Back in May, BlackCloak officially launched Digital Executive Protection’s first Partner Program to help solution providers combat cyber threats originating in executives’ personal digital lives from impacting their customers. 

One of our first partnerships is with Level Solutions Group based in High Point North Carolina. The complete systems integrator is specifically focused on serving data centers and managing corporate data infrastructure. This includes providing technology advisory services and technology solutions for compute, storage, cybersecurity, and networking, as well as cloud practices, application modernization, and re-platforming. 

We recently had the opportunity to check in with Kenyon Barnett, Level Solutions Group Vice President of Sales, to get his perspective on our newfound partnership. We talked with him about his customers’ cybersecurity priorities, the value of BlackCloak to his customers, and how digital executive protection is being perceived after hearing about it for the first time. 

Talking digital executive protection with Kenyon Barnett

Q. What are your customers main cybersecurity concerns?

A. Today, the major concern for our customers is ensuring data security everywhere. To them, data location has no barrier on how important protection is. Whether that data is at the edge or the core, in the cloud or on devices, our customers need comprehensive and holistic security to ensure the integrity and availability of their data. It must be protected regardless of habitat.

Q. Prior to forming the partnership with BlackCloak, had you or your customers thought about personal digital lives as an attack vector, and how did you advise them to mitigate this risk?

A. Prior to partnering with BlackCloak, we weren’t really advising our customers on the need to protect personal digital lives at all. Neither we nor our customers had thought much about it. Now, there is a caveat in that the pandemic accelerated our focus on helping our customers protect data integrity when people are working from anywhere, and that has continued as remote and hybrid work became the norm. This made for an interesting parlay into digital executive protection for us. Protecting personal digital lives is a natural extension. 

Q. How did you hear about BlackCloak?

A. We had a customer come to us and say “what do you guys know about this?” We told them not a lot but that if they gave us some time we would educate ourselves so that we could become an advisor and recommend a path forward. This period of due diligence is important for us because we are not the type of company that carries dozens of solutions per category. We look to partner only with market leaders offering enterprise-class solutions that are validated by external market forces. Even though this is a new space, BlackCloak hit all of our metrics and that is what led us to inquire about partnership with you. 

Q. What has been the most surprising thing you learned about BlackCloak?

A. There are two main things about BlackCloak that I didn’t know before I dug deeper. The first is the level of your concierge model approach. I know this type of service exists, but I didn’t realize just how white-glove it can be. The second surprise for me was just how comprehensive the solution is. I assumed there were some basic device and home protections, but the completeness of the offering was not expected. The BlackCloak Platform really fulfills our commitment to any device, any time protection. It’s as comprehensive as any security solution on the market. 

Q. How have your customers reacted so far to learning about BlackCloak?

A. In our advisory role, we’ve had some general conversations with customers about digital executive protection that focus on:

  • Have you thought about it?
  • Are you doing anything with it?
  • Is it on your roadmap?

The answers so far have been no, no, and no. However, interestingly enough, once they hear about BlackCloak and the value that your software and services provide, they almost immediately recognize the need to add it to their priority list. In many cases our initial discussions with CISOs, deputy CISOs and assistant directors have served as an “aha” moment for them to recognize personal digital lives as an attack vector. 

Q. So far, do you think BlackCloak is doing enough to become a competitive edge for your organizations?

A. We don’t have a really long runway with BlackCloak yet, but so far our experience has been spectacular. The Partner program is well thought out and has been able to sufficiently equip my team with everything they need to succeed. I feel really, really good about it. BlackCloak has done a great job with “less is more” messaging, making your value proposition very clean and easy for us and our customers to understand. While I reserve the right to change my mind, so far we are very pleased. 

Gain a competitive advantage through partnership with BlackCloak

We’d like to thank Kenyon for his time, and look forward to checking back in with him after our partnership has had more time to mature. In the meantime, if you’d like to learn more about our Partner Program, visit our Partner Page, for complete information on how digital executive protection can provide your organization with a distinct advantage.