Cutting Through the Fog: Trust, Outcomes, and What Real Consulting Looks Like | A Brand Spotlight at RSAC Conference 2026 with Michael Parisi, Chief Growth Officer of Steel Patriot Partners

We're starting again, again, because we had something in the shot.

Something that we didn't expect showed up in the shot, so we had to start again.

Sounds like a lot of security programs.

That's life, here we are. We're at RSAC conference, our good friend Michael Parisi.

You showed up in the shot, but we want you in the shot.

Yeah, absolutely.

You have some stuff to say, my friend.

You have some stuff to say, and it's always good to see you.

We have some incredible conversations on camera, off camera, a lot of interesting things going on.

You've seen a lot of critical infrastructure, the health care space, financial services.

You guys are one of the big four you've involved a lot of things, and people trust you.

People tell you what they're experiencing and what they're struggling with.

And what people on the other side of the camera need to know is that you help them when they trust to tell you something.

And so I'm thrilled to call you a friend and excited to have this chat.

We're going to talk about kind of the state of the union in terms of what's out there and what's happening and how people talk about it.

And this is where Marco gets to come in and have some fun looking at marketing as well.

I think it's foggy.

It's very foggy.

Very foggy.

And not just because we're in San Francisco, which is known for the fog.

Hey man, how ironic is that, right?

First thing I think of is the thing on the hill that when it's foggy, it looks like a ship.

That's right.

And then when it's not, it's anything but a ship.

It's right.

I don't know what that's called.

I don't know what till that is, but anyway.

People who know San Francisco will know that.

Yes, absolutely.

So we know who you are.

I don't know who I am.

That's right.

I know who you are.

For now.

People watching may not know who you are.

Right.

A little bit about yourself.

Yeah.

So, you know, Mike Perisi, I'm the chief growth officer at a consulting advisory company called Steel Patriot Partners.

As you guys know, as we always say, our approach is business owners first, engineers second, compliance and security people third.

Right.

That's what we focus on.

From a brand, from a value proposition perspective.

I've been here just over a year.

I've been around the audit space, the big force space.

It's a gentleman for a few years.

High trust for five and a half years.

Either we see Deloitte for 15.

So always in the cybersecurity space.

But my passion is really about relationships.

And as you guys know, this concept of trusted relationships.

A good friend of mine, Mark Allers company called SimCore.

We started this concept multiple years ago that we talked about here at RSA called The Fog of More.

And we're passionate about The Fog of More.

And it's so funny how it shifted from traditional cybersecurity companies to now AI companies.

Right.

Just to throw some more fog in there.

Yeah.

Some more fog in there.

Exactly.

The natural fog.

For the machine of the club.

That's right.

That's right.

I mean, look, you know, marketing.

It's funny.

My son wanted to go into the market.

That's right.

And I told him, I don't think that's good grip.

But now, like marketers are through the rough terms of everything that they're doing from.

And AI capability perspective.

Is that really true from a messaging and from a trust perspective?

And that's what most of my conversations are about.

Who do you trust?

Who's really vested in the business decisions that you need to make?

And that's a lot of the conversations that are happening in this way.

And this is what inspired this conversation.

I think we were just chatting with two of us.

Yeah.

And you know, we were talking about on stage.

You know, I'm going to go with the fog and the lighting.

Right.

The concert of the show must go on and it must be blinking lights, some loud music.

Yeah.

That in the backstage, where in this case, the seesaw meet, the CEO meet.

Yes.

You meet with the community.

It's a completely different story.

It is.

What the hell is that?

Right.

How do we trust that big circus out there?

Exactly.

We know what it is what and who does what he say does.

And if it doesn't, right?

That's right.

So what are these conversations nowadays?

Yeah.

So I mean, it's funny because you guys hear this all the time.

There's so many people.

How many times have you heard from seesows, from security folks?

All RSA.

Oh, my God.

I really have to go there like every year.

But what's phenomenal about the show is that it does come.

Is that it does create this trusted community to share experiences with.

So as much as people may roll their eyes, they still come.

Right.

And they're coming to have those types of conversations as your reference to Marko, right?

Like those intimate conversations were filled with so much noise and doom scrolling and marketing.

And nobody knows like where to turn and more.

And I think where the real conversations happen.

And stuff like this that's going to become invaluable.

Right.

The conversations are more trusted people to people.

We talk about human and the loop.

That's what we're talking about.

So how can I ask my friend or somebody within my network, hey, have you heard of this vendor?

Have you heard of this solution?

Are they for real?

What do you use?

And what's fascinating is we're almost seeing a movement back to what's more

trusted and true from a vendor perspective.

To say, I trust a brand, I trust the name.

I trust my sales person.

I trust the relationship that I built with that in order to sniff out, you know,

what might not be true from a capable perspective.

So two things.

I had a conversation last night with a gentleman whose daughter wants to become marketer.

Okay.

And I had a conversation with a friend of mine.

We were mainly nameless this morning about his company who has a cyber practice.

And the team was told, just go in and talk about Agente AI.

And that's what I was talking about.

Yeah, of course.

And I was telling him, I said, I'll start with him first.

I said, your company's not known for security.

Right.

You're entering this space that's really not very nice.

Right.

Right.

Very not forgiving at all.

Yeah.

And you're going to start talking about something you have no proof or backup or knowledge of.

Right.

To say, you're not just losing that moment.

You're destroying many more because of the conversations that happen outside of this space.

Right.

And so that connected with the conversation last night.

Where should my daughter go in terms of marketing?

And I told them, I said, where is she passionate?

What does she care about?

What does she know?

Yeah.

And it's that last piece.

If you don't know how something works.

And you don't care about what the outcome is.

Where the person who's going to buy that product or service.

Yeah.

It's just spewing fog.

Spewing fog.

And if you're doing it without proof, it's fog that's going to destroy your company.

And the problem with that is not just for the companies.

It's for the people who have a problem that they're trying to solve.

Right.

Right.

Because how do they cut through that noise?

And I figured who else I was talking to is like, it was the same guy this morning.

I said, there's so much out there.

You have to clear the deck quickly as possible to find that nugget.

You have to blow through the fog.

You got the Italian thing down there.

I know.

I know.

I love it.

So I'm going to take that and bring it back to business owner first.

Yes.

Engineering second.

Compliance third.

Because I think a lot of people get hung up in the middle.

Ooh, we can build some really cool stuff.

Or I have to tackle this problem because I need to be compliant.

Right.

When, in fact, it's the business that matters.

Agreed.

It's the business you need to understand and know.

Agreed.

And that's very, so that whole exercise is very taxing.

Like it takes time.

It takes energy.

And you see a bunch of people.

Well, we're here.

All they do is run around all day and try and evaluate.

Oh, what vendor should I choose and where should I spend my money?

That's not valuable from a business perspective, right?

So, you know, what I believe personally, what we believe is,

let's start with the business outcomes first.

Now, that could be maybe you need to be more efficient.

Maybe you're looking for the right security staff.

Maybe you're looking to unlock TAM that you have an address from the market perspective.

How do you effectively improve ROI in terms of what you're doing from a business standpoint?

Like, that's where we start.

And although we're engineers and I've got 20 plus years in the compliance and security space,

we all do, right?

All US-based citizens, tons of federal clearance, we've done it all.

We never start the conversation in that vein.

And we start with, is this the right decision from a business perspective?

I've had more conversations where I steered people away from pursuing, for example, federal compliance,

because that's the right business.

And helping them understand, well, what are the right triggers before you go down this path?

It's not about the money, it's not about the revenue, it's about the trust of the advisor.

And we've been through it.

I mean, myself, our current company, I mean, we've all gone through federal compliance,

we've all, you know, we're the FedRAM, CMMC, DODIL, you name it.

So we've lived it, and we've lived it in two veins.

One, we just did it because some vendor pushed us in that direction to say,

this is what you need to do, which was a fail.

And two, because it was the right business institution.

So that's really what we're focused on.

That's the role of a true consultant shouldn't be afraid to tell something that goes against what you think.

Correct.

That's why you go to a consultant.

That's right.

And when you'd say what is right or what is wrong, it depends.

That's right.

What's your business objective?

That's right.

How big is your company?

Well, you're, you know, how you're going to grow the company.

Maybe now this is good.

Then as you grow, you get something else.

That's right.

So for me, it's kind of like a...

The consultant curates your content for you.

It's almost like I go to the trustee.

Now I'm going to be very Italian.

You know, your food store.

You trusted the guy.

You already made the selection for you.

Everything is there.

It's good.

You don't have to be the one to try that stuff.

The role of the consultant is that in a way.

That's right.

What's your need?

Not only that, but, you know, what I find so interesting is that people are very fragile right now.

And they're exhausted.

And exhausted.

Right.

They're exhausted and they're fragile within our ecosystem.

Everyone is very scared to say, look, if I make the wrong decision, am I going to be here tomorrow or a week from now?

Or somebody going to find AI to replace my position.

So when you think about like decisions, people are looking for other sources in order to substantiate the decision that they're going to make.

And I think the more experienced people, of course, there's AI.

There's everything that you can do from a research perspective, but they don't trust it.

They don't trust her.

So it comes back to this community and, you know, the people that they're actually leveraging from a relationship perspective.

Like personal story, you know, unfortunately, I had to put my dog down last weekend.

Right.

And as I went through that last week.

I didn't hit chat GPT once.

I didn't hit Google once to talk about or to find out about the disease that she had.

I called my friends.

I was like, you were a dog owner. You've been through this.

What do you think we should do?

Right. I called my close network of friends.

No research whatsoever.

Because that is a critical emotional moment.

And I'm not going to listen to what's been out there from a research perspective.

I'm going to talk to my friends. I want the human interaction to understand what to do.

And those are the ones that got me through them as an example.

Not AI, not chat GPT, not clogged.

Name whatever it is that you want.

In the moment, emotions are high.

Exactly.

Not just for yourself.

That's right.

Goes around you.

That's right.

And of course, the moment is right there.

Exactly.

And decision needs to be made.

That's right.

So everything that we do, that's how we approach it.

And that's how we built this company and how we continue to build this company.

It's focused on that, right?

And it's trusted relationships.

I'd rather tell you no.

That's the wrong direction.

And that does right by you from a business, from an individual perspective.

And if it's the right decision, we're happy now.

Yeah.

And let's talk a little bit about the company.

Yeah.

Still Patrick, partner.

Your headline now, and you on the website is, you know, our branding is our story.

Right.

That's right.

So it means no bullshit.

That's right.

That's right.

Is it biography?

That's right.

This is what you're, you know, this is what you get.

Right.

We're not going to try to sell you who knows what.

It's circus with clowns and lions and all of that.

This was a choice made a few years ago.

Yeah.

When this was not like this.

That's right.

That's right.

It's very organic.

It is.

And I think it's maybe a bold statement, but we're a little bit ahead of the times.

And I believe that this is the mentality that as a society, we're going to all gravitate on.

It's happening now, but I think it was you, or maybe it was you, Mark, that said, it's happening in closed circles.

People still have FOMO.

They don't want to admit to the fact that, yeah, we don't believe in this bullshit to your point that's out there right now, but they're doing it in closed circles.

Right.

And we kind of led with that to say, look, we know deep down inside we're all humans.

We know when we have that type of conversation, that's what people are looking for.

That's what they're actually focused on.

And that's why I believe we're a little bit ahead of our time in terms of the approach that we have.

What are some of the engagements you have?

I don't know if there's like a trend that organizations are kind of coming to you with.

And what's the other side of that engagement like?

What's the outcome?

And I'm asking you to say a lot from...

Yeah.

That's a good point.

So we always focus on outcomes to your point.

I think it aligns to business owners first, right?

Engineers second.

So what's the outcome that we're collectively looking to achieve for you individually and for you as a business, right?

What is that collective outcome?

And how do we engineer a program, a process, a decision-based element in order to get you to that outcome?

And we manifest that in terms of how we work, how we spend time, even how we price certain things.

Everything is outcome focused.

And the hardest part, I think, for individuals and for companies is the decision process.

How do they make that decision, right?

I mean, to bring it back to the traumatic event we just went through, how do you make that decision?

We said, like, oh, but you're done.

And you need to really confide in somebody to understand what are all the elements I need to look at in order to make a decision to get the outcome that I'm looking for.

The other interesting thing is the outcome they think they want is not necessarily the best outcome, right?

So there's a lot of companies that we talk to that they say, well, we want to enter into the public space, right?

Oh, exactly.

Why?

Well, because we hear there's big contracts.

Okay, that's great, but that may not be the outcome that you actually wants.

Do you understand everything that comes along with it?

So everything that we do is focused on outcomes.

And we engineer whether it's a system or a process or even like our founder, Jason, he says all the time.

80% of what we do is a therapy session.

It's a therapy session.

That's what we're doing.

A lot of the vendors out there, it's just marketing and sales and it's not a therapy session that is outcome focused.

It's based off of what those individuals and those organizations say.

Buy me, buy me, buy me, but do I need you?

Yeah, exactly.

Do I need you?

So as we have very short amount of time left, what's your ideal client?

I mean, who does your company work with?

We like complicated hot messes.

Let's put it that way, right?

In my size.

Yeah.

Is it as hot as any size?

I mean, really organizations that are struggling to understand how do I get to the outcome?

And it's not just like what's the fastest way to get there, but what's the best way to get there?

What's going to put us in the best position as an organization and also as individuals to capitalize on where we're looking to go and to make a difference?

So our ICP, if you will, is organizations that are struggling with those business decisions.

Again, business owners first.

We love people that come to us and say, we've been hit with this.

Have you been through this before?

Not only have we held hundreds of organizations through it, we've lived it.

We've lived it.

And so I just came from a lunch and the conversation that I had, GRC provider.

These are guys that built GRC programs.

They've lived it.

They know what it means.

And their solution, I think, is kick ass because they've lived it.

They know what the outcomes need to be.

So many of these vendors, they've never lived it.

They've never gone through this process themselves.

That makes a big difference.

I mean, my advice for companies.

I've been down this team.

Ask that question.

And then across.

Right.

Not just one person who found it in the company.

Exactly.

I mean, look at you guys.

You've both lived it in your careers, which is why you're doing what you're doing now.

Ask those questions.

Ask those questions.

So, call to action.

Call to action.

Yeah.

Call to action is, yeah, I mean, clearly connected with you.

I mean, that's the first call to action.

I would share with everybody.

If you want somebody to confide in, Mike's your guy.

Jason and Amy.

Yeah.

They're with you as well.

Still pay to your partners.

I'm excited to have a conversation with Jason at the point.

It's a good, we're going to have a chat about what it means.

Absolutely.

To be a customer and work alongside.

Still pay to your partners to achieve his objectives and outcomes.

And so, I'm going to have a chat with him.

We're going to record that session here in a couple of weeks.

And I think it's his story that people will get to hear that will reinforce what we just talked about here,

which is clearing the deck of fog of more.

That's right.

Getting back to the business.

Do the engineering that's necessary that's feasible to accomplish.

Yeah.

The outcome and the objectives for the business in a way that's compliant.

That's right.

That's right.

That's what you do.

You're amazing.

So, pay to your partners.

People are connected to you.

And Mike is always going to see you, man.

You too.

Have a good rest of the week.

Absolutely.

You too.

Thanks everybody for watching.

Stay tuned for more here on ITSP Magnificent.

Thank you.

Thanks for having me, guys.

Thank you.