Ilona Simpson – CIO EMEA – Netskope – Cloud as a blessing and a curse

15/09/2022 43 min
Ilona Simpson – CIO EMEA – Netskope – Cloud as a blessing and a curse

Listen "Ilona Simpson – CIO EMEA – Netskope – Cloud as a blessing and a curse"

Episode Synopsis

“Pragmatic problem solver. Passionate customer advocate. Collaborative creator and curious learner”, this is how Ilona Simpson, CIO EMEA of Netskope describes herself. In this Leadership Deep Dive interview Ilona talks with Hendrik Deckers about business agility and culture as two key aspects of digital transformation and the role cloud plays in it.

“Business agility drives the digital transformation agenda. There are two pieces to it. There's the cultural part. There's the organizational part, as well as the underlying technology. So cloud has become the main component of technology enabler for that business agility”, says Ilona.

Deep dive into this interview and learn about the zero trust security solution that Netskope is implementing as key component of its security model.

Table of contents:

01:16 | Introduction and Ilona Simpson’s background

03:31 | About Netskope

03:58 | Main challenges for Netskope

05:14 | Cultural aspect of digital transformation

06:41 | Role of the cloud – blessing and curse

12:11 | Zero trust strategy and uniqueness of Netskope

16:49 | Ilona’s role as CIO

21:18 | Talent shortage

24:04 | Ilona’s cultural shift

26:18 | Ilona’s leadership style

29:44 | MBTI: the Entertainer

34:20 | Core values & personal mantra

36:22 | The best & worst moments in life

39:25 | Ilona’s mentors

42:34 | Advice for people starting out

More episodes of the podcast CIONET