“Besides being able to sell, you need to be someone who embraces the spirit of Sababa.”

Sababa Security is growing fast. In less than 2 years of work we have 16 people in the team and are actively hiring. To remain as close to our partners and customers as possible, we decided to introduce our key team leads through a series of short interviews. On the last day of the third quarter, which is known to be one of the busiest days of the year in the cybersecurity industry, we are publishing the first interview with Andrea Salvaterra – Chief Sales Officer at Sababa Security.

– What are your job goals and mission?

– My objectives are quite simple: to make Sababa evolve into a more structured company to become an outstanding and most innovative company on the cybersecurity scene, at least in Italy. To do this we need internal resources of a certain kind – loyal to what our corporate identity is. Before being good sales people, they must be those who embrace the Sababa spirit.

– Which of your previous experiences would help you on the way of reaching your goals?

– All of them in some way. Not all my experiences are directly related to IT, but I have always taken business and organizational paths in my life. I started in management consulting, helping companies with the process improvement and the organizational side in general. Then I worked in sales: initially on the after-sales activities for an international company, then in a smaller company where I used to organize sales teams. My later experience of work for an IT company introduced the precise rules of the IT world to me, as they are so different from other working environments.

– Can you define a few main personal challenges for you as a CSO?

– The first and the main one is to achieve the sales goals. 😊 In order to do this I need a team that I can rely on. Therefore, the second challenge is to avoid mistakes when selecting people. For me this is a fundamental thing and is what distinguishes a Chief role from the others. The last one is to create a team, as it is essential to work and achieve the goals together.

– If you could obtain any skill you would like in 10 minutes, what it would be?

– Speak better English? Just kidding. Certainly, the main skill I would like to have, is to be able to select the right people for the right job to make the company attractive, especially at this stage of its rapid development and growth.

– What’s your motto in life?

– Don’t look back, look forward. Of course, being reflective on your past is important: what you have achieved today is the result of your past. But you must look forward, search for new motivation and new goals to reach.

What would be your cybersecurity advise to a company?

I would recommend not to think that cybersecurity is only about IT. What companies need to understand is that cybersecurity applies to every aspect of their business: to the person who opens the office in the morning, to the PC you use, to the employee working from home. My piece of advice is to think of cybersecurity as of the defense for your entire business, and not just of your IT infrastructure.