicinto: 12:29

So camera operators, anchors, reporters, sound, the director running the very rudimentary CGI at that time But bringing up the names, the graphics on the screen, all run by kids. One instructor, brilliant, marvelous, wonderful, caring man named Wes Leggett who ran that program, and that had a tremendous influence on me and really got the creative juices flowing. I looked forward to going to that school more than anything else academically every week.

Andy Follows: 13:05

I can imagine. So that was elementary school.

Nick Gicinto: 13:07

So we're talking that ages, what sort of nine to 11 or eight Right doing that thing, yeah and into middle school, which was age 12, 13 is when I got there, but I love that experience so much. When I got to high school I was really focused on that And we had at the time relocated back to the Kansas City area And I was so disappointed to find out that that program in Springfield didn't exist in other places And in fact the media programs which they had was maybe one rolling cart with a couple of machines to do some video editing And that was about it.

Andy Follows: 13:52

So it was.

Nick Gicinto: 13:53

I peaked. I peaked in elementary school, i guess is what I'm saying. And I still continue to have that interest and that love as I move forward in my academic career.

Andy Follows: 14:04

So when it came towards the end of your high school, what decisions, what options were open to you then, and who was involved in that? How did you decide how to go forward?

Nick Gicinto: 14:13

Yeah, well, because of you know, really I wasn't able to satisfy that interest in my school that I had for media. I got into other elements of communication, performing arts So I was in theater, did a couple of productions, but also discovered debate in forensics, which in the United States is at the high school level, is exceptionally competitive. They use a Lincoln Douglas style of debates, one on one, one topic. You take a pro or you take a con stance and you have to be able to be prepared to debate both. And I really got into that, so much so that I was looking at universities based on their debate programs and whether they would offer me a scholarship, and I was fortunate to receive one at my mom's alma mater.

Nick Gicinto: 15:01

And then, but I had looked at Arizona State, i had looked at the University of Missouri, university of Kansas, ended up on William Jewel, really because it was close to home And as I had was growing up, both of my parents had started to experience illnesses in different ways And it was for me it felt like the responsible and the right choice to stay close to home. As much as I wanted to go out and experience other things and study other places, i thought being close to home was where I needed to be And it was a good decision. I'm glad I made that decision. What I found at that small private liberal arts college was just an incredible support network and opportunities I never would have imagined and maybe wouldn't have had opportunities if you're one of tens of thousands at a larger university.

Andy Follows: 15:57

And what were you studying?

Nick Gicinto: 15:59

So I originally went to study pre-law. Really that was the debate influence in me. I thought a career in law would be really interesting And so I started. I started as pre-law but changed a couple of times for various reasons. I'm sure we'll discuss those. But I was paired with the department chair, the political science department, when I came to choose my classes And that was I will absolutely point to that as divine intervention or influence, because it fundamentally shaped the rest of my academic pursuits meeting Dr Gary Armstrong there on my first day of orientation to choose classes.

Andy Follows: 16:42

So he had a big influence in what you chose.

Nick Gicinto: 16:44

He did, And I think he knew what he was doing was not his first rodeo, as they say and put me in his 250, intro to world politics class And told me I think you can handle it You're a freshman, but I think you can handle this. And so that started me on an eventual path to ultimately what I was going to do for my career. But yeah, he knew what he was doing, Right.

Andy Follows: 17:16

And had you shown an interest in politics before?

Nick Gicinto: 17:19

Only through, i think, competing in debate tournaments, where you were, you know. You're talking about laws. You're talking about societal issues that are of significance. You're talking about, sometimes, geopolitical issues. Foreign policy issues become the topics of debate, and so yeah.

Nick Gicinto: 17:38

I was interested I was interested in what was going on in the world, and I think he could recognize that. We had a great conversation And he said you know, i think you should take a flyer on this and give it a shot. And so I did. And so I did. as it turned out, it was the only B I received in the political science major, so perhaps I wasn't quite as ready for it as he thought I was. But but I recovered eventually And I don't let him live that one down. That's, he tarnished my pristine record. Otherwise, pristine record, yes.

Andy Follows: 18:11

It sounds like at this, by this time there was no daydreaming and gazing out the window. Had you found yourself in the right area, studying the right sort of things that kept you interested?

Nick Gicinto: 18:21

Absolutely Most of my high school courses and then into college were quite challenging and interesting. You know, i think there's a misconception when, when young people are put in a, you know, with a gifted label, whatever that means, that it means, oh well, you must be brilliant at math. I could not get through the day without glancing at a calculator. You know 47 times if I'm having to balance my checkbook or something like that. I'm not great at math, it's not my gift, but it also, you know, it doesn't. It doesn't mean that you're going to be the next Elon Musk or something to that effect, right, it just means that you've got some sort of ability to unlock. You know, sometimes it's a creativity, or sometimes it's a, it's just an aptitude for some element of, of a role, a job, a subject that allows you to excel beyond what would be normally accepted or expected.

Nick Gicinto: 19:16

I think is the word I'm looking for, and so that's, you know, that was, i think that was my gift. It's in, it's in the areas of creativity, particularly around communication and problem solving. And when I got to a university that really provided coursework and professors that you know, in a small class environment, were able to really engage so much more, provided you know the opportunities to be challenged and to be pushed beyond just what was perhaps, you know, laid out in the syllabus for that course. So, yeah, i was, i was very engaged and when I, finally, when I got to college and just couldn't get enough of the opportunities there, That's fantastic.

Andy Follows: 19:59

I love hearing when people do find themselves in the right place. but whatever reason, however, it comes about that they they know themselves well enough, or somebody else knows them well enough, or maybe there's just some good for tune in there and they find themselves able to really fully engage and be absorbed by and curious about and grow in a particular direction. That's just, you know sweet spot, isn't it? Lovely to hear that? And is it too early to ask you what you were thinking about? careers and jobs? Is there anything else you want to talk about? Sort of the university side? Before I ask you about coming to leave university and how much you were clear, how clear were you about what you wanted to do?

Nick Gicinto: 20:44

Yeah, there was. There was a lot that happened in those four years that were instrumental in pointing me even closer or more focused towards my ultimate destination A couple of turns that it took. So I started as pre-law, as I mentioned, but then discovered that the campus had a radio station and that immediately unlocked that first love that I had. It wasn't television, but that's OK, it was something new. I hadn't done radio before And I found my way into the electronic media major officially switched I don't know what my parents thought about that Actually I don't think I really asked them. You know, moving from pre-law to electronic media, but one of the requirements was to take a weekly two hour slot as a DJ at the station, and so I had Sundays from 3 to 5 PM. I was playing music, speaking between songs, reading announcements, and I just had a blast. It was so much fun. I brought my fraternity brothers on as guests and I would interview them about things that I'm sure no one cared about, and probably all the six people who were listening, four of which were my family members, i'm sure could care less of what we had to say or whatever We were goofing around and discussing at the time. But it really got into my blood. And then an opportunity opened up that following fall, which was my sophomore year, to become the voice of the William Jewel Cardinals football team on the radio Now American football. But that was also a huge interest of mine, although I didn't play it competitively other than one year in middle school And I got my teeth kicked in when I did it. But I had a love, just a love of sports, as we discussed, and that was by far the most fun I had in my four years was traveling with the team and being the voice of that whole. Two and a half hour experience on the radio gave me a lot of joy and set me on a path of what I thought at the time was going to be a career in broadcasting. It's a story that I tell because I'm often I'm invited back annually to speak to my fraternity organization that I was a part of Lambda Chi Alpha in college And I'm invited back annually to talk about patriotism.

Nick Gicinto: 23:14

I tell this story I call it the 309 story And it's because I was fortunate enough. When I was a freshman, my first year, the fraternity got to move into a brand new, beautiful home. It was funded by our alumni and partly by the college, in $2.1 million house that's what I recall And it was absolutely gorgeous and it was enough in size to house all of our members. And we did a lottery system and I drew room 309. So I was the first to ever live in that room, along with my fraternity big brother, chris Strello, i think, is now a university professor in the UK And I tell this story because he woke me up one morning.

Nick Gicinto: 24:01

I was in room 309 and he woke me up about eight o'clock in the morning and told me I had to come downstairs immediately. And when I came down I saw several of my other brothers were there. We called it the green room for no other reason than it was painted green on every wall But the television was in that room And there were my brothers watching the news coverage of the World Trade Center towers And we were there at the time where we saw the second plane hit. We saw the towers fall And in those moments of watching that that fundamentally changed my trajectory in my life. I didn't know anybody in the towers at the time. It wasn't that sort of impact which I know so many others have endured, but mine was more of a sense of duty and responsibility And I kept thinking to who much is given, much is required, and I didn't know. I didn't know who was responsible I mean, none of us knew at the time, watching this, but it seemed apparent to me that we were under attack And it was something I felt compelled to respond to, and so that ultimately diverted me away from career and broadcasting, as much as I loved it. But it pointed me in the direction, towards public service and towards what I thought was going to be military service ultimately. But it was through a number of interesting circumstances And fundamentally it was a broken arm of all things that even moved me off the needle of heading to the military and onto the intelligence community. So that's another story in and of itself, but certainly a very important story for me.

Nick Gicinto: 25:59

I thought I was going to go into the Navy and fly jets That's what I wanted to do. But I was playing a game again American football, just a recreational game on our Thanksgiving Day of my senior year of college And I was due to take one of the pilots' tests that following Monday, and but I went out with some buddies to play a game. I knew my mom was at home cooking a big meal, as we do on Thanksgiving, and it was a game of two hand touch, not tackle But one of the other one of the other players forgot apparently that was with the rules that day And as I caught a ball over the middle of the field, that defender put his shoulder into my back and drove me into the ground and I ended up breaking both bones in my arm my left arm just pop, pop And required surgery and plates and screws and the Navy said it's going to be a year after your doctor clears you before we will consider you. And that was devastating. I had no plan B. It was my senior year of college.

Nick Gicinto: 27:09

I was due to graduate that following spring and I didn't know what to do. But I knew I didn't want to sit on my butt and do nothing, but there was some element of depression that I went through at that particular time. I'd also lost my father during college and I don't know that I really dealt with that the way that I needed to. But when I broke my arm my life slowed down and some of those feelings and things caught back up with me. It was just a feeling of just quite deflated, without knowing what to do, but it was again the same man that I started with at college. Dr Armstrong spent a lot of time with me helping me through that, and one of the things he helped me realize was that I had a number of aptitudes skills that would be valuable to the US intelligence community, and so he pointed me on that path, and that's the direction I went.

Andy Follows: 28:14

Thank you for sharing that, nick. Let me just get a little timeline, then, from the World Trade Center, spotting that and that really being a life-changing moment for you, giving you a sense of purpose or you identifying right. I want to contribute to whatever needs to be done here And thinking then okay, this is going to mean a career in the military, settling on the Navy and to be a jet pilot in the Navy And then having the accident or breaking your bone before. what are we talking about here?

Nick Gicinto: 28:47

Yeah, so we'll give you the whole chronology. This was really my sophomore year of when this happened, so my second year of college. My father passed away in February of 2001. Course, then 9-11 occurs. Then I spent. I was prepared to actually leave college in list, but again Dr Armstrong pulled me back from the edge there and told me I would be much better off if I finished my degree. And he was right, although it may have worked out great, had I not, but who knows? But I stayed, and then it was the fall of my senior year. So two years later is when I'm set on the military and I break my arm that November of 2002.

Andy Follows: 29:39

Right, And Professor Gary Armstrong. Again, strong influence identifies. There are other aptitudes that you have that could be valuable for the intelligence community. So all is not lost. All is not lost No. It's not a way for you to still have, but you know, andy, i didn't see any of those things.

Nick Gicinto: 29:59

That's the thing. I grew up in Kansas. I'm a Midwest kid. I probably got through college Spanish with a C average. It's not like I spoke four languages. It's not like I had paramilitary experience. I'd been overseas one time in my life and that was to the UK to chase a girl with a guitar To play. I was going to, i was going to hear with the guitar. I was going to play for with the guitar. That was the extent of my overseas travel. You know, like what in the world would the intelligence community want with somebody like me? You know I pretty much grew up under a rock and he helped me understand and gave me specific examples of ways and places and areas. he saw me demonstrate skills that he thought would be valuable And I didn't. I had no awareness of that.

Andy Follows: 30:51

That is so valuable, that perspective he brought. What was some of that? Can you remember some of that, absolutely.

Nick Gicinto: 30:57

And specifically he pointed to one big example, which was a national security policy class. I took my junior year with him And he's a master at the seminar style of educating, and so one of the the culminating events to most of his classes is a simulation, a practicum that he runs, and that particular year is, of course, this was 2002. So we were not yet back into Iraq, and so the simulation was events, sort of current events, leading up to a potential military conflict in the Middle East again. So he divided up the class and amongst teams, as he does, and I was the United States team with two of my fraternity brothers which was just so much fun, by the way And there was an Iraq team, there was a team representing Turkey, iran and Kuwait, and each of the teams. They get these objectives right, but they're mutually exclusive. There can only be one winner, and if I'm going to win, you are not going to achieve your objectives, andy. And so it really is an interesting scenario. He sets up to create conflict and then see how you resolve through problem solving and then also your knowledge and awareness of what's possible in international relations and geopolitics, and so we had our objectives and ultimately my team won.

Nick Gicinto: 32:27

Now you might ask Andy, how did you win, nick? Well, i won because I recruited the roommates of the Iraq delegation to report to me on what the Iraq team would discuss when they were meeting in their dorm rooms. So I would debrief with them afterwards, much like recruiting a clandestine source to provide classified or secret information. I enlisted the help of roommates. So just to be clear, there were members on the Iraq delegation that were also in my fraternity, so I didn't think twice about doing this at all, because these are my brothers And of course we're going to screw with each other like this. This is just what you do. But also in the framework of the simulation, the rules were very clear and this did not violate any of the rules of the simulation is laid out by the professor. So we were collecting inside information that was allowing us to stay one step ahead of the Iraq team.

Nick Gicinto: 33:31

I was working then with the other teams and managed to convince them to do things that their countries never would have agreed to. I think at one point I had the Iran delegation agreed to put Patriot missile batteries on Iranian soil to protect against Iraqi missile launches in the event that they retaliated against Iran for some sort of, you know, incursion. You could argue, maybe, that that was the other team just not being well attuned to the realities of that situation, but nevertheless I was able to accomplish it and I was darn persuasive in the process. But we won ultimately because the rules stated, andy, that the team that achieves their objectives will get the A And so under that framework, i convinced a member of the Iraqi delegation to defect, and in doing so, by defecting to the American team would become part of our team and would get the A And so in exchange for that. and we met clandestinely at 11.30 pm near the Iraq climbing wall on campus, which was not well lit at night, and so we did that under the cover of darkness so that the Iraqi team would not suspect that she was selling out her group. But we offered asylum in the United States, we offered all kinds of tantalizing gifts for her to switch, and so she defected, gave us the location of where Saddam Hussein, in air quotes, was, and we planned a military operation to go capture him. And we won.

Nick Gicinto: 35:09

So he reflected upon that and said you understand that through the course of that simulation you were recruiting clandestine sources, you were eliciting information, you were manipulating your opponents in order to achieve your objectives. You were displaying these qualities of an intelligence officer. And I had no idea. Andy, i was just playing a game. I was thinking creatively to win because I wanted to win. Perhaps I was bending rules. So there was one rule that well, it wasn't a rule at the time, It's a rule now. We did gain access to one opponent's computer to read their emails And we were told that electronic surveillance will not be permitted in simulations going forward. So we got our hands slapped on that one a little bit. We also implemented a rule that Lambda Kies could not be on the same team anymore for the practicums. But that's where he opened my eyes. And again, i had no idea. I was just playing the game, i was just having fun.

Andy Follows: 36:16

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Andy Follows: 37:19

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Nick Gicinto: 38:18

No, not directly. He had shared with me that while he was a graduate student obtaining his PhD at Georgetown University, that he had been tapped on the shoulder while he was sitting at Reagan National Airport. That's how they did it back then. They don't really do it that way now, but he told me he chose not to join for various reasons. I believe him. That's just not how the organization works. I know that now and I know that after I was a part of it. But I think he is highly patriotic, just a wonderful human being. I think he wanted the best for me. I think he also saw that that was a way I could contribute. It was perhaps the way I was meant to contribute. It became then a partnership between he and I on OK, great, we think this is something that I could do. How do we do it? How do we get there? He was a great partner to me in strategizing. How in the world would I get on the CIA's radar?

Andy Follows: 39:20

OK. He then started helping you. How am I going to get in there? That was the. If you think that and if I agree with you, what do I need to do? What happened?

Nick Gicinto: 39:29

I'm absolutely impressed. Again, this was me thinking why in the world would they want me? How would I get my shot at getting in front of them? He really went to the network, his network, to try and get a better understanding of how do you get on their radar. Of course you can apply on the website, but I thought, man, there's no way to stand out there. And again, my resume just doesn't read as super impressive to anyone.

Nick Gicinto: 39:57

But we had learned of a William Jewell grad, maybe a year or two before me, that had enrolled in graduate studies program at. It was then Southwest Missouri State University, which was back in Springfield where I partially grew up. So I knew this university well And they had a program called Defense and Strategic Studies, which is a graduate program in national security policy. I really looked at it as like a poor man's Georgetown or George Washington where they had these prestigious international relations programs. But to be able to attend this program at Southwest Missouri was far less expensive, first of all in the state that I was residing at the time. So I had this opportunity to attend with in-state tuition. But most importantly, the CIA came once a year to that program and presented and did a recruitment trip, and so we had that bit of intel from a previous graduate And that was all I needed to know. And so I took the GRE exam, got my scores applied. I had to. Unfortunately, i had to take a year off because I missed the date for the following. Well, it would have been fall of 2020, sorry, fall of 2003,.

Nick Gicinto: 41:18

But I was accepted and enrolled in fall of 2004 and traveled down to Springfield and the CIA came within my first 45 days of being there. They sent two individuals, a husband and wife we call that a tandem couple but both were alumni of the program. That's why I think they were coming back there, that connection. But both of them served as analysts in what was then the directorate of intelligence, and that's not what I wanted to do. I wanted to work in operations.

Nick Gicinto: 41:53

So all my classmates in the program, there in this auditorium, and these two speakers standing up there asking for a shelf hands, who's interested in this or that, they said, who's interested in the director of operations? And I raised my hand and I was the only one, and so they said okay, great, you're one of those guys. And they were joking, of course, but so many people, they go to graduate school because they're looking for a career in analysis, taking that subject matter expertise, taking that refined writing style and contributing in that form or fashion. So it was a little bit non-traditional for someone to go to a program like that and then apply for the director of operations. But they took my resume nonetheless, had a nice chat with them and they said but you do have to apply on the website. It is the US government, we have rules, everybody has to apply. So I applied And it was the day after Christmas.

Nick Gicinto: 42:50

I was at home. Back at home, i was asleep, it was Christmas break and phone rang at seven in the morning And it was a man using an obvious alias, with a name with me but said he was from the CIA, he was recruiter and he wanted to schedule a phone call with me. And then it was off to the races from there.

Andy Follows: 43:11

Wow, and how did you feel when that called I was?

Nick Gicinto: 43:12

very tired So I thought perhaps someone was messing with me. It was not a secret amongst my friends and family that this is what I wanted to do, and what a great time to catch somebody off guard seven in the morning on 26th December, but no, i mean. And then it was a myriad of emotions, from just excitement to panic, to terror, to anxiousness, and do you want to speak? the next day I was planning on traveling across the state of Missouri to the young lady I was dating at the time to visit her at her parents' house. And I say young lady, i was dating. She became my wife, so I guess I could just call her that, but I had to take the call from her parents' house.

Nick Gicinto: 43:59

I took the call and it was really interesting. You know, he asked me the questions you expect, but he asked me things like had I ever talked my way of speeding tickets before? And then he made light of and really challenged me on being a member of fraternity. He said you must be a party guy. I said, and if only that was my fraternity experience.

Nick Gicinto: 44:21

But it was not then my fraternity experience. We had to deal with challenges of brothers who were using and dealing drugs out of our house And we had to make the decision to remove those brothers and hold ourselves accountable and really enforce rules and standards of conduct and the ideals and the values that we believe to be what the fraternity stood for. And as hard and painful as that was, you know, as an undergraduate, to have to deal with some of those issues, it was an opportunity then for the CIA for me to demonstrate integrity And that was, i think, a very powerful story for me to be able to tell, looking back on my undergraduate time, you know, not as somebody who you know was going to parties and, you know, just enjoying social events with sorority women, but somebody who had to stand up and really do some hard work in that particular time, and so, as hard as it was at the time, i was grateful that I had that experience because it allowed me to then tell a great story.

Andy Follows: 45:28

Yeah, gave you a great example, didn't it? to demonstrate your integrity, and so you clearly that home call. You passed that, and what happened?

Nick Gicinto: 45:38

Yeah, i thought I was applying for a graduate internship between the spring or the summer between my first and second year of graduate school. But it became very clear in the process that there was no way I would get through the interview process and the clearance process in time to be an intern. And they called me and they said we're going to suspend this program anyway. But do you want to just be considered for a job? And I said you know, i took about three seconds and I said yes, sure, that sounds great. And so then the next step. They sent me some things.

Nick Gicinto: 46:11

I did some writing, the writing sample, took an online assessment, something like that, and then came the first in-person interview. You know, they tell you well, you can wait. We're not coming to the Kansas City area anytime soon, so you can wait for when we do, or you can travel to these locations on your own dime. And here are the following dates. And I was a graduate student. Right at the time I didn't have a ton of money in the bank account, but I chose an event in Chicago that was coming up. I think it was February of 2005. I used Price Line to get my flight in my hotel as inexpensive as I possibly could. My mom was in the hospital at the time, as I recall, and I didn't want to leave her, but I did Went up and did the interviews the in-person interviews there, at a very fancy hotel and location in Chicago.

Andy Follows: 47:12

What sort of things do they cover in those interviews? Can you remember was that stand out?

Nick Gicinto: 47:18

Yeah, i mean they were really interested in what I knew about the organization. Not that they expect you to understand anything really behind the curtain, but they want to know. Do you want to do this because you've watched a lot of James Bond movies or do you want to do this because you understand the role and the mission of the agency and what it does as part of an ecosystem within of intelligence gatherers in the US government? And so they really spend time asking what have you read, what books? where are you getting your information? What do you think about those things? They asked me to brief them on a foreign policy topic of interest, and so I had to come prepared And I think they're looking for objectivity, they're looking for the ability to cover the facts, to keep the bottom line up front.

Nick Gicinto: 48:07

They're how well do you present and articulate yourself? And it was a three hour interview. It was quite long but it was one-on-one, it was very comfortable. And one of the brilliant things I think the agency does and I love this is that they don't have a recruitment team. They have CIA officers, interview future CIA officers. They use a takes one to no one approach, and so you know you're sitting there across the table from someone who's doing the job that you want to do Also create opportunity to ask them anything, and I think they're also interested in what are you asking them. It really shows you where someone's head is at, so you obviously got through the process.

Andy Follows: 48:51

You got accepted. How did they tell you you'd got the job?

Nick Gicinto: 48:54

I received a packet in the mail which was a conditional offer of employment. That all that means is yeah, we like you, but now we got to make sure you can pass the 13 point background check. Then that's a waiting game. But I will say, where it finally became just so clear to me is the value that I provided. Being someone with my background is that I was exceptionally easy to clear. I didn't know any hardly any foreign nationals. I had hardly any foreign travel. The lickety split I was in, i mean probably record breaking. I mean I had some colleagues like I waited two years, like I waited like three months.

Nick Gicinto: 49:40

So, But in fact, Andy, they wanted me to start prior to finishing my master's degree. And they were exceptionally clear We're not hiring you for a master's degree, We don't care if you finish or not. This is the start date. Do you want it? And I said I'm so close, You're going to saddle me with a mountain of student loan debt and no degree to show for it. And they said we will let you defer one time, And that deferral was to March of 2006. Now, most universities hold graduation sometime around May, right? So I worked with another fantastic professor and he enabled me to finish my thesis two months early so that I could complete all my requirements. He could sign off to the agency that I had finished my degree, so that I actually got this the modest bump in pay for having a master's degree to show for it. And then I was able to start in March instead of.

Andy Follows: 50:42

And then what did starting mean? Did you have to go somewhere? Do you have to move?

Nick Gicinto: 50:47

So again it's just all the dominoes and how things sort of fall out And again it starts with a broken arm. That brought me to Southwest Missouri State The first week I was on campus there I met my future wife And I go through the recruitment process. She's supporting me the whole way, although I think she was still thinking this is probably a joke. Who does this? right? Although I'll tell you, there were some of my colleagues in the program at the time who would go to bars and try to pick up dates using the line I'm going to be in the CIA. None of them actually made it, ironically, which I really enjoyed, but the one guy who wasn't going out and doing those things was actually the guy who got in.

Nick Gicinto: 51:28

Yeah, so it started me on that path. I met my wife there, but the program made the decision And they told me this on the first day that I arrived for a two-year degree that we're thinking about moving this program to the Washington DC area next year, and they ended up doing that, and so I was already there. I had to move out to finish the second year of my degree. Southwest Missouri State became Missouri State University And the program entrenched itself in the Vienna Virginia area, and so, as I finished graduate school, i was already living there with my beautiful wife and I was ready to go. So everything happened in the Northern Virginia area for me.

Andy Follows: 52:10

So tell us about some of the tours that you did then.

Nick Gicinto: 52:15

Well, you spent a lot of time in training. I'll tell you that. So I didn't go anywhere for the first couple of years. A lot of training and a lot of time, a lot of OJT time, learning the job at headquarters. And then I had the opportunity.

Andy Follows: 52:29

What are some of the modules that you're doing, then, in your training?

Nick Gicinto: 52:33

Wouldn't you like to know, Andy?

Andy Follows: 52:35

Yeah.

Nick Gicinto: 52:36

Yeah, that's what I'm asking.

Andy Follows: 52:39

Don't tell me anything where you have to then kill me afterwards because I don't want that. Just tell me stuff, no.

Nick Gicinto: 52:47

You know it's really, it's operational tradecraft Just learning the craft of intelligence, and that is everything, from how the agency collects information.

Nick Gicinto: 53:00

You know what the intelligence cycle is, how you spot, assess, develop, recruit, handle and turnover assets to your replacement point when you leave. It's all about learning that cycle. When you learn that cycle from multiple perspectives you learn it from the case officer perspective in the field. You learn it from the staff operations officer perspective in headquarters. You learn it from what we call a collection management officer, which is really the officer that's responsible for ensuring the quality of the intelligence meets the needs of our policymakers, meets the requirements that our policymakers have for that information. You know there's constant vetting process of making sure that the information is good, that it's authoritative, that it's new, that it meets a policy need, that it's foreign, because the CIA doesn't collect domestically right, all of that. There's a lot to learn there, and so I think what you're wanting to know is that I learned how to jump out of planes and, you know, break into safes with lasers and things like that, and the answer is yeah and shoot two guns while jumping through the air.

Nick Gicinto: 54:13

That's the answer is, i already knew how to do that stuff before I got there, so they didn't have to teach me. No, you know, but the tradecraft piece, it's just, it's a lot of experiential learning. They do a crawl, walk, run, approach. You know, we're going to, we're going to lecture you and teach you on it. Then we're going to going to get into, you know, break it down in a smaller, more intimate fashion for you to kind of practice it, and then you're going to go out and do it And that's kind of you know how that process works, but it's time intensive, it's a lot.

Nick Gicinto: 54:50

You know, i remember going through my certification and you cannot miss a day over months and months and months. They just you're set back and you you wash out and nobody wants that you've come this far, right, like you've, you've come. You just you can't, you can't look back. And so I remember going to the, to Costco, and buying cases of Mountain Dew and the giant containers of Excedrin migraine, just to like get through if I had a headache or something. Nope, can't set me back, got to keep going. Yeah, so yeah, but a lot, of, a lot of good work on the street, right, they want to put you in simulated environments.

Andy Follows: 55:26

And so were you feeling that let's go back to that Twin Towers moment in your fraternity house where this sort of paradigm shift, if you like, had happened, were you feeling that you were in the right place. This was where you were going to be able to add value.

Nick Gicinto: 55:44

It was fulfilling Yeah, tremendously fulfilling, you know, even on day one, just the amount of pride and satisfaction and feeling like, okay, first of all, i've been through a marathon to get here.

Nick Gicinto: 55:54

This was not a sprint, so it built confidence, just knowing you've got to walk in the door and just immediately to be immersed and to know, you know, on day one, andy, you are trusted with some of the most valuable pieces of information that the US government holds. On day one, i haven't done anything, all I've done is walk in the door. But they give you that trust because of the process that you've been through and how they vetted you, and so you absolutely earned it for sure in that respect, but you've never demonstrated that you can actually do the job yet, but they trust you And that's a tremendous feeling. And security I found, you know, security is a business of trust and the best feeling in the world, you know, came at a place like the agency where you had it immediately, and that was an amazing feeling to know that you know you were going to be trusted to do some of the things that they were going to allow you to do Were you ever in significant danger?

Nick Gicinto: 56:57

I would say there's a couple of pucker fact times, right? I suppose that translates universally, right.

Andy Follows: 57:04

Well, I'm guessing it's a squeaky bum. It's squeaky bum.

Nick Gicinto: 57:08

Right on Yep. So, yeah, a couple of those, but nothing to write home about and certainly nothing where I came home feeling like I could have gone very differently. I think for the most part I felt generally in control of those situations.

Andy Follows: 57:24

Was it a very challenging role to have on a marriage.

Nick Gicinto: 57:28

I think the hardest part, andy, was the very initial phase when I didn't know what was okay to say And so I said nothing And that was really that was the wrong thing. But I didn't know any better And I was, you know, terrified that I was going to say something and they were going to find out and, you know, yank me out and that would be it. And so I aired on the side of just being overly cautious and that I recognized how challenging that was for her. And then both of us had moved to the Virginia area. We didn't know anybody, hardly other than the other people who had moved in the program with me, and you know, we had no family that was close by. So then to be newly married, and then I'm off to whatever black site I was going to and doing whatever things I was doing without my cell phone being on or being reachable, and coming home late at night and couldn't talk about where I was. Yeah, that's, that's going to be hard for someone. And she was tremendous through that process. It wasn't easy, but we stuck together through it And it was something that got better. It got better and particularly it got better because I had people at the agency that recognized that those challenges exist and they invested in us.

Nick Gicinto: 58:47

And so I had an instructor that recognized that I was struggling in the early, early days of training And he said you know, i don't know what's going on with you, but your head doesn't seem to be in it. He said look, you know, this is, this is hard, and here's what's, here's what's preoccupying my thoughts. And he said you know, you're the first one that this has ever happened to, so we'll have to figure out what to do about this. He said let's go out to dinner. I've done this 30 years. I know what I can say, what I can't say, and we'll just let her ask questions. And he said you shut up and eat and I'll do the talking. And we did, and it was amazingly better after that. But that helped model some behavior for me of what was acceptable and what I could do and what I, and so that really did improve things for us.

Andy Follows: 59:32

I could carry on in this space of your career for a long time.

Nick Gicinto: 59:34

It was a lot of fun.

Andy Follows: 59:36

I'm going to force myself to move it forward. So I do apologize, but if we do fast forward to you deciding to leave, what was the catalyst for that?

Nick Gicinto: 59:45

100% family two young boys. We'd moved a lot And realizing that they had needs that were going to be challenging to meet in overseas environments And from a quality of life perspective. My job as a father was much more important than it was as a CIA case officer, and so my wife and I collectively made the decision that it was best to separate and move back home, get back home where we had a support network, where we had others that could invest in our boys. So I didn't leave because I didn't like it. I didn't leave because I was upset. I strictly left because it was the right thing to do for my family And I wanted to provide them that stability.

Andy Follows: 1:00:26

And did you know what you were going to do? Or did you think, right, we'll move back and then I'll have to.

Nick Gicinto: 1:00:30

No, it was a nine month process to find the right opportunity And I didn't rush it. But I also found it was extremely difficult to find a job Very limited in what I could say on a resume.

Andy Follows: 1:00:42

That's a great excuse, isn't it? I can't tell you what I've been doing, yeah.

Nick Gicinto: 1:00:46

I mean, there was language that was permissible, right, that was cleared, for me to use, but, you know, overly ambiguous and not particularly useful to companies looking for specific examples of how you would provide value. And the other challenge I found is that most people who would come across an application or a resume from somebody with my background has no idea what to do with it, because they have a Hollywood image of what the agency is And therefore you know they don't see the application. But I also struggled myself to see like the application of my skill sets into a private company's environment, and so you know what I found really the key is and I have endeavored to pay this forward many, many times is I needed to know somebody who could articulate on my behalf to an employer, and that was a former agency colleague. We had entered on duty the same day. We went through the trainings together, we played softball together, we were good buddies.

Nick Gicinto: 1:01:52

He had made the jump a couple of years prior to me and he was able to articulate for me and advocate for me in ways I couldn't for myself, and that teed up the opportunity to go to Uber Technologies and build their intelligence program. But that was a nine-month conversation before I ultimately decided to make the jump, but one of the conditions was that I would not have to move out to the San Francisco Bay Area, and so it enabled us then to disengage from Virginia. We didn't move immediately, but eventually we were able to relocate.

Andy Follows: 1:02:26

Tell us about Uber. Then your first corporate role.

Nick Gicinto: 1:02:29

Well, i found it was really easy to talk about, because if I didn't feel like sharing details and I told somebody I work at Uber, they just assumed I was driving And I just wouldn't correct them. So it was a comfortable space because I'm used to not talking about work. So it was interesting. It was the Wild West time at Uber very much, where they were into rapid growth and expansion And they had problems overseas with violence against drivers and riders from taxi unions and organized crime and terrorist organizations in certain countries, and so they needed to have expertise that understood how to operate in foreign environments and protect equities, and so it was a really good fit in that respect And that gave me insight into the applicability of my skillset to companies.

Nick Gicinto: 1:03:19

I learned a lot right off the bat of how I could provide value, but more so than just the external sort of intelligence apparatus that was needed to protect riders and drivers. There was also a lot of information that was coming out to the public that was not authorized, and so it prompted the creation of an insider rat program, and myself and my colleagues were well suited, given our background in counterintelligence and also fundamentally being trained to recruit insiders at adversaries to understand how to set up a program like that, and so we did, and it was rather, i think, it was still rather new for Silicon Valley at that time to employ former intelligence officers and weave them into the security apparatus of the company, and now it's quite commonplace.

Andy Follows: 1:04:17

What it's making me think, Nick, is that you would have known very well what you were good at and what your skills were. You might not have known what sort of things go on in these organizations that might be relevant to that because you hadn't worked in one before, And so once you got in there, I'm sure you very quickly realized oh, there's heaps of value. I can add.

Nick Gicinto: 1:04:38

And doing what I would do every day back in the agency was groundbreaking and brilliant And it was magical. So it was easy to be caught up in this thought of, or feeling of, being a rock star. But to me I was just doing what I would do every Tuesday back at the old shop right here, though they'd never seen anything like it, and therefore it was kind of a big deal And that was a cool feeling. I'm not going to lie. But it was also a feeling I wasn't used to and I wasn't looking for it.

Nick Gicinto: 1:05:14

It still took me three or four years in the private sector before I'd been created a LinkedIn account. I didn't use the time to network. I still very much approached the job and the role as I was at the agency. That's all I knew. So I didn't maximize my value, i think, from a network perspective. I didn't focus on that. I just focused on the mission. That's what I was used to.

Nick Gicinto: 1:05:38

But I learned some interesting lessons in the process because I had a bit of an assumption that wrongfully that it was the team and the mission mentality in the private sector just like it was in the government, and it was not. There's a lot of individual self-interest and there's a lot of competition And I brought a mission first If the team's successful then we're all successful, kind of approach, and that stuck out like a sore thumb. It really forced me to have to rethink interpersonal dynamics and building relationships, because some people don't necessarily value that you're there doing a great job, because they think they view it as a zero sum game. If you're successful, then I'm not successful. I was naive to that, andy. It took me quite a while before I had to better understand the mindset and the view I needed to take in the private sector.

Andy Follows: 1:06:35

So you'd come from a more the word that comes most like collegiate or collaborative culture. In the age of see the new experiencing in the corporate world. It's fascinating And I like this idea. I mean, there is a transferable aspect to if you can find yourself in a situation where stuff that you used to do regularly is news to the organization that you're in and is adding loads of value. That's, i mean, there are opportunities, really interesting. And then you joined Tesla after Uber, so I'd love to hear how you came to transition.

Nick Gicinto: 1:07:13

Yeah, i was just about two years into my role at Uber and got a call from Jeff Jones, who had been hired at Tesla as the global head of security And he had been the head of fiscal security at Uber. And so we overlapped when you knew each other well And he made the jump from Uber over to Tesla to finally build Tesla's centralized security program 10 years into the company's existence. And he called and said hey, i'm sitting with this program. We're going to need an Intel capability and an insider threat capability, like I know you've built. And he was very kind and gracious. He was really understanding me on the work and knowing the person that I was and what I was capable of, and asked me to come over there. And so it was too good an opportunity to pass up. And we tell you what a cool place to work and a cool mission, and I was really drawn to that. There was a mission there And that just kind of spoke to my soul and my motivation And so I popped over there to help him build that program.

Andy Follows: 1:08:24

And did you have to move to Fremont for?

Nick Gicinto: 1:08:26

that Always the condition, Andy, I'll happily take the job, but I'm not going to move the family. So I've been fortunate and very blessed to be able to stay where we are.

Andy Follows: 1:08:37

Any differences between Uber and Tesla in terms of your experience.

Nick Gicinto: 1:08:41

One has Elon Musk and the other does not. That's a fundamental difference And it's quite a difference in the ethos of the company. It's a quite a difference in how it goes about its mission. At Uber, when I got there, there already was a security program. At Tesla, they had really operated security like little fiefdoms. Tesla buys a factory, it has security. They stay the security there, but they don't necessarily talk to the security team at the other offices. They just all sort of operate independently And they had the realization that at that particular time, for whatever reason, that they needed to centralize it and formalize it and build something more comprehensively for the company.

Nick Gicinto: 1:09:26

And so getting to a place and you are literally building it from scratch is different. The challenges are different, the requirements of you are different of your time, the way you have to handle challenges And essentially, like I said, when you walk into the agency on day one, you've got trust. When you walk into the private sector on day one, you have to prove yourself, and it's very different. So my fourth day at Tesla, they froze hiring And so here I am to build a program and I cannot hire anybody to help me do it. So now I'm a player, not a coach. That was fun Because I got to be in the weeds in ways that I normally wouldn't have otherwise been And it forced me to get to know things that I may not have you know known because I would have tasked that or delegated that somebody else, and it was a great learning experience and opportunity for me.

Andy Follows: 1:10:23

And then I want to give you time to talk about what you're doing now.

Nick Gicinto: 1:10:27

So I'll leave it up to you, nick, to get us to present day you know, i was Tesla for a year and Really gave it everything I could give it. It turned into a travel 90% of the time goal and All of a sudden now I'm taking a step back from Where I had been when I was at the agency and made the decision to leave for my family and now I'm not really around my family at all And, as my wife you know would tell me what you, when you are home, you're not present, you're on your phone. So that really compelled me to look for a change, not because I didn't love it or enjoy it. I loved it. It was awesome, adrenaline pumping. But I needed to make a change Again for my family and so I was fortunate again, blessed that you know. The network out there and people that know you and know You do good work Led me to a company called risk IQ, which was San Francisco base but had a Kansas office, and that was amazing.

Nick Gicinto: 1:11:23

I slowed down quite a bit and was able to jump in now on a vendor side and build a product or a solution, which was new. That was a new experience and something I really enjoyed. And risk IQ was a data company tremendous visibility of the internet through their collections and helping companies understand their attack surface And where they were vulnerable. Then to apply an intelligence mentality to taking that information, analyzing it, assessing threats and then helping companies and clients to improve their security posture was a great opportunity. Was my forehand to consulting and really got the opportunity to realize my skill sets are applicable to so many different types of Entities and I don't have to just help one, i can help many. And that was really cool to keep things different and fresh. And so I stayed at risk IQ for a couple of years and until I got another phone call and Asked me to come to Chainlink labs and help build their security program. So what I kind of started to figure out was you know, my skill sets are very applicable to a number of entities in the private sector.

Nick Gicinto: 1:12:35

I really enjoy the process of building security programs and That's a great niche for me, and so you know I've had one two-year stents off and on at places, but really it's been there for the build, you know, happy to turn it over to somebody once it's running and humming along. And that's kind of where I found my. My real value was to just get these, you know, to be the security startup within these companies, and So I did that at Chainlink labs for almost two years and decided that I really wanted to go into my own sort of consulting situation and Had had that sort of brewing in the background for actually some time, but it was at the point where it was was ready to be sustainable as a, as a job. But It wasn't long when I, after I had jumped into that process, that red five called and said hey, we'd really be interested in partnering together with what you can do, and Red five was somebody I'd known for many years They were one of my vendors when I was at uber and Tesla and the opportunity to come into a, to a company that was established for 20 years, instead of Jumping around in these startup environments you know was it was another new experience for me, and so so I've been at red five now for about 10 months working with folks that I've known well.

Nick Gicinto: 1:13:52

Founders have a background in the agency as well, so we speak the same language, which is great, and it's been a really interesting, you know transition for me to just yet find another, another opportunity in the private sector. That's different than than something I've done in the past, which is, i think quite positive for me.

Andy Follows: 1:14:09

And so what? some of the stuff that you do at red five, just a little bit of, a little bit of shout out for red five.

Nick Gicinto: 1:14:15

Well, they've always done great work in the space of physical security and threat assessments, understanding challenging problems for companies and needing to know somebody who can, i say, sort of be the Winston Wolf of The security problem or challenge.

Nick Gicinto: 1:14:31

So that's my pulp fiction, pop culture reference. So, but but red five has been the company that you, that you call when you don't know Where else you can get your problem solved. But what we're doing now is taking that expertise that they've cultivated, demonstrated for 20 years, and we're really pivoting it into a I shouldn't say pivot. We're transforming it into a security intelligence firm that can become the extension of any company's security team when they need that support. So Managed services and managed intelligence services Bringing a lot of really good data, which every intelligence officer needs. They want the information, they want the data, but matching that with CIA level expertise and training to provide Security products for clients that wouldn't otherwise have those capabilities themselves, wouldn't know where to start, couldn't or don't necessarily Want to invest in building a security or an Intel program. We can kind of show up and unpack that for them very quickly and start solving some of their challenges.

Andy Follows: 1:15:35

It sounds like a field that is only going to get bigger and be, sadly, even more more necessary as we progress with I couldn't.

Nick Gicinto: 1:15:47

I couldn't agree with you more, particularly with the advent of AI and How much more we're seeing that incorporated into how information is shared, truth is going to become so much more of a premium Because of the, the different places that information can be manipulated and molded and then and then parsed out to you know, to people to consume. You know, capabilities like what we provide, what we endeavor to provide, is to cut through all that noise and provide clarity and truth for clients, and I Imagine I think you're right, andy that that's going to be more of a value as we continue to see technology Changing the way information is disseminated to, to the public.

Andy Follows: 1:16:32

Thank you so much. I wish you all the best in that and we'll put some links to Red 5 in the show notes. Will put link to your LinkedIn. This podcast is about people's career journeys and it's about the decisions they made and what they prioritized and how they found themselves on the right track and who helped them. You know the mentors, the networks, the decisions of it. So we've done a lot of that and I'm very conscious that we could have a whole separate conversation about the topics that you're all Across and it would be absolutely fascinating and I know you're on other podcasts talking about those topics, so if my listeners are interested in more of that content, then they can look you up and they can find some of that. Thank you for sharing what you have shared with me, which has been what I wanted to hear about, which was the career based and life journey content. So thanks very much for that and he thank you.

Nick Gicinto: 1:17:19

It's been an honor and privilege that you would even care to hear my story, so thank you for the opportunity to talk with you.

Andy Follows: 1:17:31

You've been listening to CAREER-VIEW MIRROR with me Andy F ollows. I hope you enjoyed hearing Nick's story as much as I did and found some helpful points to reflect on. Some key moments that stood out for me were that moment in his fraternity house on 9/ 11 when he resolved that he was going to pursue a career in public service rather than broadcasting The broken arm that then derailed his aspirations to be in the Navy. Professor Gary Armstrong, who saw the potential value of Nick's skill set to the intelligence community, and the story of the approach Nick's team had taken that had resulted in them winning the simulation. His decision to enroll on the degree program where he knew that the CIA Visited annually and the importance of family.

Andy Follows: 1:18:14

Nick's older brother moving closer to home when he was born. And then Nick leaving the CIA because of its impact on his family and his subsequent decisions to take roles that didn't require him to move his family. His experience in corporate, where you're not typically trusted from day one and where the culture was not as collaborative as it had been in the CIA. Discovering that he really adds value in helping organizations to start up their security function and then handing it over to someone else. And his recent transition into consulting, where he can now help multiple organizations. You'll find Nick's contact details in our show notes to this episode.

Andy Follows: 1:18:52

If you enjoy listening to my guest stories, please could you do me a favor and share an episode with someone you lead parents or mentor or a friend who you think might also benefit. Thank you to Nick for joining me for our conversation. Thank you to our sponsors for this episode ASKE Consulting and Aquilae and thank you to the CAREER-VIEW MIRROR team, without whom we would not be able to share our guests' life and career stories And, above all, thank you to you for listening.