Welcome to Human Element, a podcast by Ben April, CTO at Maltego, focused on exploring the experiences and perspectives that shape cybersecurity leadership. In each episode, we speak with industry leaders to uncover the challenges they’ve encountered, the pivotal decisions that have influenced their careers, and the human dynamics that continue to shape the cybersecurity landscape beyond the technical domain.
Cequence's William Glazier on Building Teams through Operational Connection
The hardest part of security leadership isn't building better detection systems; it's staying connected enough to the daily work that you can still recognize when something doesn't make sense. William Glazier, Director of Engineering - Threat Research & Machine Learning at Cequence Security, refuses to detach from the operational reality his team faces. He's still in the on-call rotation, still debugging production issues, still analyzing customer data to understand how real investigations unfold.
William discusses why mental agility matters more than formal credentials when building security teams and how protecting space for people to follow their curiosity creates culture that outlasts any individual leader. He shares his framework for building trust through selective transparency about decision-making, why writing everything down during incidents prevents repeating the same mistakes, and how to recognize when you're letting emotions rather than data drive your responses.
Stories We’re Telling Today:
Building SOCs from scratch and scaling them as threat landscapes evolve from simple bot attacks to sophisticated AI agents
The practice of comprehensive documentation during security incidents, turning false positives into trust-building opportunities
Screening for mental agility over credentials, by testing candidates’ willingness to adjust when given with contradictory evidence
Creating team cultures where people teach each other across disciplines, enabling understanding across security contexts
Maintaining operational connection as a leader by staying in on-call rotations and debugging alongside team members
The strategic use of AI tools for documentation and transcription while avoiding the trap of outsourcing critical thinking
Why customer obsession requires vendors to use their own products exactly as customers do, including friction points, to maintain perspective
Too busy; didn’t listen:
Stay operationally connected with actions like remaining in on-call rotations and debugging alongside engineers to maintain and build trust.
In hiring, screen for people who change their minds when presented with contradictory evidence rather than forcing conclusions to fit initial assumptions. This shows mental agility.
Comprehensive documentation during security incidents transforms potential failures into trust-building opportunities.
The biggest risk of AI tools isn't replacement but outsourcing critical thinking before you've struggled through enough problems to recognize when AI-generated answers don't make sense.
Skip to the Highlight of the episode:
[33:30-33:56] “If you have a relationship with someone that's generally based on not being afraid to trade ideas and “Actually I disagree with you here. I disagree with this. What about this? What about that?” And then that stops. That's another red flag. And how do you build it? It's relying on you, again, having some North star that you've got to keep. People have to know some goal they're working towards, some broad vision.” 40:51-51:22
Speaker
William Glazier, Director of Engineering - Threat Research & Machine Learning, Cequence Security
William Glazier has built, scaled, and managed security operations while developing machine learning models for bot detection. His background includes everything from early threat intelligence work on residential proxy services to current challenges distinguishing good AI agents from malicious ones.
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22 Jan 2026TRANSCRIPT
HUMAN Security's Lindsay Kaye on Why Empathy Is Non-negotiable
Lindsay Kaye's career turned on a single decision: someone taught her reverse engineering despite her lack of experience, shaping her leadership philosophy around giving others similar opportunities. As VP of Threat Intelligence at HUMAN Security, she maintains hands-on technical work not as a compromise but as a strategic choice that builds credibility, prevents over-promising on timelines, and ensures she understands what her distributed team confronts daily tackling sophisticated ad fraud campaigns.
Lindsay also discusses her evolution from firm-deadline enforcement to empathy-driven management, her trust bucket framework that evaluates patterns rather than individual mistakes, and how she actively prevents hub-and-spoke isolation by encouraging peer-to-peer collaboration across six time zones.
Stories We’re Telling Today:
Maintaining hands-on technical work as a leader to build credibility, prevent over-promising, and understand team challenges firsthand
Trying on different leadership styles early in your career creates authentic leadership rather than forcing predetermined molds
Building trust across globally distributed teams through peer-to-peer one-on-ones and rotating collaboration partners
The trust bucket framework for evaluating team performance over time rather than making judgments based on individual missed deadlines
Why saying "I don't know" and asking for help demonstrate leadership strength rather than weakness in technical security environments
How the evolution from firm deadline enforcement to empathy-driven management improves team performance and psychological safety
Managing complex investigations across six time zones by time-boxing days for meetings versus deep technical work
Creating real-world impact narratives that motivate teams beyond just internal company benefits
Mentoring junior analysts into reverse engineering by emphasizing that repeated failure is the learning path rather than something to avoid
Too busy; didn’t listen:
Maintain hands-on reverse engineering work as a leader because technical credibility prevents over-promising timelines and builds authentic leadership.
Empathy-driven management recognizes that transparency and understanding life circumstances improve team performance.
Distributed teams can avoid hub-and-spoke isolation by encouraging peer-to-peer one-on-ones, rotating collaboration partners, and time-boxing days for meetings.
A trust bucket framework treats team performance as cumulative rather than judging individuals on single missed deadlines.
Skip to the Highlight of the episode:
[17:12-17:22] “I think that making sure that they get to do work that they enjoy that benefits the company and then helping them understand how the things that they do actually benefit the company is really important.” raw timestamps:
Speaker
Lindsay Kaye, VP of Threat Intelligence, HUMAN Security
Lindsay Kaye is an expert malware analyst and reverse engineer who loves taking on technical challenges of all kinds. She speaks regularly at international conferences such as REcon, Disobey, SEC-T, FIRST, and numerous BSides events. In addition to speaking, she leads training sessions and workshops that help others develop skills in the technical aspects of cybersecurity. Lindsay currently leads the Threat Intelligence team at HUMAN, building on her career from software engineer to reverse engineer to technical team leadership. A New York City native, Lindsay obtained her BS in Engineering from Olin College of Engineering before receiving her MBA from Babson College. She is also the author of Dissecting the Dark Web.
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7 Jan 2026TRANSCRIPT
LastPass's Alex Cox on Turning Vulnerability Into Leadership Strength
The best security leaders don't pretend to know everything; they build teams where admitting knowledge gaps becomes a competitive advantage. Alex Cox, Lead of Artificial Intelligence Working Group at LastPass, has spent two decades proving that vulnerability creates stronger security organizations than technical heroics ever could. His approach to leadership, forged through military service and high-stakes security incidents, prioritizes trust and psychological safety over individual expertise.
Ben and Alex discuss how commander's intent from military planning translates to empowering security teams, why hiring for stress management capabilities matters more than technical credentials, and how AI is blurring the lines between individual contributor and management skills. Alex also shares his framework for spot feedback, his philosophy on when to lean on others' expertise, and why the transition from IC to manager remains one of the hardest career shifts in security.
Stories We’re Telling Today:
Applying military commander's intent principles to security team management by defining mission outcomes
Why hiring veterans and former law enforcement provides natural stress management capabilities
The strategic value of deep IT backgrounds for security roles: natural pattern recognition for detecting anomalies and suspicious activity
How AI is transforming individual contributor work to require management-level strategic thinking
Building psychological safety by modeling that voicing disagreement or admitting overwhelm won't result in retaliation
Implementing spot feedback rather than formal mentorship structures, rather than waiting for scheduled reviews or structured programs
Using tone calibration in text-based communication through emoji and message structure to prevent misunderstandings in abbreviated high-pressure exchanges across Slack and similar platforms
Evaluating security technology decisions by understanding industry trajectory rather than just current needs
Too busy; didn’t listen:
Build security teams around admitting knowledge gaps and leaning on others' expertise, making vulnerability a leadership strength.
There is value in prioritizing hiring veterans and former law enforcement for stress management capabilities over technical credentials.
Using commander's intent to create space for unexpected approaches and building trust through autonomy.
AI is making management skills essential for individual contributors, as effective prompting requires the same strategic thinking and problem decomposition traditionally reserved for leading teams.
Psychological safety matters more than technical expertise; teams that can voice disagreement or admit being underwater solve problems faster than those protecting leadership egos.
Skip to the Highlight of the episode:
[14.47-15:07] “That's another favorite part of the job is to have a task and have one of my posts come back and go, “Hey, look at this!” And I'm like, “Man, I never thought of it that way. Or that's a really unique approach.” And showing it off to some of the other managers, seeing if you can apply the approaches in different places. That's a really fun part of managing a security team in general, because, like I said, it tends to produce people that think outside the box.”
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Inside a recent episode
Cequence's William Glazier on Building Teams through Operational Connection
Published 27 Jan 2026 · Transcript excerpt
[…] And that's how I approach like my team with leadership on my team, because again, we built that sock from nothing to something. And now more and more and more of sock work is being AIFI'd agentify, you know, as much as you can automate as possible. And as more and more we work on that, you'll lose the plot if you don't stay grounded in touch grass. And still, like I'm still in the own call rotation with all my team, even parts even though, like, you know, technically on my boss, it doesn't matter because we all got a touch grass. Basically everyone's got to kind of, it's that same mantra. So a lot of those sports lessons in various things, you know, that one in particular I'd say is the most interesting. […]
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