In this episode of Cyber Security Matters, hosts Harry Baldwin and Matt Rose sit down with Bobby Ford, Chief Strategy & Experience Officer at Doppel, to explore how AI is fundamentally reshaping the social engineering threat landscape. With nearly three decades in cybersecurity, from founding member of the Pentagon’s Computer Incident Response Team to CISO roles at Exelis, Abbott, Unilever, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Bobby brings a rare blend of operational depth and strategic vision to one of the industry’s most pressing challenges. 

Key Topics Covered: 

• How Bobby accidentally fell into cybersecurity through a military assignment no one wanted 

• The importance of being “gifted with opportunity” and the mentors who shaped his career 

• Why Bobby believes there’s an experience gap, not a talent gap, in cybersecurity 

• The evolution of the CISO role, from firewall manager to business partner to two diverging paths 

• What keeps CISOs up at night: personal liability and regulatory scrutiny 

• Bobby’s three hiring imperatives: appreciation, consistency, and the ability to listen 

• Where the next generation of security talent will come from 

• How AI is changing social engineering in four key ways: hyper-personalisation, volume, speed, and multi-channel attacks 

• Why legacy technologies and awareness training alone can no longer defend against AI-enabled threats 

• A real-world vishing simulation where help desk staff stayed on the phone with a deep fake agent for over seven minutes 

• How AI reduces adversary reconnaissance from weeks to seconds 

• Bobby’s career advice: chase the problem, not the title