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: Brief overview of Hafsah. Well, I am from many places, but for now, I’m from Ypsilanti, Michigan. That’s where I’ve been living for the past 10-plus years. I bought a little condo here, so I guess I’m settled in for the for a spell. I’ve been a graphic designer for the majority of my career. I think I have one of those weird edge cases where I went to school to do a thing, and now I have a career doing that exact same thing, so that worked out for me.

Ben Baker: That is an edge case. It’s truly an edge case these days.

Hafsah Mijinyawa: That’s what I’ve heard. So it’s been a lot of fun. It’s kind of perfect for me. My background has always been as somebody who was interested in storytelling. As a kid, I loved film, I loved reading, I loved science fiction narratives, non-fiction narratives, all that kind of stuff. I just really loved the idea of being able to world-build with your imagination. When I got to school, I took some of those skill sets and began to dabble in illustration, graphic design, making posters for events and what-not. Then I kind of dove-tailed into the world of tech. My very first tech company specialized in MFA, multi-factor authentication, and I was part of a creative team there. That was really where I learned how to practically apply my design skill sets to more corporate storytelling and particularly within the cybersecurity realm.

Ben Baker: It is a great story, that’s exactly right. And to be clear, Hafsah was at Duo, which had quite the iconic brand, and if you remember any of the stuff that Duo was doing, they had some unbelievably fun, creative work coming out of that shop.

Hafsah Mijinyawa: 100%. That was a really fun place to work. As a creative, we really tried to push the bar a little bit in terms of what can be done with not just branding in security, but marketing in security, and I like to think we do a little bit of that here at Expel as well.

Why Expel?

Ben Baker: What drew you to Expel? You’ve already kind of hit on this a little bit, but you know, what kind of drew you in and what’s your favorite part of 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: Yeah, that’s so good. Our executive team, they’re just a bunch of security nerds that are trying to help other security nerds. And so I do appreciate the fact that because they’ve lived it and they have this lived experience, they can empathize with the people that we’re trying to partner with.

A day in the life

Ben Baker: Give us a day in the life, Hafsah. You do a lot of different things, so I don’t even know if there is a set day in the life, but give us your best shot.

Hafsah Mijinyawa: No, absolutely. Every day is slightly different, but I’ll say every day starts with coffee. First and foremost, most important is coffee.

Ben Baker: Amen.

Hafsah Mijinyawa: After you have coffee, maybe you open your laptop a little bit and look to see what you got going on for the week.

Ben Baker: Maybe.

Hafsah Mijinyawa: Maybe, optionally. We have a lot of different projects in flight. As a creative team, and obviously as a content team, a lot of my work kind of crisscrosses, both creative things that product marketing has going on, stuff that content has going on. I have a multimedia skill set, so I’m lucky that I’m able to support from a couple of different areas. If there are blog graphics that come in, I can help support with that. If we have presentations that need to be designed, if we have diagrams, I can support that. And then obviously, the video projects that we have going on, I help to lead that from pre-production and then post-production. We have an awesome social media leader who puts up all of the awesome stuff that you see on our LinkedIn and our X account, and so sometimes if you see GIFs and videos, that’s where I’ve kind of stepped in to help support.

The creative process

Ben Baker: How do you get into a flow state?

Hafsah Mijinyawa: Flow state? That’s a great question. I do listen to a lot of music. I usually have a little playlist going on in the background, especially if I’m editing and there’s no sound. There’s a YouTube playlist that I listen to called “Book Club Radio.” They put together these really good kind of EDM mixes that are just really good to vibe to. So, music is a big part of my day, and it helps me kind of get into a bit of a rhythm. Honestly, when I’m editing, if there’s sound involved or I’m cutting vocals, it’s just going to be the sound, but even that alone kind of gives me focus because I really get sucked into whatever story I’m trying to tell and trying to find creative ways of making it engaging.

Ben Baker: Sometimes I know that I’m in the zone because if my wife is sitting nearby, I start breathing really heavily. She’ll come over and ask, “What’s going on over there?” She’s like, “Can you stop breathing so heavily?” I’m like, “That’s easier said than done,” because I don’t even realize that I’m breathing this heavily. It’s just demanding a lot of electricity. That’s why I work out of this shed where nobody can hear me breathing really heavily.

Just for fun: What’s something people don’t know about you?

Ben Baker: What’s something a lot of people don’t know about you? Do you have a hidden talent or maybe know someone famous?

Hafsah Mijinyawa: I’ll talk a little bit about my motorcycles because here’s the thing: I don’t want to be one of those people that makes a motorcycle their entire personality. I will say I learned to ride a motorcycle for the very first time back in, gosh, it was like 2022, 2023. I took a basic rider course, which allows you to get an endorsement to ride a motorcycle legally on the street, and it was kind of a life-changing experience in a way because I’d never had any prior interest in riding a motorcycle, and it was unexpectedly difficult. The class was kind of hard.

For those of you who don’t ride motorcycles, it’s kind of a full-body experience. Every part of you has to be super aware in order to ride safely. But if you’re fully focused and you’re doing what you need to do, it can be kind of a Zen experience. So learning to ride a motorcycle actually kind of helped my mental state. It’s been something I can dip my head into and just go out, go for a nice long ride, enjoy the outdoors, go places that I’ve never been before in Michigan. It’s been a great way to adventure, and yeah, I think I’ve learned a few things along the way. So I don’t know if it’s a talent, lots of people can do it, but it’s been great for me to learn.

Ben Baker: That’s an excellent answer.

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. I have said question here in my trusty Expel mug. Here we go. Hafsah Mijinyawa, what ridiculous thing would you add to the Olympic Games if you had absolute power over the committee?

Hafsah Mijinyawa: If animals could talk, which one would be the rudest? Geese. I think it’s geese. There’s something rude about geese. I don’t know. And we have a lot of geese in my area, which is why it’s the first thing that comes to mind. I was running an errand and I was driving and there were these two giant geese just right in the middle of the road, and they wouldn’t move. I’m not going to run birds over, that’s not my thing, but they were kind of side-eyeing me and looking at me the whole time. And so I’m getting closer and closer and they’re not moving. I’m getting closer, and then finally they kind of decide to part a little bit like, “All right, fine, you’re trying to get through.” I don’t know. It’s an attitude problem. I think geese have an attitude problem that is pervasive and I don’t understand it.

Ben Baker: The audacity of these geese. Let me tell you, I was talking about the geese at my local park, and you go there to feed them bread, and it’s like, “Hey, I’m going to go spend my precious hard-earned money to buy this loaf of bread.” And you start feeding it to them, and they’re mean to you. Would you not be more thankful for this bread I’m giving you? What are you doing?

Hafsah Mijinyawa: Right? It’s a gift and you’re going to nip at people? You’re going to run after them and poop on the ground? Come on.

Ben Baker: That’s a great answer. All right, hey, this was great. Great catching up here on this episode of Meet the Expletives. Hafsah, thank you for joining us. It was great to hear about your journey, and we’re glad you’re here with us.

Hafsah Mijinyawa: I love it. Rock and roll.