Storytelling in cybersecurity | Meet the Expletives: Hafsah Mijinyawa

Introduction

Ben Baker: All right, everyone, welcome back to another episode of Meet the Expletives. I’m here with Hafsah Mijinyawa, who is joining us. What’s your title, Hafsah?

Hafsah Mijinyawa: I’m a Senior Motion Designer now.

Ben Baker: Senior Motion Designer, but the reality is she does a whole lot more than motion design. Hafsah is the mastermind behind a lot of our videos. In fact, this very series, Hafsah has been involved with the tooling, getting everything right, editing, and all of that jazz. She does a lot of our explainer videos and what-not within Expel. We are fired up to have you on today, Hafsah. Are you fired up?

Hafsah Mijinyawa: I’m really fired up. I’m excited to be on the show and thanks for having me. I think this has been a really fun series. It’s been cool to watch it develop, and I’ve been learning so much about our fellow expletives and colleagues across the company through it.

My career journey

Ben Baker: So everybody knows your name and your title at this point, but introduce yourself.

Hafsah Mijinyawa: Absolutely. I have been at Expel for about three and a half years now. But before that, I attended Elon University—no relation to Musk, I promise—and I studied communications. Fresh out of school, I found myself at a PR agency. They specialized in B2B technology, and I went straight into the cybersecurity practice group there. For anyone who’s worked at an agency, you know that’s a great way to cut your teeth. You learn a lot really fast, it’s pretty exhausting, but that was my first foray into security.

From there, I did a bit of a 180 and went to work for my local government’s business improvement district. I was still doing a lot of the same communications and marketing, but learning a lot about the consumer side, which is a really interesting juxtaposition because there are a lot of similarities, but obviously a whole lot of differences.

A people-first approach

Ben Baker: So what kind of drew you to Expel, and what’s your favorite part about working here?

Hafsah Mijinyawa: Authenticity drew me to Expel. From the very start, it came very well recommended to me by people, not just people who worked here but people who knew of the company and knew of what it was building. And I was kind of hyped up on this whole idea of building cybersecurity products that just work and that customers can grow to not just use, but to love. And that’s what really drew me to Expel was hearing a continuation of that story that I had kind of heard while I was at Duo.

I think our product has a really great story to tell. It is something that is built with love and it’s built for a real need. I think there is a need in the cybersecurity realm to have products that just work, that are easy to onboard, and that meet the customer where they are. And I think that we really do this well, hopefully from a technical perspective, but also from a branding and a product storytelling perspective.

Ben Baker: That’s so true about the humanity of the brand. In a lot of ways, our people are our product, and so being able to put their stories front and center is kind of implicitly plugging our brand. One of the things that drew me to Expel—I remember when I first applied for the job that I’m currently sitting in, the requirement was “a four-year degree or an interesting story.” I just love that. I love the line “or an interesting story.” And obviously, there are some more technical roles where you need more, but that’s what it says in a lot of our job descriptions for our go-to-market functions and even some of our SOC analyst roles. Show us your credentials or tell us your story. And I love that. It goes back to humanizing the brand.

Hafsah Mijinyawa: Yeah, it’s super cool. It also goes back to how Expel is so big on hiring for traits and curiosity. We’re looking for people who are willing to learn and put in the effort and are excited by the space. To be in cybersecurity, you have to be a lifelong learner because there’s something new every single day. If you’re not the kind of person who’s excited by that, it’s probably not for you. But it’s such a cool place to be where they recognize that you don’t have to come to the table with every single certification to know that you can learn those things if you’re motivated to do so.

A day in the life

Ben Baker: So we know your title. How would you describe a day in the life of your role as a Senior Communications Manager?

Hafsah Mijinyawa: I would say my day typically starts with a check-in on our London-based team, since I oversee the day-to-day management of both our US and UK-based PR teams. I have to make sure nothing broke in the middle of the night or if there’s anything we need to react to quickly. It also has a lot to do with the news cycle, which, as we all know, is pretty rapid within cybersecurity. I will do a news scan first thing in the morning to see if there’s anything featuring Expel, what our competitors are up to, and if there’s anything breaking that we might be able to insert Expel into the conversation.

We avoid “ambulance chasing” at all costs. We are not commenting just to comment. We’re really interested in inserting actionable, helpful insights into the conversation, which is a big difference. I haven’t really experienced that at a lot of other companies where your biggest priority is just to get your name out there. We really are doing so in the interest of helping the operator community, which is a really cool thing. I don’t know that that’s true at a lot of places.

I also get a lot of opportunities to check in with our threat analyst team, our threat intel team, and our SMEs and leadership. That’s kind of the best part and the fun part where we get to pick their brains on what’s going on, what they’re seeing out in the wild, and then develop any proactive angles or outreach that we can go with that is affecting people right now.

Excitement for the threat intel team

Ben Baker: You mentioned threat intel and how you have a hand in sort of helping get their voices out there. That is an area at Expel that we’re looking to build out and grow. What excites you about where we are in terms of our threat intelligence arm, and what do you enjoy about working specifically in that area?

Hafsah Mijinyawa: I love that question because I am so amped about our threat intel team. It’s never been in a better place because we’re finally growing it. It’s in a strong position where our analysts have the support—and hopefully growing support—that they need to thrive and do the work that they enjoy. As a PR person, my job is to amplify the voices of the people who know what they’re talking about, the people who are in the weeds day-to-day. We are so lucky to have some truly interesting folks with not only on-the-ground experience, but they have such varied backgrounds. They come from all walks of life doing all kinds of different jobs. So to help them also build their personal brands and get their voice out there, I think we’re in a really strong position.

Ben Baker: It is a cool time. I agree. The thing about varied backgrounds and people coming to the table with different life experiences is that it’s obviously important for having different perspectives and trying to get into the head of the attackers. It’s important to have these diverse backgrounds.

A rising star in PR

Ben Baker: So, congratulations! You’ve recently been named a Rising Star Woman in PR. Can you tell us more about that and what it means to you personally and professionally?

Hafsah Mijinyawa: Yeah, it means the world to me. I was nominated in secret for the PR News Rising Star award by my manager, our Director of Comms, Andy Roger, and our Senior Director of Comms, Amanda Todd. Just the nomination itself is the award, but winning is the icing on the cake, to be sure. It’s really cool to be up there with a lot of amazing women in the industry. I happen to know a few other winners personally, so it’s truly an honor to be honored alongside other women who I know are doing such amazing work, no matter the industry, size of the company, or whatever. It’s a tough space that we’re in. It’s competitive. So I’m very excited by this.

Just for fun: The very important question

Ben Baker: All right, so we usually round out these interviews with something that we like to call the very important question. We have a lot of weird traditions here, and one of them is we start or end some of our meetings with these very important questions, which are obviously very, very important. I have said question here in my trusty Expel mug. It’s a great mug. I love fancy mugs like this. So I have a question right here. I’m going to unfold this question and ask you this very important question. Here we go. Brooke McClary, what ridiculous thing would you add to the Olympic Games if you had absolute power over the committee?

Hafsah Mijinyawa: What ridiculous thing? Hmm. That’s a great question. Solo sport or team?

Ben Baker: It’s up to you. Interpret however you would like.

Hafsah Mijinyawa: Then I’m going to go with, I moved to the beach a couple of years ago and haven’t looked back, so I’m going to go with sandcastle construction.

Ben Baker: Sandcastle construction! Yes. Can you imagine the masterpieces that we would see?

Hafsah Mijinyawa: I know. It’s kind of beautiful. It’s fleeting, you know, it’s not going to last forever, but it’s a moment in time and that’s a metaphor in and of itself.

Ben Baker: There’s something so poetic about this. That is fantastic. Maybe it could be time-bound. You could do a lot of interesting things with that.

Hafsah Mijinyawa: Team, individual, it’s truly an untapped market that no one has asked me about, but they should.

Ben Baker: It’s an excellent answer. All right, Brooke, I appreciate you coming on and talking to us. Always great to hear the stories of fellow Expletives. Until next time, folks, we’ll talk to you later.