HeyJaredGuardians of the Data
Welcome to Guardians of the Data! Join host, Ward Balcerzak, each week as he dives deep into the passions, expertise, and experiences of CISOs, Chief Data Officers, and more.
- Indexed episodes, last 90 days
- 11
- Latest publication
- Sep 17, 2026
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- Earliest in this view
- Jul 9, 2026
Latest episodes
Guardrails in the Wild West - Ronak Patel - Guardians of the Data - Episode # 60 (opens the original)
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What happens when the security foundations we spent decades building suddenly have to work against an entirely new kind of adversary? In this episode, Ward sits down with longtime friend and 25 year cybersecurity veteran Ronak Patel to unpack why AI has turned data security into the Wild West all over again. Ronak walks through how the rapid, ungoverned adoption of AI tools across organizations is recreating the same chaos we saw with early cloud migration, just at a much faster pace. From found
Stop Blaming the Human - Sam Wolf - Guardians of the Data - Episode # 59 (opens the original)
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What if the biggest vulnerability in your security program isn't a missing patch, but the friction you built on purpose? In this episode, Sam Wolf, assistant director of engineering and data security in financial services, makes the case that security teams have been pointing the finger in the wrong direction. It is not the human who is the weakest link, it is the systems built without the human in mind. Sam breaks down why the "department of no" mindset creates the very workarounds that put org
Guardrails, Not Gadgets - Todd Covert - Guardians of the Data - Episode # 58 (opens the original)
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What happens when the same piece of data is highly sensitive on Tuesday and public knowledge by Friday? In this episode, Ward Balcerzak sits down with former CISO Todd Covert, who brings over 25 years of experience across healthcare, insurance, and fintech to unpack why data security still hasn't been solved. Todd breaks down the human side of the problem, from employees just trying to do their jobs without clear guardrails, to the challenge of protecting data whose sensitivity changes by the ho
Security Beyond the Code - Omar Sangurima - Guardians of the Data - Episode # 57 (opens the original)
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What happens when you ask a data security expert to skip the buzzwords and get plain vanilla? You get inventory. In this episode, Omar Sangurima sits down with Ward to unpack why so many organizations are still stuck on the most basic question in data security: do you actually know what data you have and where it lives? Omar draws on his background in sales, finance, and now healthcare cyber governance to explain why the real work isn't technical, it's people and process. From navigating legacy
Data Hoarding Equals Liability - Dameon Sherman - Guardians of the Data - Episode # 56 (opens the original)
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If someone deleted your organization's data today, would you even know what you lost? For Dameon Sherman, SVP of Information Protection in financial services, that question sits at the center of a career spanning military service, government contracting, and highly regulated enterprise environments. In this episode, Dameon joins Ward Balcerzak to make the case that data security still starts with the fundamentals most organizations think they've already solved: knowing what data you have, where
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