The finalists for WashingtonExec’s Chief Officer Awards were announced April 15, and we’ll be highlighting some of them until the event takes place virtually May 27.
Next is Chief Technology Officer Award finalist Marlin McFate, who’s public sector CTO at Riverbed Technology. Here, he talks key achievements, career advice, success in his current role and more.
What key achievements did you have in 2019/2020?
There were three major inflection points over the past year that I’m incredibly proud of our teams’ efforts and contributions.
First, we worked overtime with our customers and partners in those first few days and weeks of the pandemic to alleviate congestion and latency on their networks. It was of paramount importance to ensure that our customers’ public sector workforces could not only safely and securely work-from-anywhere, but have the same level of performance from their networks and applications at home a in their offices.
Secondly, we’ve been having critical conversations with our customers about reorienting their approach to network visibility. After a year of relentless phishing, malware and other attacks, SUNBURST was a huge reminder to assume that adversaries are inside your networks. Agencies need complete visibility because it’s really hard to defend what you can’t see. They must be able to inspect all their network traffic and data, stitch together disparate silos and bridge the divide between the NOC and SOC.
Finally, I spearheaded Riverbed’s recent enhancements to our WAN Optimization and Client Accelerator solutions to simplify the process of optimizing and accelerating SSL/TLS encrypted traffic and applications. Encrypted traffic is a double-edged sword because while it’s critical for network security, it poses unique challenges to optimize, accelerate and inspect.
Over 85% of all public sector network traffic is now encrypted, gobbling up capacity and creating crippling latency. The solution I designed is simple, secure and quite elegant. It removes all the pain points, security concerns and logistical challenges. We’re already seeing customers free up huge swaths of network capacity and significantly improve performance.
What has made you successful in your current role?
It’s really been about how I prioritized my professional development and the people who influenced my career.
Before I started my career in IT, I was in the Army and Army National Guard. That was my first exposure to being a utility player, someone who wore many hats and had many roles. I was constantly finding myself being put in a situation where I needed to learn new skills and adapt, whether it was weapons systems, vehicle repairs or communications networks.
When I started working in technology, I was one of three software engineers at a tech startup, where I quickly learned to embrace this utility technologist role. When the person that managed the networks left, I stepped in and learned how they operated. If something was written in a programming language that I didn’t know, I had to learn how to code in that language.
When I joined Riverbed, I joined the Advanced Technology Group out of the CTO’s office. We were a “tiger team” of utility technologists that would tackle some of our customers greatest challenges. It was a perfect opportunity to go deep and learn the technology, while learning to engage with multiple stakeholders who all had different concerns, needs, and technical capabilities.
I’ve also been fortunate to have several great mentors in my career. One at Riverbed encouraged me to expand my focus and be a good communicator. I discovered that much like being a utility technologist, I had a knack for communicating and could distill and explain complex technical issues to those who didn’t firmly understand them.
I’ve continued to try to listen, learn and hone those skillsets in my role ever since.
How do you help shape the next generation of industry leaders?
What I think makes the CTO role so interesting and unique, especially for the next generation of technologists, is there’s all sorts of different types of CTOs. You can be deeply technical or a customer champion, others consider themselves technology evangelists, yet some focus solely on product design. It’s a role that allows individuals who have technical curiosity to find their place and discover a path forward.
Growing up, both my parents were artists, and I heard a lot about left brain versus right brain. The left brain is more analytical and orderly, whereas the right brain is more visual and creative. In technology, there is no left or right brain. The CTO role is a place where we need leaders who can dream, create, design and analyze. In many ways, technology is art.
What’s your best career advice for those who want to follow in your footsteps?
I took a nontraditional path to being a CTO. It may not have been the easiest or most defined path, but I have found it to be more than rewarding. So, if you’re willing to take the road less traveled, I would suggest the following:
Seek out strong mentors and find individuals in your organization who inspire you and ask them to help you along your way. For me, one of my mentors not only had the most phenomenal ideas about technology design, but he was one of the most articulate communicators. He was humble, approachable and stood barely above 5’7, with wild hair, but he would have a room full of tough senior military leaders hanging on to his every word.
Don’t get constantly stuck in the tactical. It’s critical to pull yourself out of the weeds and take a step back to evaluate the big picture. Don’t get lost looking at the ground and realize that no matter what, all good ideas stand up to scrutiny.
Listen with intention and be humble. I can’t stress enough how much listening has enabled me to be a better CTO. I can hear the customers challenges and bring the best solutions to bear on their problems because I listened with intent.
Finally, look to the future and dream. CTOs can have the unique element of art in our roles. This is a career where anything is possible if you keep learning. Enjoy the road less traveled.