Sebastian Rohr [00:00:00]:
By the end of the three months, I want you to meet me on top of that hill. I don’t care how you get there, just meet me there. But if you come to a wall that you can’t scale, if you come to a river that you can’t cross because there’s no bridge, call me, call the seniors. We will figure out a way so you can get there, you can get over that obstacle. And this is something that I really, really hold close to my heart because it’s enables you to grow.
Mark Callahan [00:00:38]:
In this episode of the Identity Heroes videocast, we’re joined by Sebastian Rohr of Umbrella Associates in Germany, who’s also more commonly referred to as the IdentiBeer Guy. Sebastian shares how important networking is in the identity space, and not just technical communications, but true person to person conversations, how much he is proponent of always asking questions so that you’re always learning from others. And really how we come together as a community and make ourselves bigger by joining together to do this in identity as one team. Let’s go ahead and listen to our conversation with Sebastian now. We’re joined by Sebastian Rohr, who will be sharing some of his journey as an identity hero in the space and how you’ve come about to do all the things that you do in identity today. I’m one of your hosts. I’m Mark Callahan. I work in product marketing here at Strata Identity.
Mark Callahan [00:01:28]:
And I’m joined by Gerry Gebel, who heads up product and standards for us here at Strata as well.
Gerry Gebel [00:01:34]:
Hey, Mark, good morning. Hey, Sebastian.
Mark Callahan [00:01:36]:
And Sebastian, welcome. Thank you for joining us.
Sebastian Rohr [00:01:38]:
Yeah, you’re welcome. I’m absolutely happy and I’m humbled to be a part of this series. It’s an honor.
Mark Callahan [00:01:46]:
Well, thank you. Thank you. You’re making us blush now, but it’s great having you here because we’re going to really dig into your story because I think that if anybody who’s joining us isn’t familiar with you, I’m going to say one word and I think it’s going to answer exactly who you are. Identibeer. We’ll leave it at that, but we’ll dig into the identity a little bit more in a moment. If you’ve been on LinkedIn perhaps in the last two years and looked at anything identity related or been to any of the major identity conferences, I think, Sebastian, we’ve seen IdentiBeer show up and as well as it’s taken on a life of its own.
Sebastian Rohr [00:02:17]:
Absolutely, it has. It’s a bigger community. And first of all, I really need to set the record Straight. Yes, I now go by the self proclaimed moniker of IdentiBeer Guy. But that whole community was not my idea. That actually goes back to Espen Bargo and Martin Sundren who came up with a great idea to have open tables, open meetups at pubs in Amsterdam and Stockholm and they made that regular. And so there is a community of identity beer meetups happening that’s been growing quite a lot. I’ve recently seen one come up here in Germany in Munich by Heiko Klal.
Sebastian Rohr [00:03:06]:
There is one in Tel Aviv. Eli has established one in San Francisco. And I humbly brag that. I was definitely kicking that off because three years ago during, after our identiverse meeting, we actually did a road trip to San Francisco and well, asked the ID pro community if they wouldn’t be up for an after work beer. And Eli took things in his own hands and mobilized a few people. So we had a first non official IdentiBeer meeting in San Francisco three years ago. And yeah, now it’s absolutely a worldwide phenomenon and Aspenbago is doing a great job in managing that community. And yes, there’s going to be an Identibeer meetup community in Frankfurt here in Germany soon.
Gerry Gebel [00:04:00]:
Yeah, that’s outstanding. While you may not have originated the idea, you know, from Espen and Martin, you definitely took it to a new level with things like actually brewing IdentiBeer. I mean it’s just, it’s so awesome and we love the fact that you’ve brought this community concept even to a higher level. It’s so great to see.
Sebastian Rohr [00:04:20]:
Thanks for showing it. I wouldn’t have dared because you know, I like to stay humble on that and credit where credit is due. But yeah, it was actually one of those moments three years ago when we saw Martin and Aspen and all the others in London also. Yeah, IdentiBeer meetups. And I said, damn, I’m a German. We sort of live beer. We are one of the nations that consider themselves beer nations, aside from Ghana, aside from the Czech Republic. So I happen to live half a mile away from where that beer is brewed.
Sebastian Rohr [00:04:54]:
So we have a craft brewery here in the small village that I live in in Fungstadt called Braudich. So shout out to you guys, thanks for making this happen. So I asked them if they’d be willing to create a special edition for us with special labeling and everything. And we always kept it strictly limited. So each year there’s only 99 bottles of each edition. And then as you may have seen, Gary has shown his bottle. It’s actually signed With A for Gary and probably right. It even has a serial number on it somewhere.
Sebastian Rohr [00:05:31]:
Maybe sometimes we forget it’s only 99 of each and yeah, that definitely has boosted our visibility. My visibility. And Vittorio Bertocci, a friend of ours who sadly passed away one and a half years ago, he put it quite nicely during EIC two and a half years ago where he said nice marketing. Stunned by Sebastian. But they all picked it up, they all posted pictures of their identity, beer bottles signed at nice locations. So yeah, I’m just thankful and I try to get as much feedback from the community and grow that community with those efforts. It’s definitely a little bit self serving. But I am just a community guy.
Sebastian Rohr [00:06:17]:
I do know that I wouldn’t be where I am if it wasn’t for people like Gary Umarg and Eve Mailer and Vittorio and all the others because we’re learning so much from each other and I just like to share that knowledge and I know that community is pivotal for that.
Mark Callahan [00:06:35]:
I love it. Well, it’s certainly become the swag to have and define at events. So I love the fact that you’ve been able to bring, you know, the community together. But you also made identity delicious and not many people can say that they’ve done that. And so yes, coming soon to the next conference near you. So as we look at, you know, your sort of career as we think about this as an identity hero and I appreciate the humility and not wanting to share, but we’re going to ask a lot of stories because we, the audience would love to just understand identity is a destination. And also Umbrella Associates, the organization where you are now in terms of where you started though, we say on the series that there’s not really a degree for identity and access management. And I think that where you started your career when we were talking was you were doing a network oriented master studies and you were working at Siemens.
Mark Callahan [00:07:21]:
Lots of things have happened. You now are the identity guy and you have several roles with Umbrella. Was this a linear path?
Sebastian Rohr [00:07:29]:
Absolutely not. So I know that many of the career coaches tell you there’s got to be that red line and it needs to be 100% straight. Not me. My career path is much like the waves behind me. It’s been zigzagging. Now in high school in Germany you have to choose your majors. In Lower Saxony it’s two majors and I took geography and chemistry. I was a little IT nerd.
Sebastian Rohr [00:07:56]:
I’m like Generation Commodore, C64 and Amiga. So I was one of those stellar nerds. Not Enough sunshine. So yeah, and I was into chemistry. I really liked it and I wanted to study chemistry. But I also knew that in Germany, chemistry is a really, really tough nut to crack. So I decided that I would do what we Germans really love doing. Doing a vocational training with the Beiersdorf Corporation.
Sebastian Rohr [00:08:22]:
And you all have at least a handful of products from them in your household, like Nivea cream and certain band aids and sunscreen and whatnot. So I actually became a vocationally trained chemical lab developer at first because I wanted to study chemistry afterwards. But during my vocational training I figured that the whole development network was run by Token Ring and that they were using FoxPro databases. And all of my people that were there to teach me chemistry, they actually had a lot to learn from me with regard to it. And I sort of got the honorary badge of assistant Admin because that whole development network was run by one single guy, Bela Bartosz. I don’t know if you’re listening to that. You are the start of that career. So when I finished that vocational training, I asked my bosses, they had all PhD in chemistry and said, okay, what do I do? And they all said, you’ve got to do your PhD else you won’t leave the lab.
Sebastian Rohr [00:09:28]:
You would hardly make it to lab manager if you don’t get your PhD. And in Germany that’s like five years to get your master’s and another five years to get your PhD. And I calculated and said, then I’m 31 when I earn money. Said, no way, dude. So I actually studied management and engineering, which is a subject that sort of is 60% economics and 60% engineering jack of all trades thingy. Because my cousin had just finished that studies. And during that studies I again got really lucky that one of my friends network community said, oh, the Siemens Corporation, they are looking for a new part time working student in the networking services department. You are a networking guy.
Sebastian Rohr [00:10:15]:
I always see you talking about doing network LAN parties and go there. And so I went there and despite not being a network management engineering student, but management and engineering. So something like really far off, they hired me and suddenly I was sitting in between all of those networking gurus, you know, with Novel Network and the beginnings of. And I had to learn the ISO OC model from scratch. And that was definitely that tipping point. From there on it was all downhill.
Mark Callahan [00:10:54]:
Downhill to identity is downhill to identity, right?
Sebastian Rohr [00:10:58]:
Right. Well, first to security, because like fast forward one and a half years, I had done my master’s thesis. I actually wrote my master’s thesis about Linux based firewalls to be deployed in small medium enterprises. In Germany, Those were the 90s people, right. We still had low bandwidth Internet like 64K. And when I finished, they made me an offer to join ICN Foudi CS sds, which is Siemens Sales Germany Deutschland Communication Consulting and Services, Security and Directory Services, which is the team that actually sold DX Meta Directory, an identity management product which is still on sale today by Atoz. So in the 1990s I sort of got infected. And so that was the entry from there.
Sebastian Rohr [00:11:48]:
It was a little bit like this.
Gerry Gebel [00:11:50]:
But that was the entry point into identity. Then it was the direct systems. Interesting. Okay.
Mark Callahan [00:11:56]:
I love it.
Sebastian Rohr [00:11:57]:
Yeah. And we did everything, you know, I did smart cards. I was one of the first 100 people at Siemens who actually got a first multifunctional badge which you could not only get physical access to and do time and attendance, but also log into your computer and do sign in encrypted emails with. I think it took me like five hours to receive my first encrypted email. But hey, that was PKI and certificates. So yeah, it sort of never got better from there.
Mark Callahan [00:12:28]:
It’s like I feel so see, I wish I brought my prop. I actually have a Commodore 64 downstairs. So next time we do. Yes, next time we do this, I will bring my own prop here. So this has taken you, as you said, you’ve been all over it. Folks are welcome to take a look at LinkedIn and see how you’ve come to be where you are at Umbrella Associates. Now, thinking back, we jokingly again said that there’s no college degree for identity and access management. But if you were to actually set a course of study and actually create one, that would be the master’s level, IAM coursework.
Mark Callahan [00:12:58]:
What sort of things might we stitch into the curriculum today as people are thinking about how they would get there?
Sebastian Rohr [00:13:05]:
Well, I think I’m going to repeat myself. It’s networking, networking and networking.
Mark Callahan [00:13:09]:
I like that.
Sebastian Rohr [00:13:10]:
It’s networking to the power of three. First of all, I really do not understand how kids these days get their college degree, their master’s, their bachelor’s in computer science, and are not able to explain to me how that little device actually shows you the NFL scores. Right?
Mark Callahan [00:13:32]:
That’s it.
Sebastian Rohr [00:13:33]:
What’s DHCP? What is DNS, right? And why do all the old folks always say it’s DNS, right? They can’t tell you. They don’t even seem to know what an IP address is. And that I think is an issue.
Mark Callahan [00:13:49]:
That is I think, you know, Gerry, you and I were talking a little bit about this too. So personally I had a circuitous room myself. I was a med school dropout who got all the way there and was like, oh my gosh, I don’t want to be here, but realized they couldn’t. You know, also the communication aspect of how doctors are working with their patients and realized I want to switch and sell technology stories and help explain how things work, which is really so critical and it is missing, I think today to a degree because there’s so much of what we do in identity that impacts non technical teams. And so we have to be able to tell that story and the value across the organization if we’re going to make a business case for identity. Would you agree?
Sebastian Rohr [00:14:25]:
Absolutely.
Gerry Gebel [00:14:26]:
Yeah. I think Sebastian made a couple of interesting points there. One is, you know, I may have a degree in Comp Sci or something, but do I really know the basics, the fundamentals? Because that’s so valuable, because you need those fundamentals to do more advanced things or to do problem determination. For sure, when you run into issues with your code trying to figure out what’s going on, you need a broader spectrum of understanding of the whole stack or as much of the computing stack as possible. But Sebastian, the other thing you mentioned though was around networking and you mean networking as far as making relationships with others, you know, within the company you’re working for or outside of the company. I think that is so imperative for a long and satisfying career path. Because what I tell people on occasion is that you should strive to get to a point where you don’t need your CV to get to your next job, but that you get your next job through your network of relationships.
Mark Callahan [00:15:28]:
That’s it.
Sebastian Rohr [00:15:29]:
Yep. Yeah.
Mark Callahan [00:15:30]:
And then your CV becomes an afterthought, right? You’ve got the position and the new company’s like, oh, we already hired you, but now we actually, just for HR purposes, still need a CV. Can you give us an updated one? But it wasn’t your path in, it was who you knew and how you knew them that got you your next opportunity.
Sebastian Rohr [00:15:46]:
That’s absolutely true. I can only reinforce that by, you know, this is all about storytelling and stuff like anecdotal evidence. And so when we fast forward from the Siemens days to like 2007, I was the chief security advisor of the Microsoft Corporation for the German speaking markets back then and a mishap was up. None of the people who were in my hiring process were in my line of management when I joined. They were all gone. The whole German organization had like been turned on its head and I as with a title Chief Security Advisor had to report into the business Marketing Officer BMO and security was that you report to me, you do marketing, you. And that was 2007. Right.
Sebastian Rohr [00:16:42]:
It’s a time where Vista came out and people were not really loving Microsoft. So my job doing security at Microsoft and you know, telling people that yeah, it’s good to use Microsoft secure and you can also use security products from Microsoft. And that job was hard on its own out there in the market. But actually my own boss, I didn’t understand what my job function was because he was brand new and we didn’t get along so well. So that ended up being a very, very, very short job for me and I got fired. Like me. No, it’s like what? Right? So yeah, well I didn’t get fired. They didn’t let me survive the probation period like the that thing.
Sebastian Rohr [00:17:32]:
So they.
Mark Callahan [00:17:33]:
You are in marketing, you do have an angle there. Yes.
Sebastian Rohr [00:17:36]:
So they let me go and that was like devastating me. Of all the people I had technical engineers at Microsoft Germany come to me and ask me how I was able to write a chapter in a book on trusted computing that got academic level explanations of BitLocker published while I was there. And they never had a chance to understand it. They didn’t find anyone explaining it to them. But the point with that networking component of my CSA job was that I was not reporting into the German organization but that Scott Czerny, vice president of the Trustworthy Computing Group in Radman was sort of my boss. And so I was going to Redmond quite regularly and my German manager never. So I think he was a little jealous that I regularly had to fly to Washington and interact with the mothership. And I got insights.
Sebastian Rohr [00:18:45]:
I got shown around all the security executives at the Microsoft Corporation building networks. I learned the hard way that building a network is super important. Unfortunately, that has a downside. Because I was in the US so often, I never had a chance to build a network inside the Microsoft Germany organization. And so when they decided that I’m not fit for that job in that organization, I really struggled and tried hard to leverage my network and find another position inside the organization. But it was all blocked. They really got me cornered. But today I say if that wouldn’t have happened, I wouldn’t have had the idea to run my own company.
Sebastian Rohr [00:19:30]:
Or at least not at that point in time. So today, Andy, if you’re out there, thanks for firing me. I appreciate it.
Mark Callahan [00:19:39]:
Look where I am well, that’s the spin on this, is there? You know, someone’s once said that there’s no such thing as failure. There’s just really important learnings. And as you just pointed out, this was a learning, this was a pivotal thing that took you to where you are now.
Sebastian Rohr [00:19:51]:
Absolutely.
Mark Callahan [00:19:52]:
Very interesting.
Gerry Gebel [00:19:53]:
And it should not be a career stopper. Right. It’s just you pull back, reassess, and continue on from there and learn from it.
Mark Callahan [00:20:00]:
Yeah.
Sebastian Rohr [00:20:00]:
Yeah.
Mark Callahan [00:20:00]:
Ever. Yes.
Sebastian Rohr [00:20:01]:
No, I must admit that the organization was really friendly. So they actually gave me an outplacement agency support. And Uttar, if you’re out there and seeing this. Yes, I made it sort of. So I really had a good coach. Utta really helped me reflect on where I was, how I got there. And we did very, very nice analysis, almost psychological. So she made me think about when I felt best in my job and really, really dissecting it, like peeling onion, layer by layer.
Sebastian Rohr [00:20:39]:
And I found out that my time at ca, I mean, if you’re out there, my former boss, thanks again. Because he actually told me to try and think like an entrepreneur inside, like an intrapreneur inside the organization. And whoever worked for ca, you know, that’s a shark tank, so you got to know what you’re doing. And that was really, really, really important because he let me do what I wanted to do. And he just said, that’s the target. That’s the hill I want you to climb. And I don’t care how you get there. It’s management by objectives and management by exceptions.
Sebastian Rohr [00:21:19]:
And I really love that. And I practice that today with all of my juniors, with all of my new hires. I just tell them, okay, by the end of the three months, I want you to meet me on top of that hill. I don’t care how you get there, just meet me there. But if you come to a wall that you can’t scale, if you come to a river that you can’t cross because there’s no bridge, call me, call the seniors. We will figure out a way so you can get there, you can get over that obstacle. And this is something that I really, really hold close to my heart because it’s enables you to grow. I grew so much with that little supervision that my coach said, oh, well, probably the opportunity to go solo to build your own company might be a viable option.
Sebastian Rohr [00:22:14]:
And here I am.
Gerry Gebel [00:22:16]:
That’s outstanding. I mean, what you’re saying, though, is you operated best with that autonomy without being micromanaged. And that’s your philosophy now. I mean, that doesn’t fit everyone. But for the person that is independent and can work on their own, you know, that’s a great environment for them to be in.
Mark Callahan [00:22:33]:
And I heard you use the word coach several times, you know.
Sebastian Rohr [00:22:36]:
Yeah, absolutely.
Mark Callahan [00:22:37]:
And I might interject or change that with mentor. You know, I think, yes, anyone who’s, who’s met you and learning and hearing on this, even in this episode, no one’s going to say that you’re necessarily a wallflower, that you aren’t going to go do things and make your voice heard. Any advice for somebody who’s in the industry and doesn’t have the direct access to the mentors and individuals that you mentioned here that you had by virtue of they were your managers. Any thoughts on how they might find mentors in the industry themselves?
Sebastian Rohr [00:23:05]:
It all starts with getting out of your shell like the hermit crab. You gotta get out of that shell. Many people in our industry, and I don’t mean it in that small identity management community, but security and it in general. Many of our fellows are more introverts. They are not the ones to go out on stage and say, hi, I’m Iron man. Right. It’s like they are more reluctant to expose themselves. But you have to overcome that just a tiny little bit.
Sebastian Rohr [00:23:45]:
And it doesn’t need to be a stage. But there is some urban legend. If you really want to have a technology problem solved in our industry, go to a forum, post your problem statement, then create another account, log back in and comment with a wrong answer. And the feedback will overwhelm you because if you just post the question, no one’s going to answer. But if you post a question in the wrong answer, everybody is you.
Sebastian Rohr [00:24:19]:
And that’s wrong. You have to do it like this. You get just great explanations that way. It’s like tricking the system. Put yourself out there, contribute to some sort of open source project, do some commits. If you’re really technical, right. Grab one of those tasks in the open source community and commit and see what happens. Right.
Sebastian Rohr [00:24:40]:
This is one thing. Go to meetups like the identity beer meetups, be seen. Well, one thing about that management by objectives, management by exception approach is it requires the employee, the mentee, to actually raise their hand and say, houston, I have a problem.
Mark Callahan [00:25:00]:
Yes.
Sebastian Rohr [00:25:00]:
And you have to bring up that little extra amount of energy to come across that little hill and put your hand up and say, I’m looking for advice, I’m looking for help here. You got to put yourself out there a little bit. You got to stick your nose out a Little bit. Another story. I’ve seen a high school student here from Germany, from The Frankfurt area, 15 years old, registers on LinkedIn and posts on LinkedIn. Nice photo to it, not overdone, just really colloquial and asks, listen, this is me. I am interested in this, this, this. I need an internship for a year because I want to do this and this and it requires one year of internship.
Sebastian Rohr [00:25:43]:
Is LinkedIn a place for a student like me with 15 year olds to get some response? That guy was going viral, right? Everybody was like, wow, cool. Now I got confidence that the jungle generation is actually up to something. And they were cheering him on. He was swamped in internship offers in a matter of two or three days. Just get out of your hermit crab shell, put yourself out there, ask for help. There is people out there who like to help.
Mark Callahan [00:26:18]:
I love that even just.
Gerry Gebel [00:26:19]:
That’s fantastic.
Mark Callahan [00:26:21]:
You and I. So Gerry and I have a relationship that. He’s probably going to chuckle at this a little bit. There was a real problem that I had personally which was not looking at this as like a fault of not knowing everything and not having the answers and actually trying to reframe it as curious. And I think that that’s one of the things that helped me most in even as I, you know, got higher and higher in my career is never stop asking questions from other people. It’s not a fault that you don’t know everything. It’s actually it’s a curiosity of wanting to understand more or if it’s a different perspective. And I think Gerry, you’ve been phenomenal in helping me learn that as well.
Mark Callahan [00:26:53]:
And I love hearing that story. Sebastian.
Gerry Gebel [00:26:55]:
Yeah, I think Sebastian makes some great suggestions there. I mean particularly getting outside of your normal routine.
Mark Callahan [00:27:01]:
Right.
Gerry Gebel [00:27:01]:
Getting outside of your shell there. And there’s so many different ways that it is possible today, especially with social media like the LinkedIn example, you know, there’s the ID Pro community that we’re all part of. That’s another very important.
Mark Callahan [00:27:14]:
Although I’m never going to trust the first post after one of your posts. Never again. Smash. I just saying just say we’re on to you. But it’s a clever idea. It’s. I love it. Yeah, sorry Gerry, go ahead.
Gerry Gebel [00:27:23]:
It is. And you know, submitting for a conference, speaking session, all the identity, beer meetups, other open source activities, if you’re technical enough and want to join in on that. Yeah, there’s so many different avenues to get yourself out into the community and make yourself noticed a little bit more and just taking on different challenges to see what you like or what else is possible other than your nine to five routine that you’re locked into.
Mark Callahan [00:27:49]:
I love it. Well, so now you’re managing your own company. Sebastian, as we talked through this whole process that you’ve gotten there, is there a way in your projects that you measure success? Is there a particular thing that you look at and you say, you know, back to the hero’s journey, like we’ve accomplished this journey or this challenge that we have along the way? How do you measure your level of success and identity?
Sebastian Rohr [00:28:11]:
So first of all, it is not the company, it’s the companies. Because for some time now, I am actually managing director of multiple companies. And all of those, I will let you in on that secret too, are run by people that are my former employees. So I’m really, really proud of that. So I started entrepreneurship in 2007 and my very first employee was actually Roland Baum, which some of you know as the CEO and founder of Umbrella Associates. So Roland and I actually got back together at one point in time. He ended in his resignation because he felt he couldn’t learn much more in the environment that I was providing him. And he went to join a vendor, which I also totally recommend for your personal development.
Sebastian Rohr [00:29:06]:
You have to have been on the dark side with the cookies and stuff and the big cash books for doing expenses. But who was doing freelance then? And we got back together. So he sort of. Or I’m his co founder, Umbrella Security Operations Valdet, who is a managing director there. I’m his co founder. Like five years after he left, he came back and said, sebastian, I think I’m ready. I want to run my own company. Can you assist me? So I actually switched the mode quite a bit from 2007 when I was a learner.
Sebastian Rohr [00:29:40]:
When I said, oh yeah, let’s do that, let’s found a company. And I was like, I have no clue. I worked for Siemens, 400k employees. I worked for Microsoft, 185k. I worked for Fraunhofer, like almost another 100k people. I was a very, very small cog in a very large machinery. What did I know about running a company or being an entrepreneur? So yeah, I had someone who was already running their own companies for more than one and a half decades. And I learned a lot from that.
Sebastian Rohr [00:30:14]:
So I was a junior partner and today I am more of. So yeah, how do you get there? And how do we measure success? Yes, I measure success when people come back to me after years. Like when you did A project with one customer, well, it’s natural. We have fluctuation. People switch jobs, they get hired away. If these people come back to you, they do not come back to your company because, well, it might not be existing. You have switched. They come back to you and say, Sebastian, Mr.
Sebastian Rohr [00:30:45]:
Rohr, back in 2010, we did a palm project. I was at Salzburgage, I’m now with, I don’t know, municipality. And we want to do that. Can you help us out? This is how I measure success. Because people tend to value what we not only provided to their employer, but to them as a manager, as a decision maker. And we made them happy because the project was well executed. We reached the value add that we proposed to come from those projects. And if these people, years later come back and say, ah, Sebastian, can we do that? Can we repeat that? Then I’m happy.
Sebastian Rohr [00:31:27]:
Then I know that I, and especially my team nowadays did a great job. This is definitely a thing in my personal success. I measure in the amount of former employees that knock on my door and say, hey, Sebastian, you got some bucks? Can we create a new company together? And that’s why I am now a serial entrepreneur. I’m sort of going back to the notary office in Germany, which is really, really uptight German thing. And, you know, and my notary, that’s a lady, we don’t shake hands, we give each other a hug and go by the first name, which in Germany was notaries, is like, don’t do that.
Mark Callahan [00:32:06]:
Right.
Sebastian Rohr [00:32:07]:
So. But that tells me she has lots of fun working with me as an entrepreneur and as a founder and helping others to grow. So success again, community, network feedback, you know, being invited to such a recording with you guys, that’s my personal success. People talking about identity beers and then talking me up in Berlin at the buffet, at the breakfast buffet in the Motel 1, somebody looks up Sebastian and a. The guy with a beer. So, yes, I am. That’s success for me.
Mark Callahan [00:32:43]:
Yeah.
Gerry Gebel [00:32:43]:
Mark, what Sebastian’s also describing here is making others successful. Whether that’s former employees who are now are able or feel able to run a company on their own, or it’s those customers who you’ve done consulting for. If they are coming back to you, then that means you’ve made them successful in that previous role. So I mean, that’s. It’s all about, you know, giving. Not so much the focus on yourself, but focusing on the others that you’re serving. Very important is really a great measure. That’s awesome.
Gerry Gebel [00:33:17]:
That’s great to hear.
Mark Callahan [00:33:18]:
I mean, I Think that many of our audience would be lucky to have you as a manager and a boss. Sebastian, I think you just have some really great insights here. You know, as you think about helping your teams to do more with less. I’m sure there’s always this question about, as a superhero, is there something that’s a force multiplier that can make them more powerful or more effective in what they’re doing? Any advice for our audiences in their own organizations? Maybe Budgets are tight and they’ve got a really small team, but you’ve obviously had a lot of success building out teams and organizations. Any advice for how to do more with less? And especially in I Am.
Sebastian Rohr [00:33:52]:
Yeah, so the media are full of that trope that we have a lack of talent and there is so many open positions and so few people that are actually capable of doing that. Joe, give those people education. Grant them access to trainings. Build them up. One way of as a manager viewing your subordinates is like they were lemons or oranges. So you can squeeze the last drop of juice out of them just for the stakeholder value. Yes, you can do that, but I’m pretty sure that’s not going to work. I rather tend to see people that work with me first.
Sebastian Rohr [00:34:39]:
Very important delimiter. People don’t work for me. They always work with me. I never talk about my team or my insubordinates or my. My.
Mark Callahan [00:34:49]:
Yes, I do.
Sebastian Rohr [00:34:51]:
Call them minions. Yes, yes, I do. But that’s a different story. They are always my coworkers, my fellows. It’s like Umbrella Associates. There is a meaning and the name of that company. I don’t have people working for me. They work with me.
Sebastian Rohr [00:35:04]:
And I tend to see each of them as a sapling, as a small plant that my job as a manager is to grow, to nurture, to give them opportunity to develop and extend and grow branches and produce leaves and fruit, of course, because when they have opportunity to grow and have fun working, they put in the extra hours. Do we have time for another of those stories? Because my daughter is now 14. When she was like 4 or 5, I know that I forgot something in the office on Good Friday, and I had to go to the office on Easter Monday, which is a public holiday here in Germany. And my daughter said, oh, you’re going to the office. Dad, can I come with you? I want to see your office. I want to see where you work. I say, I’ll take you with you. So we get there, I’m at the door, and while I’m opening the door, to the offices.
Sebastian Rohr [00:36:08]:
She asks, so will I meet your co workers? Will I meet your employees while I’m opening the door? And I said, no, dear, it’s a public holiday. There’s no one here. And that’s the moment where you hear voices from down the corridor saying, no, that’s wrong. Sebastian, we’re all here.
Mark Callahan [00:36:26]:
What the.
Sebastian Rohr [00:36:28]:
So three of my working students, part time, their first job is get their bachelor’s or their masters, were sitting in the lab trying to solve an issue they had was a customer project that they were committed to solve and hadn’t yet resolved. So they all agreed to come on a bank holiday on a public holiday to the office and solve that.
Gerry Gebel [00:36:53]:
That’s incredible.
Sebastian Rohr [00:36:55]:
Wow, that gives me the shivers when I tell it it’s 10 years gone. And one of those is, by the way, one of the managing directors of the companies I’m invested in now.
Gerry Gebel [00:37:05]:
You’re going to have a long list of people lining up to apply for a job with you now.
Mark Callahan [00:37:09]:
You certainly are. You certainly are.
Sebastian Rohr [00:37:12]:
One more thing, one more thing. I talked about education. I talked about the scarcity of personnel and doing more with fewer people and less. We have a standing policy here in the group, everyone at Umbrella, that you must attend five days of training per year externally and well, we prefer like industry certifications like ISE Square, cissp, ccsp, isaca, cism, cisa for more general security knowledge aside from vendor certifications, product learnings that we encourage our people to do. It’s all about employability. Keeping that, grow the plant, grow that person in mind. For me, it’s all about employability. I really live by the motto that I want to have all of my people well educated in current meaningful technology that they could get a job with a snip of the finger.
Sebastian Rohr [00:38:14]:
But they stay because I keep them entertained with cool, shiny new products and projects and that’s how we roll.
Mark Callahan [00:38:23]:
That’s again, Gerry, you hit the nail on the head. I think you’re going to have a lot of people reaching out on LinkedIn for opportunities with you. Sebastian. That’s amazing. Well, we’re getting a little close on time, but I wanted to ask a couple more questions, if I may, as we close out the story arc here. So I think we heard from you very much this idea that you needed to continue to learn and continue to grow. Is there a topic right now that you’re really leaning into to, you know, better your own education around and just a better understanding of as we think about IAM in 2025 and beyond?
Sebastian Rohr [00:38:51]:
So first of all, it’s definitely anything fine. Granular authorization. There’s so much happening in that space and it’s just so cool for me to watch my partner Roland really dig deeper and solve FGA problems for customers here in Germany and Europe in general. That’s just great. I need to try to keep up with the pace there then it’s obviously anything around self sovereign identity wallets. There is lots of discussion going on here in Germany. Not everything is moving into the right direction. There’s lots of friction.
Sebastian Rohr [00:39:27]:
But I am absolutely convinced that anything about enabling technologies that sort of feed back to US users to regain control about who gets what information about me, which attributes are going to be shared, this is really important. And also identity verification and validation. I’m a big fan of that LinkedIn functionality where it says oh yeah, this is a verified person. Because just this week I posted about the pig butchering scams which always seem to start with fake identities. Chatting people up on dating apps on LinkedIn. I get so many connection requests from beautiful young women from Southeast Asia or I don’t know, Latin America and elsewhere. And then right, and I dig deeper and all of those accounts are fake and it really scares me. So yeah, that is definitely a big thing.
Sebastian Rohr [00:40:27]:
AI on the dark side of science. So the deep fakes and us identity folks trying to counter that and run behind those scammers who really have no boundaries whatsoever in deploying all that new technology for their malicious purposes and us just trying to keep up, at least not losing sight of them running away from us. That is definitely things that I invest time in learning more about. And yeah, we will definitely see lots of our basic work in identity in iga, in Pam being made easier by AI. It’s going to take some time. I don’t trust any of the vendors. Cool slides. I want to see those automated regroupings of roles by AI and I want to see the functionality that they actually say, ah, you haven’t used that access in the last six months, Mark.
Sebastian Rohr [00:41:28]:
We are pulling that root access from you. You can still request it with a 4i principle but no more double click. So yeah, where is that? You’ve been promising that to me for quite some time. Where is it?
Mark Callahan [00:41:40]:
So vendors, vendors take note, don’t have just the shiny demos that are controlled. You want to see everything underneath it and how it actually works.
Gerry Gebel [00:41:47]:
Ye, that’s, that’s quite a list. That’ll keep you busy for a while. And we must give her a shout out to Roland Baum, who’s been active on the Authzen standardization efforts. So we, we love the contributions from Roland in that community for sure.
Mark Callahan [00:42:02]:
Absolutely. Well, and we’re just about a time, Sebastian, looking ahead, where might folks engage with you? Where might they see you conference wise or online? How might they make connections with you going forward and after this?
Sebastian Rohr [00:42:15]:
Yeah, so people made fun of me aiming for the hat trick and never being able to achieve it. Which would be speaking at EIC in Berlin, speaking at Identiverse in Las Vegas and being at one of the Gartner Identity management conferences. The latter won’t happen, at least not within the next nine months or so. But yes, I’ll be at EIC and I hope that I will see many of you during the conference. And also there is Absolutely again on Monday night our regular ID Pro beer meetup happening in Berlin. So that’s the first opportunity to meet me in Berlin. We’ll be in Las Vegas for Identiverse. We’ll also attend one of the other conferences here in Germany in the next few weeks.
Sebastian Rohr [00:43:02]:
And yeah, well, join the ID Pro community is one of the expert advice I can give because I keep repeating myself. Standing on the shoulders of giants. I learned so much from just lurking in those slack channels and reading and people asking questions and other bright minds answering them. And I’m just like reading up on that just to keep track of everything. It’s just great. So those are the events and yes, you guys absolutely fostered the idea of doing a little bit more video. So we’re planning. I’m not yet sure if it’s actually going to happen, but doing a little bit of German speaking content videos on authorization with Roland that is developing right now.
Sebastian Rohr [00:43:48]:
So yeah, keep your eyes open on the usual social media sites and on the conference tabs and I’m happy to meet you there. And you can always ask me if I still got one of those elusive identity beer bottles with me.
Mark Callahan [00:44:03]:
Ask, Ask, Ask. Network. Network. Network. Keeping identity both fun and delicious. And that’s amazing. Well, we’re at time. Anyone you know the shoulders of giants and hears Sebastian? Who should we invite next? Who might we invite to the show? We always leave buddy on the spot at the end and ask, who else should we have on Identity Heroes? Who comes to mind?
Sebastian Rohr [00:44:22]:
Yeah, I would definitely think that Eve always makes a great part of such interviews because she is definitely a personality and I highly appreciate her and just being there and for increasing the number of females in such events because look at us like three gray old men. Like we need more women so Women, engineers, women, tech people. We are really, really an open and friendly community. Join us. We appreciate every gender and every. Anybody, everybody, anybody in our community. We want. Yes, Right.
Sebastian Rohr [00:45:05]:
So join us. Who else? I still do think that Privileged access management is they saying maybe Mr. Pendergast or Mr. Fullbrook come to mind. Maury Haber, maybe from another vendor. Well, Martin Kuppinger, if he doesn’t, Shiao, my friend Felix of Gartner fame. Aspen. Martin Sundren.
Sebastian Rohr [00:45:27]:
Well, the usual suspects. Gustavo Gallardo, maybe.
Mark Callahan [00:45:30]:
I think we’ve got Gerry, Our Year Ahead scheduled now with that, that list.
Gerry Gebel [00:45:35]:
Excellent suggestions.
Mark Callahan [00:45:36]:
All of them. All of them. Well, Sebastian, thank you so much for joining us. This was a lot of fun. It was great hearing your story and understanding that we all take our own path to become where we are today. And I think there was a lot that you shared that our audience can learn from. Gerry, as always, thank you for joining me. As we put on these series, it’s been awesome.
Gerry Gebel [00:45:53]:
And Sebastian, you truly are an identity hero. So thank you so much for joining us. It’s really been a pleasure.
Sebastian Rohr [00:46:01]:
Now in the last 30 seconds, you started bringing up and making me emotional. Thanks, gentlemen, for inviting me. I’m humbled. It’s an honor. And I am really, really grateful to be part of that community and being invited and sharing my story here.
Mark Callahan [00:46:17]:
Well, thank you. And thank you, our audience, for joining us. Please be sure to keep an eye out for the next episode and we’ll see you there. Thank you.
Gerry Gebel [00:46:24]:
Thanks, everyone.
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