Employee Spotlight: Drew Senko

The Axonius Employee Spotlight is a Q&A series dedicated to shining a much-deserved light on the movers and shakers building the fastest growing cybersecurity company ever. You can read past Employee Spotlights here. 

This month we’re spotlighting Drew Senko, director of commercial and channel sales engineering. Based out of North Carolina, Drew started at Axonius in January 2020. 

Kathleen Ohlson: Tell us a bit about your career path before Axonius. What did you do? What critical moments got you to where you are today? 

Drew Senko: I started my career as a programmer and, through that, took on duties as an Unix system administrator and database administrator in support of the programming projects I worked on. After a decade of that, I moved into sales engineering for hosting and colocation services. In 2003, I obtained my CISSP and have been focused on security since that time.

Kathleen: What about Axonius made you interested in working here?

Drew: I saw Axonius providing solutions to problems which crossed all industries, and unlike many other opportunities, the field was not saturated with players. Hearing about Axonius winning the RSA Innovation Sandbox confirmed my thoughts.

Kathleen: What are some of the things that you or your team are responsible for?

Drew: My teams provide technical guidance directly to customers and channel partners on how Axonius provides solutions to their needs. We work with our account executives, holding conversations with customers centering on their needs, and then we provide a focused demo of our solution. We also run the Proof-of-Concept from start to finish.

Kathleen: What’s a favorite project you’ve worked on or career milestone you’ve achieved while working at Axonius?

Drew: I've performed a lot of public speaking for Axonius, and one particular webinar was sponsored by ISACA. ISACA advertised to their global audience about a webinar that I was the featured speaker for— there were over 2,500 live attendees. Many of them sent me invitations after the event to connect on LinkedIn and, from that single event, I have connections with people in over 30 countries!

Kathleen: What advice can you offer to someone looking to take on a role similar to yours?

Drew: Having a variety of work experience is essential. It pays off in many ways when you can draw on past roles for lessons learned and understanding of other areas of the business. Also, understanding both the technical needs and the business needs of customers is critical because we need to hold conversations in both realms.

Kathleen: If someone reading was interested in joining Axonius, what should they know about working here?

Drew: Working at Axonius requires a mindset where we focus on meeting our customers needs with the utmost urgency. When requests for changes or new features are made, we work to assess the level of effort and provide results as quickly as possible. Our customers respond favorably to this level of attention, and we put high expectations on ourselves to deliver.

Rapid Fire Q&A 

Kathleen: OK, now time for some fun! I’m going to ask you a series of rapid fire questions about yourself to help our readers get to know you a bit better. 

Let’s go! When you log on in the morning, what do you tackle first?

Drew: I map out my day and look for where I can help make an impact with my team members based on what's on the calendar.

Kathleen: What helps you focus?

Drew: Having an agenda or plan for the day helps me stay focused.

Kathleen: How do you deal with stress?

Drew: I try to step away for lunch whenever possible to break up the day and let my mind change gears for a short while.

Kathleen: Any hobbies outside of work?

Drew: I've had my 1971 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme convertible for 29 years. I take it for a drive whenever the weather is nice. I have also taken up cocktails and mixology in the last two years, and enjoy learning new recipes, techniques, and ingredients to work with.

Kathleen: Favorite way to spend your weekends?

Drew: Many weekends I can be found at sporting clays. I like hiking and I also go camping every month or two.

Kathleen: Do you drink coffee? How do you take it?

Drew: I use an Aeropress daily to make my coffee and I add cream.

Kathleen: What's the last great book you read?

Drew: I really enjoyed “The Omnivore's Dilemma,” and the follow-up books, “In Defense of Food” and “Cooked.”  The author delves into where our food comes from, some simple rules for choosing what to eat, and, finally, the origins of various cooking methods. It was informative and entertaining, and the last two spawned a short series on Netflix, which I also enjoyed.

Want to work with Drew and the rest of the team at Axonius? Check out our careers page to learn more and apply.