Michelle Drolet: Protecting Businesses from Cyber Attacks Since 1999
The Most Futuristic Business Leaders To Watch
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Michelle Drolet Founder & CEO of Towerwall, Inc. has led
her company to great heights with passion and excellence. Towerwall is a
leading cybersecurity service and solution provider in the industry. She shares
her journey with inspiring insights.
Taking a Leap of Faith
Michelle was an
army brat and like most military families, her family too was always on the
move. Although born in Ohio she has lived in 13 states and changed several
schools. This made her more outgoing and more adaptable to change.
She pursued a
degree in Political Science and Criminal Justice. Although she dreamt of being
in the FBI she did end up protecting people from the ‘bad guys’ — identity fraud, targeted cyber-attacks, social engineering (phishing)
and ransomware scams.
By 1993 she was
running the US operation of CDG Technologies, growing the IT consulting and VAR
business exponentially. She is grateful to a gentleman called Nizar Huddani,
who realized her potential and mentored her for years. She states, “He
saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself at that time. Nizar mentored
and guided me for a number of years and then asked me to run the US Operations
for his IT consulting business. It was his leadership coupled with my
faith that enabled me to successfully grow the business.”
The company grew
well and was taken over by a public company. Michelle
stayed with the new company but grew disenchanted by the direction, so took a
leap of faith and decided to buy back the company and relaunched it as
‘Towerwall’. She adds, “That was my proudest moment in business. For
25 years I’ve worked closely with many SMBs, mid-market, and enterprise
companies providing highly specialized cybersecurity technology and services.”
Market
Leader within the IT Cybersecurity Industry – Towerwall
Michelle has a wealth of knowledge and 25
years of network and cybersecurity experience. She has leveraged that knowledge
and experience to make Towerwall the industry’s leading cybersecurity
preparedness partner. “We are highly focused and specialized in protecting
our client’s critical assets. We take great pride in being our client’s trusted
security partner in addressing the daily challenges they face in securing key
data as well as keeping them abreast of the evolving legal and regulatory
requirements. We build security user awareness programs that take their
employees from ‘weakest link’ to ‘strongest asset’, which is a winning
combination,” she states.
According to Michelle “Security is not a
destination, but a journey,” she adds, “Keeping up with the growing list of
regulatory mandates and upcoming data privacy laws can be challenging. A great
example is of a client who came to us to help answer a seemingly simple
governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) security questionnaire from one of their
customers. In doing so we discovered they needed an entire information security
infrastructure to protect not only their own intellectual property but their
customers as well. The big challenge was getting a plan in place in a very
short time span to ensure they could continue doing business.”
She is focused on the core mission of the
organization and being highly service-oriented in solving customer needs.
‘Programatize’
‘Programatize’ is a word coined by
Michelle. It stands for the repeatable process she has created to help their
customers from fire-fighting. It’s a process that integrates People (user
awareness), Process (policies/procedures), and Technology (MDR: Managed
Detection, Response). She has found this to be a best practice to protect
companies and best battle the bad guys. She and her team spend countless hours
educating the various levels of an organization including the Board and C-level
so they can best understand the threat landscape and how best to protect not
only their company but their customers’ data as well.
Commitment is
an Act, not a Word
As a business, it is important to listen to
customers and improve customers’ experience. Understanding their needs and
providing effective solutions is the key and Michelle is determined to provide
only the best by working closely with their customers. To help protect
companies and fuel their growth, customers are seeking Towerwall’s Virtual
Chief Information Security Officers or vCISO. These professional virtual roles
work onsite providing a great balance and full-time protection at a fraction of
the full-time employee cost. “We call it our 5th Wall of Information
Security,” she adds.
Although the Company continues to evolve by
expanding their capabilities and team growth, they have never lost focus nor
wavered on their commitment to their customers. She states, “You can’t take
your eye off the ball when it comes to cybersecurity, helping our customers
select the right technology for their environment and fully deployed is one of
our goals. As I said before, ‘programatize’ everything and make it
repeatable.”
Making A Difference
Meg Whitman said, “Do what you love
and success will follow” and Michelle loves what she does and has
climbed the ladder of success. She has received many awards and recognitions
throughout her professional career but she is extremely proud of founding the
annual Information Security Summit hosted by Mass Bay Community College, which
is now in its 9th year. Michelle truly believes in giving back to the
community. She is very passionate about community service and has received
citations from the former State Senators, Karen Spilka and David Magnani for
her social welfare work. She has received a Cyber Citizenship award twice for
community advocacy. She is also involved with the School-to-Career program, the
Women’s Independent Network, Young Women and Minorities in Science and
Technology, and Athena, a girl’s mentorship program.
Message to Aspiring Leaders
For aspiring leaders, her message is simple: Focus,
determination, and compassion. She says, “We all face challenges in our
personal and business life, but the ability to persevere is the difference
between success and failure. Particularly in business, it’s being highly
focused on solving your customer’s needs. Information Security is what we do so
our entire team is focused on just that.They are highly experienced and versed
in the key challenges that the CIO, CISO, ISO, and DPO face.Our company often
competes and wins against the “big guys” because our team has a ‘run through
the wall’ attitude when we are maturing our customers’ security programs.”