Jennifer Axt, VP of U.S. SLED at Tanium

What lesson will you take with you from the pandemic?

We did have to rethink how we go to market. When you’re in sales, you’re out there with your customer physically, right? So all of a sudden, you have this immediate stop. During all of this, I was also building out a brand new team, hiring people that I’d never met in person. It made me think about how to communicate better. Now, I know my team personally more than I would have ever been able to in the past.

How did you build community from a distance?

I reached out to a couple of my state CIO friends in the industry and put together a [regular call] as a way for us to stay connected. We started every Wednesday night, just for an hour, connecting with other executives. We had guest speakers and have gone from helping people in their careers to having guest speakers talk about what they’re doing within their vertical.

What opportunities do you see today in the SLED market?

With all the ransomware hits and now relief funding, there’s more money than government has ever had before [to address cybersecurity]. We’re really focused on helping government mature and understand what’s in their environment.