Case Studies
The organizational challenges security and privacy leaders face don't arrive in neat categories; they're tangled up in politics, timing, and institutional history that generic frameworks can't account for. Our case studies document the real work of how teams shifted their standing with executives, built communication capabilities that held up under pressure, and turned technical programs into recognized organizational assets.
Incident Response Communications Planning
A leading collaborative design platform proactively decided they wanted to be in the category of companies that were fully prepared to communicate effectively for a range of situations, with an end to end incident and response communications plan.
“I always admired Melanie’s ability to see through the clutter and diagnose the problem in a way that is very clear-eyed. When we needed to create something as no-nonsense as a process for how to respond to potential security incidents, we wanted to work with someone who was going to focus on the right path and give it to us straight – and that was Melanie.”
Leveling Up Team Communications
In his former role as the Chief Information Security Officer for Cisco Secure, Josh Yavor was responsible for a large, growing team. With a balance of established and newer leaders in this group, he understood that effective communication skills would be vital to ensure his direct reports were successful as they navigated significant organizational change.
After evaluating numerous consultants, Yavor selected Discernible because of Melanie’s experience in security communications and her flexible approach. “I knew Melanie could be a partner in assessing each individual’s needs and doing that in a way that removed biases on my part,” Yavor said. “That and she is a security professional who knows how to uncover and prioritize areas of opportunity for development.”
Executive Communications for Security Leaders
Specialized communications coaching from Discernible help CISOs navigate career transitions, strengthen reputation management skills, and build a stronger executive presence.
“Working with Melanie at this point in my career journey was transformative. With years of professional leadership development and an undergraduate degree in Communications, I did not realize how much I would gain from this engagement.”
— Amy Bogac, CISO, Baker Tilly
Increasing Community Engagement
Discernible’s simple, yet powerful solution made a real difference.
“I had never seen this process operationalized before. Discernible was able to take the whole process and build a sequential workflow, all the way from ‘I’m thinking about speaking or blogging’ to actually doing it. It also ended up saving me and my team a lot of time, and for that, I’m incredibly thankful.”
E. Coleen Coolidge, former Twilio CISO
Communication Training
As the Vice-President of Software Assurance Practice at Trail of Bits, which secures some of the world's most targeted organizations and products, Nick Selby led a large, geographically distributed team of software engineers and security researchers who audit and strengthen the security of various products and networks for large private enterprise and government customers. And that requires a lot of communicating – in all directions: to the senior leaders of the company, to his peers across the organization and to his direct reports, and their teams. And, to audiences at industry events, to customers, and even to the press.
“I noticed that Melanie has a rare ability to speak in headlines and get right to the point in a compelling way. I wanted to learn how to do that.”