Economics & Strategy Podcast · 2026-09-08 · 47 min
Key moments - from our scoring
Substance score
46 / 100
Five dimensions, 20 points each
Madelyn Hawkins brings a distinctive background spanning policy, government, and strategic communications to her role at FTI Consulting, a global firm serving organizations facing crisis and transformation. Her career trajectory - from immigration law at Fragaman through policy roles at the Illinois Policy Institute and Governor's Office, to communications at Morieli before joining FTI - reveals a consistent through-line: the intersection of policy, strategy, and communications. At FTI, she leads crisis communications efforts with specific focus on cybersecurity and data privacy incidents, helping organizations respond to breaches and prepare for future threats. Her work involves coordinating across multiple teams and stakeholders - outside counsel, IT experts, executives - during an organization's most vulnerable moments. Hawkins emphasizes that effective crisis communication relies on factual accuracy and context, and that her diverse background in policy analysis, business strategy (MBA from DePaul, 2022), and communications gives her insight into how organizations navigate both the technical and reputational dimensions of cyber incidents. For B2B operators managing risk or considering crisis communications support, her experience illustrates how specialized consultants can bridge the gap between technical incident response and strategic stakeholder management.
When an organization experiences a cyber incident, they engage their own incident response protocols and third parties, typically starting with outside counsel, then engaging additional parties including crisis communications specialists like those at FTI, who help coordinate messaging and response strategy.
Hawkins worked in immigration law at Fragaman, economic policy at the Illinois Policy Institute, served as a policy advisor in the Illinois Governor's Office overseeing transportation, infrastructure, and gaming policy, and was Vice President at Morieli Communications where she first gained crisis communications and issues management experience.
She wanted concrete, transferable business skills applicable across industries and to gain a holistic framework for viewing organizational problems; her concentration in Business Strategy and Decision Making at DePaul has proven directly applicable to her crisis communications work at FTI.
People who have worked in government understand the policy landscape, stakeholder relationships, and political context that organizations navigate during crises, allowing them to provide informed strategic context that consultants without that background cannot.
She specializes in crisis communications focused on cybersecurity and data privacy, helping organizations respond to cyber incidents and prepare for future threats through strategic, fact-based communication strategies.
Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.
The episode contains some substantive material on crisis communications protocols and cybersecurity incident response, but is heavily diluted by extensive biographical narrative, career backstory, and tangential personal details that occupy roughly 60% of runtime. Concrete insights about actual crisis management appear mainly in the final 15 minutes.
never getting ahead of that forensic investigation. You are still learning exactly what's going on. And so the communications have to be really strategically and thoughtfully done
you're seeing the people who are dealing with this directly...I always go into these, hoping to be that support to them and being kind of a trusted partner
The frameworks presented - multidisciplinary incident response teams, coordinating with forensics and legal, scenario planning - are standard consulting best practices. No contrarian takes, novel methodologies, or first-principles thinking emerged. The advice is competent but entirely conventional for crisis communications.
we're working in lockstep with the client, external counsel, the forensics teams, et cetera
it becomes really crucial that you have teams that can help navigate the different requirements around the world
Madelyn Hawkins is a practitioner with genuine operating experience - she has actually managed cybersecurity crisis communications at a global consulting firm and previously held roles in government policy and communications. However, she is a Senior Director (not C-suite), works within a large firm rather than as a decision-maker at a client organization, and brings mostly observed experience rather than P&L ownership.
I do crisis communications with a focus on cybersecurity and data privacy. That means I help organizations with both their communications, response to cyber incidents and preparedness efforts
seeing, you know, hundreds of these incidents, you really see that they can be extremely all encompassing
The episode lacks named examples, specific case studies, or concrete metrics. Discussions remain abstract ('some organizations,' 'different jurisdictions'). When the host explicitly asks for concrete examples of regulatory differences, the guest provides only generic descriptions (50 states, GDPR) without a specific incident or outcome. No dollar figures, timelines, or measurable impacts given.
in the United States, for example, there are 50 states and 50 different kinds of laws that you're sort of navigating
different jurisdictions have different requirements too
The host asks some reasonable opening questions but rarely probes deeply or pushes back. When the guest gives consultant-speak answers ('it depends,' 'challenges and opportunities'), Rich mostly accepts them. Follow-ups are often warm rather than sharp. The host spends significant time on softball biographical questions rather than pressing on substantive crisis work.
That's probably the right answer because you said it earlier, you don't want to get ahead of the forensics team
Give me an example where regulatory differences create problems...it doesn't have to be names or anything like that
Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.
Meet Madelyn Hawkins , a Double Demon working at the global consulting firm FTI handling cybersecurity crisis communications. This role requires competency and coordination amongst a wide group of internal teams at a time when their client may be navigating the most difficult period ever. Madelyn has a deep well of experience to draw on and is acutely aware of the important role communications plays in a crisis response and the impact on people within the organization itself. She knows that communications should rely only on known facts and that sometimes the context only a consultant can provide can help ease someone's burden. A good day's work, I'd say. Give it a listen.
Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.
Speaker A: Welcome to the Economics and Strategy Podcast, where business plans and market behavior intersect. I'm your host, Rich Mullen. This podcast is brought to you by the Business Strategy and Decision making program at DePaul University's Department of Economics. Meet Madeline Hawkins, a, uh, double demon working at the global consulting firm FTI handling cybersecurity crisis communications. This role requires competency and coordination among a wide range of internal teams at a time when their client may be navigating the most difficult ever. Madeline has a deep well of experience to draw on, is acutely aware of the important role communications plays in a crisis response and the impact on people within the organization itself. She knows that communications should rely only on known facts, and that sometimes the context only a consultant can provide can help ease someone else's burden. A good day's work, I'd say. Give it a listen. Madeline Hawkins, welcome to the Economics and Strategy podcast.
Speaker B: Thanks so much, Rich. I'm m honored to be here.
Speaker A: It's going to be a good one. I'm certain of it. For our audience. Madeline Hawkins is a double demon. We are pleased to have on the show again. And, uh, she finished her MBA in 2022 and has a concentration in business strategy and decision making. You hit all the buttons for me right there.
Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. Proud double demon. Absolutely.
Speaker A: Currently, uh, Madeline works as senior Director, Crisis Communications for FTI Consulting, which is a gigantic consulting firm that covers basically everything from A to Z. I mean, the only ways I could say it were everything from antitrust to valuations. If there was a Z, you would probably do it.
Speaker B: That's what we say, Rich. We always are. Like, if there's an organization that has a problem, probably someone at FTI specializes in that and can help.
Speaker A: Right. And you're global, which means you have scope and you have scale.
Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker A: But before we get into all that, let's start out by offering a little bit of background to everyone about Madeline. Where you grew up. Give us a thumbnail, the backstory through undergraduate.
Speaker B: Can you do that? Yeah, no, of course. Happy to. Yes. I'm from Chicago, actually, from the south side of Chicago. I live now in Bucktown with my husband and our dog, Sasha. As you've mentioned, yes, I'm a double demon. So I was at, uh, DePaul for undergrad. I studied political science and minored in Spanish there. And then to your point, went back and did my MBA in the early 20s, I suppose.
Speaker A: You didn't tell me you minored in Spanish. Why did you do that?
Speaker B: I just loved it. I really love languages. I, um, always have. And I studied Spanish in high school and really adored it, and, uh, hope to learn more languages, too, someday.
Speaker A: I was raised by a school teacher, and, um, she always used to tell me that being multilingual makes for a flexible brain.
Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, I think that's true. And, you know, it's funny, I don't use it every day. And they tell you that when you're learning it, if you don't use it all the time, you will lose it. But it is funny, too, that it does come back. I was in Spain earlier this year, and how quickly it all kind of comes flying back is really something.
Speaker A: Yeah. Got your money's worth?
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Uh, how did you end up at DePaul for undergrad? I assume you looked around. Can you tell me a little bit about that?
Speaker B: Yeah. No, I always, uh, knew about DePaul just being from Chicago, but I visited the campus when I was thinking about colleges, and it just really was exactly what I was looking for in a college experience. I knew I wanted to be in the city. Uh, it was what I was looking for in my whole college, uh, life. And I knew professionally this was sort of where I wanted to end up, so I just kind of fell in love with it. I had classes in Lincoln park and also in the Loop, so got kind of that neighborhood feel. And also being in the really downtown, kind of central district, um, it was really a community within the city. And I also knew that I was going to have smaller class sizes and just really was excited to be able to study what I loved in a city and on a campus that I loved, too. And then, of course, I came back, and that was all because I had such a great experience there and the opportunity to just learn from so many amazing professors.
Speaker A: Yeah, you know, the. The, uh, tandem urban campuses is a nice thing when you're an undergrad, and particularly if you didn't grow up in the city. Being in an urban area, it's exciting. You learn a lot. Um, and, uh, it's a cool thing. I agree. It's really. I'm glad you got. I'm glad you had that experience, but, uh, it's a neat thing.
Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, it's cool to be able to walk from class to the lake and then go out in the city. It's just a really nice experience.
Speaker A: So your. Your undergrad was in political science and government, I believe, right? Yeah. Um, and, um, in your early career, you went into policy work. My question is, was there something that inspired your interest in that area. Anyone in particular or anything?
Speaker B: Yeah, I think a few things at the time that sort of led me down that path. I took a couple of classes in high school that really had, I think, a formative impact on where I wanted to go. And so one of those was a class called rhetoric, where we sort of learned the art of language and building arguments and debate. And I really loved it. And we debated a lot of policy issues. And so I had a ton of fun with that and really just found a passion for it. And then another being a religion class that I took in high school that was really sort of deep on philosophy issues. And so through that I found kind of a love for political philosophy too. Um, and just sort of generally some of that critical thinking you get through the social sciences and poli sci kind of more broadly, I just grew a love for those, uh, kinds of disciplines. So of course, all of that studying the political science is what ultimately drew me into policy sort of more directly.
Speaker A: I could see that that beat would be a good launching pad for one Madeleine Hawkins.
Speaker B: Yeah, it was, you know, shaped where I went and ultimately kind of continues to shape what I'm interested in today.
Speaker A: Yeah, it does. So we didn't talk about this in our pre interview, but I want to ask, your first role was at a place called Fraggleman. Did I get that right?
Speaker B: Yep.
Speaker A: Um, near as I can tell, it's a immigration assistance organization.
Speaker B: Yes.
Speaker A: Was that your first interest? Was immigration an area of interest for you?
Speaker B: Interestingly, they're a global immigration law firm. And so, um, coming into DePaul and studying political science, I think like a lot of political science students, law school and becoming a lawyer often is sort of, um, one of the paths you're exploring. And that was certainly true for me. Ultimately, knowing I wanted to get into policy, I sort of thought becoming a lawyer was a clear path into that. And so I was drawn to Fragaman for the legal sort of experience. And then while I was there, really found I loved learning about immigration and again was drawn to the world of the policy behind the immigration law. It's just obviously so dynamic and everything, even in that role, was leading back to policy.
Speaker A: Yeah. Another deep topic, right?
Speaker B: Mhm.
Speaker A: Do you stop immigration at the border or do you stop, uh, the problem of illegal immigration? By policy, they're both. It's a rock and a hard place for politicians, but those are the realities.
Speaker B: Yeah. And I mean, I was working on primarily corporate immigration, and so you're working with companies who are going through the immigration process and um, yeah, you sort of see how the policies shape the law when you're on that side of it. Sort of an interesting way to, um, see the legal field and also like, have that perspective on policy all at once.
Speaker A: So, ah, as a parting note, if you had to give me one thing for your work at Fragaman, what was the thing you've taken with you from that experience?
Speaker B: I mean, I think certainly one of the most transferable skills that has come with me into all of my other roles was just the organization and kind of the management. That of course goes into all kinds of legal work. But I had a really amazing team and I still carry a lot of those lessons for sort of how you keep everything organized, busy accounts or busy things. Um, so a lot of that kind of like foundational project management organization. Yeah.
Speaker A: From the get go when we met, I got that vibe from you that that's an area where you're pretty strong.
Speaker B: That's kind of trash.
Speaker A: I'm just telling the truth. That's all I'm doing. So then you went off to, uh, the Illinois Policy Institute, I believe is the correct name.
Speaker B: Um, yes.
Speaker A: And why did you make that move? Both why did you leave your previous position and why did you choose to go there?
Speaker B: Yeah, it really was that continuous drawing back into policy and sort of knowing that that was where I wanted to be and also not knowing initially how to get there. And so, um, again, starting sort of in the legal field and then thinking about how do I take that more direct step into the policy space. I really was just doing research on how I could do policy in Illinois. I knew I wanted to be in Chicago and I didn't want to necessarily be relocating. Obviously DC Is an epicenter for that, but I wanted to be here. And I found the, uh, Illinois Policy Institute, and it's a think, uh, tank that's focused on issues in the State House. And so I started working there on economic policy matters. So I was doing economic analysis and then sort of thinking big picture about the policy implications of that for Illinois.
Speaker A: So highly aligned with your target, right?
Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I mean, it was a really cool way to get sort of exposure to what was happening directly in the State House and all of the issues confronting the state. It was, um, yeah, really a good stepping stone into that policy space.
Speaker A: But the organization and I believe you were here in Chicago during that time. Right.
Speaker B: So you didn't have to go. Yes.
Speaker A: Did you go down to Springfield fair amount during that time?
Speaker B: Not at the think tank very much. I was pretty much In Chicago. Then we did have a team down in Springfield.
Speaker A: And then the move that I think kind of really defines the target. You moved to a, uh, policy advisor position at the office of governor.
Speaker B: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker A: How did you get that?
Speaker B: It was, um, just such an amazing opportunity. Um, my boss that I worked with at the Illinois Policy Institute had joined the governor's staff to lead the policy team and hired me to be part of that team. It was just, again, given my deep interest in policy and stepping into that world and then having this chance to be in a position to actually affect change every day was just a really cool next step there.
Speaker A: Yeah, you had to be doing good work at, uh, the Illinois Policy Institute too, because, you know, you smiling and laughing, but say it out loud. You did, didn't you? Yeah.
Speaker B: I mean, and I had the opportunity to work with extremely intelligent boss who of course went over and sort of was, uh, establishing this team and had me be a part of it. And so, um, yeah, it was a really cool opportunity to kind of bring together the experience and think about how to do that for the state of Illinois.
Speaker A: Um, so you were there for, again, just short of two years. Would you say the pace of that kind of work was, um, difficult?
Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it's. It's funny because when you first asked about the pace, I was thinking how quickly it moves. And I think about, you know, when I came into the office, there were a bunch of bills that, you know, we had to sort of advise on. And then you've got the legislative sessions which are always moving extremely quickly. And there's so much to sort of keep track of. But then to your point. That's right. I mean, there's often these big picture things. I always say the policy is not happening in a vacuum, so there's so much meeting with other stakeholders and sort of figuring out what these things will look like. And so, yeah, in that sense, that kind of, um, figuring out the right strategy and the right approach to policy and making that come together can take time too.
Speaker A: Yeah. So that rhetoric class was probably. I mean, you can draw a straight line from that high school rhetoric class to your ability to handle those conversations. Right.
Speaker B: And, you know, I think the other thing is, and I know we will get to this, but going from policy to communications, it's sort of, again, that through line and that common thread of, um, the communications and the policy have to go hand in hand.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, you have an interesting kind of thread through your career. I, I told you that before, but I do. I Do believe that's true. So you left the governor's office, very cool position and you went to work for a place called Moriali Communications, is that right?
Speaker B: Yes, yes, Moriali, that's right.
Speaker A: And you had four positions in almost four years here. So tell us why the move, how did you get it? And tell me a little bit about what you did there.
Speaker B: Yeah, so I was joining Morieli after there was a new administration and Illinois. So thinking about sort of what was next from there. Uh, Morialy had, and I guess I should cover in the governor's office. I was doing sort of a portfolio of transportation infrastructure, gaming and racing. It was a very eclectic issue area, a lot of different policies there. Um, and I really found I again loved learning about those industries and becoming an expert in that. The policy advisors become the subject matter experts for whatever policy issues they're overseeing in the governor's office. When I left, I had heard about Morialy and they did a lot of work in the transportation and infrastructure space. I really loved that work that I was doing in the governor's office, um, and was thinking how do I continue doing that? And also knowing I'm not an engineer and ended up with Morieli, who again was very established in that space, um, really drew me to them. And they have a lot of people in um, the firm who also came from government. So sort of like I was working with people who understood what I did in the governor's office and how that translated to communications and the work they did every day.
Speaker A: I would imagine that's a huge asset to have the government experience when you're working in an organization like Morale Communications, given that they're uh, let's say a private arm of uh, government policy. I would imagine being part of the implementation talking to uh, people impacted by transportation, uh, projects or lack of transportation projects for that matter, which is a big thing. Is that, is that the area? Roughly?
Speaker B: Yeah. So I always said, you know, they do a lot of sort of policy adjacent work was sort of how I described it. They do public affairs, they do community engagement and work on um, they work with a lot of highly regulated industries. Those are sort of their uh, clients that they service. And so there's a lot of government considerations involved which made it sort of a real natural transition. And then also during my time at Morieli was the first time I was doing crisis communications and issues management.
Speaker A: Your um, first touch of that?
Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker A: You had uh, four positions there too. You rose to vice president. Did you get more concentrated in transportation as that happened, or Were you dealing with different level of the work?
Speaker B: I actually was doing less of the transportation work. So once I got over there, really started quickly working on some crisis matters that were not in the transportation space. So I did a lot with um, energy, utilities, healthcare actually once I got over there. So I think it's another one of those things. It was sort of what drew me there and it was what got me in the door. And then ultimately I expanded, uh, my expertise while I was there and started doing more of the crisis and issues management and in different industries that I hadn't necessarily worked in before too.
Speaker A: You know the other thing, and I mentioned this in our pre interview, but I just really loved this that I went to look at their website and they have 80, 90% women and um, there's a rainbow of ethnicities and it was very diverse. And I really, I really liked that. I imagine it works well for what you do, but that's. I like it for different reasons, but I'm glad, you know, I'm sure that worked for the, for what you guys were doing, but I really liked that about that organization. Uh, when I looked at it, I don't. Was that good for you too? I assume it had to be.
Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And I think certainly something that the firm was really deliberate about as well.
Speaker A: Yeah. So it was during your time at Moriali that you decided to punish, uh, yourself and go back to school and get a graduation.
Speaker B: It's also during COVID the height of COVID Yeah, that's right.
Speaker A: You were right in the center of COVID too.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Why did you do that? I kid, of course, Uh, I did the same.
Speaker B: No. And I would say the obvious answer for me is I love school. So I was really excited to be back. And again, I also loved my experience at DePaul. And so I sort of knew to go back there. Um, I always knew I wanted to go back to school after undergrad. And as I mentioned before, I had considered a law degree. I had also considered degrees in public policy and administration, um, before I landed on an mba. And ultimately I thought the MBA would give me the most concrete skills that translate to any industry and practice area and really position me to think holistically about organizational issues. And I'm so glad that I did it. Yeah.
Speaker A: I was just going to ask, was that a good choice for where you are now? A little look back from, uh, where you are now. It's nice to hear that because I agree the MBA gives you do enough of each bucket, each functional bucket, uh, for business and Whatever you're going to deal with, it's really nice. Uh, and plus the cl, you know, when you're working, when you're in school with people who are working, the conversations are deeper and richer. Uh, and did you, did you have that experience?
Speaker B: Absolutely, yes. I'm so glad that I worked for several years before going back. It also just made all of the lessons concrete and applicable to real world examples. I'm sure I would have also loved the experience had I gone straight through, but it just was really enriching to be able to think about experiences I've had that I could apply the lessons to and then also in my day to day, be in real time applying the lessons I was learning in the classes. I also love, as you said, I mean, it's so multidisciplinary. I mean, there are things I use from my human capital and strategy classes, for example, and it's not that I'm in hr, but I really enjoy the leadership part of work too and being able to work alongside people and so all of those things kind of go hand in hand.
Speaker A: What drew you to the business strategy and decision making program? Did you, uh, did you have other designs when you first went in or, you know, what, what, what, what got you into business strategy and decision making?
Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think at first I didn't know necessarily where my concentration would be. I just knew again that I wanted to have the degree that was going to be really transferable and give me kind of that foundation across all the different core components of a business. And, and then I had started taking some of the classes and some of the economics classes and just really loved how it gives you such a good framework for kind of thinking about so many issues that you could face in any position. Um, and I still use these skills all the time, so I just really enjoyed it. It was really rigorous and challenging in new ways from things I had done before. And, um, yeah, I think I just found a passion for it through the classes I was taking there.
Speaker A: I got to think it's handy in the work you do now, which is a nice segue to go. Let's talk about fti. The first thing I want to ask is how you made that transition, why you left Morialy, and, uh, how you got the position at fti. How did the opportunity come up? Let's start with that.
Speaker B: Yeah, I, uh, knew after my MBA again, I was doing the MBA to get that holistic kind of how do we look at problems from a whole business perspective? And so going to a global Consulting firm that does all kinds of business advisory services was just super appealing to me. Um, I knew I wanted to be in strategic communications and in somewhere where you were really driving these strategic decisions that had real impacts. And I had gotten in touch with a recruiter and that was just sort of how it all came to be. We started having conversations about my background and um, the crisis work I did and then sort of took off from there.
Speaker A: That's a good recruiter right there. Because you were primed for that position from the, maybe even from Illinois Policy Institute all the way through Moriel. You were just primed to sit in that position. So that's a very good recruiter. Tell us just a thumbnail of uh, FTI consulting. I know I blurted out a little bit about it
Speaker B: and I will kind of echo what you said. I mean you were sort of exactly spot on. It's a global consulting firm for organizations facing crisis and transformation. And again, we always say if there's a challenge an organization's facing, somebody at FTI specializes in that huge range of expertise across issue areas. As you mentioned, the antitrust all the way to valuations, all of those sorts of things, um, and all kinds of industries.
Speaker A: I've been on the website three times poking around for a fair amount of time and it's, it's clear there's a lot there. Do me this favor. I ask this question the same way to everyone. Uh, describe what you do at FTI as if I'm a five year old really. Uh, see if you can kind of get it down to a couple of sentence thing that simpleton like I'll give
Speaker B: high level and you tell me how I do. I do crisis communications with a focus on cybersecurity and data privacy. That means I help organizations with both their communications, response to cyber incidents and preparedness efforts.
Speaker A: I'd say that's in the top five of all the ones I've done. That was very good.
Speaker B: Excellent.
Speaker A: Obviously you spent some time, uh, you must have spent some time on that. Let's start out with uh, the uh. Describe your protocol, your incident protocol, I think you called it. What's the steps? When you get called and something happens, what are the steps?
Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, and I guess even just contextually when we're getting called, I mean an organization often is calling us after an incident has occurred and they need support and so they're engaging their own incident response protocols, which often they have in place. And that means engaging third parties, often as one of the first steps. It's usually starting with outside counsel, and they're engaging other parties like crisis communications and forensics, sometimes very often within hours of discovering the incident or something suspicious within their systems or their network. And then from there we're getting the facts very early on. Often these require some immediate communications and certainly some immediate communications planning. So we're working in lockstep with the client, external counsel, the forensics teams, et cetera, any of those who sort of need to be involved in how we're communicating about this incident to help develop and execute a multi stakeholder communications plan. So we're thinking about how they're going to communicate to their internal teams, their customers, media, regulators, et cetera. So kind of the whole gamut of who they are, thinking about their key audiences, and ultimately we're just focusing on helping them protect relationships and mitigate risk.
Speaker A: So does that sort of start with the forensics team in the sense that you need to get a handle on the magnitude and, uh, potential dangers of the breach?
Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, what's so challenging very often about cybersecurity communications is at the beginning you're still learning all of the facts and yet you also may need to communicate.
Speaker A: And so that's kind of where I was going with that. Exactly right. I was trying to figure out how do you craft that first communication? Do you get this potential scope or you're saying that's you're kind of squeezing a balloon a little bit. It's hard to find out exactly what.
Speaker B: Yeah. And I think, you know, the biggest thing is never getting ahead of that forensic investigation. You are still learning exactly what's going on. And so the communications have to be really strategically and thoughtfully done. And knowing that everything you're saying is ultimately factual and accurate, even at a time when the facts are sort of
Speaker A: still developing, I really, I mean, clearly you're a professional. You said that very, uh, specifically, uh, specifically never get ahead of the forensics team. That says a lot right there. As far as communications goes. That's a really good, really good statement. So you mentioned the players, uh, legal forensics, I assume, the in house comms team.
Speaker B: Exactly. Internally, it's often a really multidisciplinary team too. So you've often got the information security team, legal operations, communications. Um, I'm sure I'm leaving out teams, but you get all of sort of the core functions of the organization involved. And ideally there are sort of plans in place in advance within the organization outlining who those players are and how they're activated so that you're not sort of Figuring that out on the fly in the middle of an incident, is
Speaker A: there a common first communication that goes out?
Speaker B: Do you mean to activate your incident response team or to tell others sort of what's happening, your con? Um, yeah, it all depends, it really does, on the nature of the incident. All of these incidents can be so different. And so when and how you're going to communicate and what you share and how you say it, and even down to how it's delivered. I mean, if you're dealing with things like ransomware incidents where systems are literally not working and you can't even email, you know, so some of this gets really intricate and a lot of it just depends on the specific nature of the incident, the circumstances at the time. Which I know is a little bit of a consultant answer. It depends.
Speaker A: No, no, no, I don't. I'm genuinely curious. That's probably the right answer because you said it earlier, you don't want to get ahead of the forensics team. It's hard. How would you know? Right, yeah. After the initial comm stuff, which, uh, I know is difficult because you have to triangulate between forensics and the facts that you have in legal. What is, I mean, you're a global firm, so what is the most challenging parts of that work?
Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, well, in, in general, just on, um, the cybersecurity communications front in so many ways, it's just still evolving and the threat landscape in general is changing every day. And that means that there are new threats and new threat actor tactics and organizations are constantly having to sort of keep up and prepare for those. And then sort of adjacent to that, there's laws and regulations that are constantly changing. And when you're sort of dealing with this in different jurisdictions. Different jurisdictions have different requirements too. So it really just emphasizes here again how multidisciplinary cybersecurity is. It's so important that all of the core functions are sort of working together again, infosec, IT, legal, communications operations, etc. Just working in lockstep on these things. So having a multidisciplinary approach is really important and really lends to a good response.
Speaker A: Give me an example where regulatory differences create problems. Some kind of concrete example of, you know, it doesn't have to be names or anything like that. It's not what I'm asking. I'm, uh, asking give our audience an example of how working across jurisdictions with different, um, regulatory frameworks causes problems when you're trying to, uh, respond to an incident like this.
Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I would Just say there are some challenges that you have to figure out as part of the overall strategy and again, hopefully the team is all working together with what that looks like. But in the United States, for example, there are 50 states and 50 different kinds of laws that you're sort of navigating with regard to this. There's also, when we talk about things like global matters, in the eu we have gdpr, there's just different regulations that sort of, uh, dictate how communications and notifications happen around these sorts of things. And it's again just where it becomes really crucial that you have teams that can help navigate the different requirements around the world.
Speaker A: Is this an area where FTI's global footprint, um, helps? I mean, how do you use that as an advantage in those situations?
Speaker B: Yeah, I mean it's a huge advantage. When I of course just love working with my global colleagues. It's really a pretty amazing environment and really awesome to see how seamlessly that all works. But it's a huge benefit when we're working on matters that have global impact. Often we are working with organizations that have customers around the world or operations around the world, for example, and we're able to provide follow the sun kind of around the clock support to them with teams that we're activating globally. And ultimately we all are one team working together and helping them solve those challenges. Again, the regulatory piece is sort of one of that. And then it's also one part of that, I should say, just being able to support them sort of at all hours when the different regions are plugged into this.
Speaker A: Yeah, the global scale of companies and for that matter, the Internet is not in a specific state or country. The Internet is across the world. That's got to be a really hard thing to overcome, I have to say. And you're lucky to be at such a larger organization like that. We've talked a lot about kind of your work and how you operate in these, uh, responses. What are the ways that the organizations themselves are impacted? Not, you know, you lost money or anything like that, but what do you see when you get involved that, uh, with the organizations that somebody might not realize?
Speaker B: Yeah, I really like this question because seeing, you know, hundreds of these incidents, you really see that they can be extremely all encompassing for the teams that are responding to them. We always are. Considering they're dealing with this incident that is largely disruptive on top of their day jobs too, which don't just stop because there's an incident, they're often flooded with inquiries from different stakeholders. We've talked about some of those, but it could be customers, employees, media and their teams. Um, might still be, as we talked about too, focusing on containing the threat or restoring operations, some of those forensic kind of things too. And so just. It does also come back to the importance of just having that preparedness in place, having plans for how you'll respond when that happens. Because it can be an overwhelming impact to have that much incoming on top of the sort of day to day operations too.
Speaker A: Yeah. Inside the organization that has had the breach, I mean there are people, there are human beings there that are now, uh, experiencing something they've never experienced before. The stress has to be intense. What, what do you do, what does FTI do to kind of deal with that? I mean, clearly you're going to have to put on a few different hats here when dealing with things like that.
Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, just always being aware that you're working with people who are having some of the hardest days of their entire careers and knowing how difficult that is and just wanting to be there for them and support them. And also, I know I've said this a few times, but just being able to bring that perspective of we know how hard this is and we've seen this a lot and we will get through this together is hopefully helpful in those moments when it does feel like a lot. And again, it's some of the hardest days of their careers.
Speaker A: Yeah. The value of uh, consultancies is their ability to have seen these things before and to offer context. Not specific advice in a specific situation, but context overall because of what it is that you've seen that has to be, I assume, relatively reassuring to those that are there now. I wouldn't necessarily call it comforting because they still have to be stressed out, but I mean you do play, you do play that card, right?
Speaker B: Yeah, I hope so. It's always my goal. I mean, again, you're seeing the people who are dealing with this directly. And so I always go into these, hoping to be that support to them and being kind of a trusted partner in this and knowing that we're an extension of their team and so they can lean on us too when they need us.
Speaker A: Yeah. I said this to you before in our pre interview. I have always firmly believed this. Both I said as a leader of people that I was, but also just as a human being. Competency matters. Skill and having a global organization matters. But how you make someone feel in those moments really, really matters. They will remember that, there's no question about it. And so it was nice to hear that in our previous conversation and to hear it again because you know, there's, there's a lot of value in that.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Now I want you to tell me what parts of your business strategy and decision making, um, classes and knowledge are you are still useful to you now that you're doing this, you know, high pressure crisis communication stuff, what do you give me specifically what you use?
Speaker B: Uh, the first thing that always comes to mind just because it's such a direct translation of this in the real world, the preparing for uncertainty and thinking two steps ahead. So I'm always thinking of the sort of game theory and deductive reasoning is just sort of constantly at play on these matters. Our goal of course is to prepare our clients on the communications front. And a big part of that is anticipating what they could experience and so using the knowledge of threat actor tactics, experience, supporting other organizations through these kinds of incidents to scenario, plan and just kind of prepare and anticipate, um, the many directions these different situations could take. And so having those strategy tools at your fingertips is again something I'm applying every day. Just continually working to see around corners and prepare for that. Yeah.
Speaker A: And you're coming up on four years now and um, one promotion, I assume there'll be another one coming soon. She smiles as I say this, uh, to our audience. So I'm going to ask now, when you look back, can you see how your career's developed and the thread that kind of runs through it? Describe that for me.
Speaker B: Yeah, it's something I've reflected on a lot and um, it's been a journey. I didn't have the most conventional path into communications. And you know, we've, we've sort of talked about all of this, but I considered law school, I worked at a law firm, I worked at a think tank in the governor's office in communications. I ultimately got my mba, but I've specialized in immigration and transportation infrastructure, crisis cyber in all kinds of different ways. So earlier in my career that was kind of an unsettling thing. It was sort of like my path wasn't linear and it was um, hard at the time to see where I was going and know that I'd sort of get there. And now I look back on it and I'm extremely grateful for all of the diverse experiences I've had. I always think of my career as a portfolio and it's ultimately made me a, uh, more well rounded professional. And so it was hard to see at the time. And now I look back at it and I'm just so grateful That I had taken all of those steps that ultimately brought me to where I am today.
Speaker A: Man, that was great. Really great. This is the last thing I'm going to ask you. Picture a young woman, an undergraduate young woman, or, uh, even a graduate, UH student, and offer advice, the best advice you can give regarding path and choices along the way.
Speaker B: Yeah. If I were advising myself back then, it would be, don't be afraid to take a step, because it might not be what you want to be doing forever. Every step ultimately that I've taken has led me to where I am now. And I do think there was a lot of time I spent worrying about, should I go in this direction, is this where I want to go? And then am I going to be sort of stuck or pigeonholed? And I think looking back at the career I've built, I've been able to do a lot of different things. And even now I feel like I get to do a lot of different things within my cyber work. So everything leads to the next step. And just don't be afraid to kind of get started and see where it takes you.
Speaker A: Man, that was great. All that worry will get by you. Nothing.
Speaker B: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker A: Yeah. It'll buy you nothing.
Speaker B: Yes.
Speaker A: All right, let's do our last section. I generally, on all of these, ask about innovations and threats for your work, your industry. In other words, it could be your position or it could be FDI consulting as a whole. Tell me what innovation is making things better. Tell me what threats have you looking over your shoulder.
Speaker B: Yeah, I'll probably answer this as sort of, uh, two sides of one coin. Like all industries, I think crisis communications is being shaped by the rapid technological advancement. It's the same thing that's sort of affecting cyber as a whole. So some of the new tools and kind of ways of working that come with that can make research or communications, collaboration, the way that all of that rolls out or gets cascaded, can become more efficient. And then at the same time, there are challenges that come with all of that too. So factors like economic uncertainty and then the technological regulatory uncertainty, uh, that, um, especially in my fields I see it can change the kinds of issues that clients are facing and also the kind of counsel they need. And so, um, challenges, opportunities, for sure. And I think in my industry, it's particularly relevant because technology, regulation, threat landscape, when you think about cyber, are just all evolving at the same time. So it's a lot of moving parts to coordinate. But as I said, challenges, opportunities.
Speaker A: Yeah, well, like we just said a second ago. I, uh, hope you're not worrying too much about it.
Speaker B: Thanks. Try not to.
Speaker A: You know, I was right. This really turned out great. Just like I said at the beginning.
Speaker B: That's great.
Speaker A: This was really good.
Speaker B: I had a great time. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. Yep.
Speaker A: Thanks for being on. Take care.
Speaker B: Talk soon. Bye. Bye.
Speaker A: You've been listening to the Economics and Strategy podcast presented m by the Business Strategy and Decision making program at DePaul University's Department of Economics. This episode was produced, edited and hosted by Rich Mullen. Our music was composed by Liz. Folks.
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