The destination is a business that can enter a market, keep a demanding customer, and work with other businesses on terms it can live with. Michael Parisi maps the five positions a company tends to stand in on the way there, and the three questions that identify which one it is.
What a company is trying to reach is rarely a certificate. Michael Parisi, Chief Growth Officer at Steel Patriot Partners, treats the destination as the opening question rather than the closing one, and the firm orders its own priorities to match. Business owners first, engineers second, compliance and security people third.
What does a secure and compliant business actually look like? It looks like whatever lets that business do what it set out to do. For one company it means entering a regulated industry it has never served. For another it means proving to itself and to an auditor that it is secure enough to work with a partner that will not move without evidence. The framework follows the objective.
Before a framework gets named or a control gets selected, someone has to decide whether the trip is worth taking. Michael Parisi puts more than half of that work in the category of psychology, and describes the most fulfilling part as helping someone understand where they actually stand. He comes at it from several sides of the same decision, having spent about fifteen years with the Big Four, five and a half with a cybersecurity standards organization and certification body, and two in a similar role at an audit and attestation firm.
How does a company know which route it is on? Steel Patriot Partners narrowed it to five positions and put three questions in front of them under the name Find Your Path. Growth has tapped out and a new industry looks like the way to keep going. Money is already committed to a direction someone else recommended. The decision is settled and the work needs a specialist. The open question is which partners and auditors to trust. Or the team needs sustained support rather than a project with an end date.
What makes the answer usable is that the firm has nothing riding on it. Steel Patriot Partners stays agnostic relative to tools, software, and auditors, which keeps the opening question plain. Who do you like, and what do you already have? Personality and culture then carry weight alongside capability. Knowing the route also means knowing where it narrows, so Michael Parisi and CEO Jason Ford both press on what a client has not considered, then on what to watch out for.
Sometimes the useful answer points somewhere else entirely. Find Your Path is not a robot, an LLM, or an AI tool, and the point is to give an organization enough value to lower its guard and talk directly. One of Michael Parisi's favorite outcomes is confirming that a company may not need to do the thing it walked in asking about, and when the work sits outside what Steel Patriot Partners handles, the firm connects them with someone who does.
This is a Brand Spotlight. A Brand Spotlight is a ~15 minute conversation designed to explore the guest, their company, and what makes their approach unique. Learn more: https://www.studioc60.com/creation#spotlight
GUEST
Michael Parisi, Chief Growth Officer, Steel Patriot Partners
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-parisi-4009b2261/
RESOURCES
Steel Patriot Partners: https://www.steelpatriotpartners.com
Find Your Path, three questions to start: https://www.steelpatriotpartners.com/find-your-path
Steel Patriot Partners Insights: https://resources.steelpatriotpartners.com
Are you interested in telling your story?
▶︎ Full Length Brand Story: https://www.studioc60.com/content-creation#full
▶︎ Brand Spotlight Story: https://www.studioc60.com/content-creation#spotlight
▶︎ Brand Highlight Story: https://www.studioc60.com/content-creation#highlight
KEYWORDS
michael parisi, steel patriot partners, sean martin, brand story, brand marketing, marketing podcast, brand spotlight, black hat usa 2026, find your path, secure and compliant business, business enablement, cybersecurity strategy, grc, governance risk and compliance, agnostic advisory, audit readiness, fedramp, cmmc, entering a regulated market, vendor and partner selection
A Secure and Compliant Business Is the Destination. Steel Patriot Partners Maps Five Routes to It. | A Brand Spotlight Recorded On Location at Black Hat USA 2026 with Michael Parisi, Chief Growth Officer at Steel Patriot Partners | Hosted by Sean Martin
[00:00:18] Sean Martin: All right. Perfect. Well, Michael, yeah. So good to see you, my friend.
[00:00:39] Michael Parisi: You too, man.
[00:00:40] Sean Martin: So good to see you. And uh,
[00:00:42] Michael Parisi: last time was RSAC, I think, right?
[00:00:44] Sean Martin: Yeah, I know.
[00:00:44] Michael Parisi: So
[00:00:45] Sean Martin: it's been a while. We had a good chat there. And, uh, yeah. Even today is too long without, without hanging out with you and chatting with you. We each had our own journey to get to Vegas.
[00:00:57] Michael Parisi: That's for sure.
[00:00:57] Sean Martin: You took your own path. I had a long, convoluted, ended up catching Marco and, and Moj.
[00:01:04] Michael Parisi: Yep.
[00:01:05] Sean Martin: Hobby, who I wanna pronounce it correctly. Um. Different reasons. Took me different path than you.
[00:01:12] Michael Parisi: Yep.
[00:01:13] Sean Martin: And probably I'm gonna go home a different way.
[00:01:15] Michael Parisi: Right.
[00:01:15] Sean Martin: Probably you as well. The point is, I kind of knew where I wanted to go, but I didn't walk. Right. Right. I had different people and entities helping me get to where I wanted to go.
[00:01:27] Michael Parisi: Yeah,
[00:01:28] Sean Martin: right. I had a flight to one place, uh, family member drive me to another place. Marco drive me to another
[00:01:35] Michael Parisi: Right.
[00:01:35] Sean Martin: Flight home. So different, different ways to get to different places. Yeah. All toward the desired objective.
[00:01:41] Michael Parisi: Yeah.
[00:01:41] Sean Martin: And of course I had to make a decision, business decision. Do I even do all of that to arrive here?
[00:01:48] Michael Parisi: Right.
[00:01:49] Sean Martin: To do this
[00:01:50] Michael Parisi: right
[00:01:50] Sean Martin: at Black Hat. So all of that comes into play. We probably don't think about that much when we're dealing with life.
[00:01:56] Michael Parisi: Yeah.
[00:01:56] Sean Martin: Um, but that's what we're gonna talk about today, kind of the journey of organizations showing to themselves and showing to auditors. What it means to be secure,
[00:02:09] Michael Parisi: right?
[00:02:09] Sean Martin: And finding the path to whatever that means for them from a business perspective. So, um, I'm super excited about this 'cause we worked on some, some fun things that help your prospects and your customers find that journey alongside you and you alongside them. And we're gonna dig into some of those stories. Uh, before we get into that though, folks who haven't met you yet have a quick background on who is
[00:02:32] Michael Parisi: Yeah. So Chief Growth Officer here at Steel Patriot Partners. Um. Advisory engineering firm. I've been here about 18 months, so I run everything on the partnership side. Uh, the sales side, marketing side prior to here was, uh, in a similar role for an, an audit firm, actually right. And attestation firm for about two years. Um, before that I was with a cybersecurity standards organization, certification body for five and a half years. And before that, about 15 years with the big four split between PwC and Deloitte. So. I don't know. I'd like to say we talk about journeys, right? I feel like this stop has kind of completed the journey for me because I've seen everything from a business perspective, standards, auditing, and now actually helping organizations make business decisions, right? Um, so
[00:03:26] Sean Martin: yeah,
[00:03:27] Michael Parisi: that's me.
[00:03:28] Sean Martin: So that's super cool. 'cause I, I think, I think generally when the security industry talks about compliance, it's a lever. Uh, to, yeah, to meet some regulation,
[00:03:41] Michael Parisi: right?
[00:03:41] Sean Martin: Right.
[00:03:42] Michael Parisi: Yep. Could be.
[00:03:42] Sean Martin: Yeah. And, and I think a lot of the security vendors use that to drive products and controls and
[00:03:49] Michael Parisi: Yes.
[00:03:50] Sean Martin: Solutions into that space. Um, security and compliance. 'cause it could be much, much more. And we're gonna talk about actually enabling businesses to work with other businesses.
[00:04:02] Michael Parisi: Right.
[00:04:02] Sean Martin: Not necessarily just to be compliant with a
[00:04:05] Michael Parisi: Right,
[00:04:05] Sean Martin: with a HIPAA or whatever it is. Right?
[00:04:08] Michael Parisi: I mean, it's interesting 'cause I feel like, um, over 50% of our job as being as psychologist, honestly. Right? I mean, like we always say business owners first, engineers second, um, compliance and security people third, but. I think some of the things that are most fulfilling for me and for us, um, is to talk to people, right? And really help them understand where are they on their journey, actually answer questions for which a lot of folks don't,
[00:04:39] Sean Martin: right?
[00:04:40] Michael Parisi: I'm gonna give them a perspective based off of where we've been, right? So it could be that. They're looking to enter a new market and they don't know. Should they do that? Should they not do that? You know, similar to what you said, should you come to Vegas or should you not? You should always come to Vegas. Especially if I'm here. I
[00:04:55] Sean Martin: know. No question.
[00:04:56] Michael Parisi: Exactly. It's
[00:04:57] Sean Martin: an easy business decision.
[00:04:58] Michael Parisi: That's right. Or or to your point, right? Like what partners should they be working with to help them? Get there.
[00:05:05] Sean Martin: Right.
[00:05:06] Michael Parisi: Um, your analogy, what, what airline should I fly Exactly. Or what road should, should I take? Right. Um, and you know, sometimes it's, well, I don't have the time or the patience or the knowledge, so I just want you to do it for me. Right. Um, or even verifying where, where they are. Yeah. Right. Like, we're down a, a certain path because somebody told us to go down that path. Maybe we've spent a ton of money already and we're trying to validate is that the right decision. Um, Marco and I have talked about this a lot and, and you and I as well. Like this fog of more is real. Yeah.
[00:05:41] Sean Martin: Yeah.
[00:05:42] Michael Parisi: And it's hard to cut through that in order to get an honest answer.
[00:05:47] Sean Martin: Yep.
[00:05:47] Michael Parisi: That's the role that we.
[00:05:49] Sean Martin: Yeah, absolutely. And I'm gonna use my, my scenario again to kind of make a point I've made this journey
[00:05:56] Michael Parisi: Yeah.
[00:05:57] Sean Martin: To Las Vegas. Many. This is our 12th year at the event as a media partner.
[00:06:02] Michael Parisi: Yep.
[00:06:03] Sean Martin: And it's usually from la. Oftentimes Marco and I would meet up and we'd drive together,
[00:06:08] Michael Parisi: right.
[00:06:08] Sean Martin: And then we'd drive back.
[00:06:09] Michael Parisi: Right
[00:06:10] Sean Martin: from the east coast, it's different. And this particular case, I had a multiple multi-stop.
[00:06:15] Michael Parisi: Yeah.
[00:06:16] Sean Martin: And so everything I knew about getting to Vegas for black hat that I've done for 10 years in a row. Completely different. Different,
[00:06:23] Michael Parisi: right?
[00:06:24] Sean Martin: Mm-hmm. Completely different. Mm-hmm.
[00:06:24] Michael Parisi: Mm-hmm.
[00:06:25] Sean Martin: And I, I struggled with that as I was trying to book this trip. I'm like, why? Yeah. Why is it so damn hard?
[00:06:31] Michael Parisi: Right? Right.
[00:06:32] Sean Martin: Why isn't it as easy as it was the last 10 times?
[00:06:35] Michael Parisi: Yep.
[00:06:35] Sean Martin: And so I wanna talk about that 'cause it. You have so many experiences at all the different roles you've had.
[00:06:42] Michael Parisi: Yeah.
[00:06:42] Sean Martin: Um, regulated industries, healthcare and finance and pharma and you name it, right into the OT marketing, uh, manufacturing and industrial controls. Right. And you see a lot of scenarios. Companies, large and small. Mature, just getting started and to together. We kind of landed on five, I think we call them types, but in it, it's really where they are and where they want to go to.
[00:07:10] Michael Parisi: Right.
[00:07:10] Sean Martin: And it's five journey scenarios that you've seen a lot over the years and Jason has as well.
[00:07:16] Michael Parisi: Yep.
[00:07:16] Sean Martin: And a lot of the Steel Patriot Partners team as well.
[00:07:18] Michael Parisi: Yep.
[00:07:19] Sean Martin: Um, so maybe kind of give us your overview of what we call the the five journey types. If you will.
[00:07:25] Michael Parisi: Yeah.
[00:07:26] Sean Martin: Um, that you commonly see.
[00:07:28] Michael Parisi: Yeah. I think, um, similar to what we were talking about a, a few minutes ago, when individuals, I don't even wanna talk about organizations. When individuals come to us or when we interact with individuals, um, they're usually at some type of decision points, right? It could be, as I mentioned before, they want to enter, um. A new, a new business, or maybe it's a new industry, is that something that they should do from a business perspective? Maybe they've tapped out from a growth standpoint and the only way to continue growing is to enter a new industry or a new business, or maybe the use cases that they've solved for with the current business, they see applicability somewhere else. Right, right.
[00:08:10] Michael Parisi: Um, but the question is. Do I do that? Like, like anything? Do I make that investment? And along with that comes questions around, well, what is that investment in terms of money, in terms of resources, in terms of time? Um, so that's a very common one, right? That, that we encounter. Um, sometimes we get folks that have already made a certain decision and they're going down a certain path, um, but they're. Right. The un unaware that that may be the wrong path,
[00:08:44] Sean Martin: right?
[00:08:44] Michael Parisi: And they want to validate it, right? Mm-hmm. Or they're uncomfortable with, well, am I doing the right thing? Am I not doing the right thing? Right? Um, so they come to us for a gut check,
[00:08:55] Sean Martin: right?
[00:08:55] Michael Parisi: Are we doing the right thing? Are we doing it the most effective way, the most efficient way? What are we not thinking about? Um, what are we gonna step in maybe a month down the line that we're not thinking about? Um, can you help us validate what our current partners and vendors have said to us? Right? Does that make sense? Does it not make sense? Um, bullshit meter,
[00:09:18] Sean Martin: right?
[00:09:18] Michael Parisi: Right. A lot of times, right, is another scenario. Uh, third one could be that, you know, they want somebody to do it for them,
[00:09:27] Sean Martin: right?
[00:09:28] Michael Parisi: So they've already made that business. Decision. They know what they need to do. They don't have the time and the resources, they don't have the expertise, and they want somebody that's specialized to do it for them. One of my favorite, uh, conversations we have all the time is what partners do we work with?
[00:09:44] Sean Martin: Right?
[00:09:44] Michael Parisi: You know, what I love about the position of our firm is that we're agnostic. We're agnostic relative to tools, uh, relative to software, relative to auditors. Et cetera. Um, so I feel as if our opinion is the most genuine because we don't have a side agenda,
[00:10:03] Sean Martin: right?
[00:10:03] Michael Parisi: Right. It's not like we're getting incentivized to sell a particular piece of software or to use a particular audit firm. Right. We've worked with all of them.
[00:10:13] Sean Martin: Yep.
[00:10:13] Michael Parisi: Right. Um, so that's one of my favorite conversations is who do you like? Right.
[00:10:18] Sean Martin: Who do you
[00:10:19] Michael Parisi: think
[00:10:19] Sean Martin: and, and what do you have?
[00:10:21] Michael Parisi: Right. Exactly. Exactly.
[00:10:23] Sean Martin: If an organization comes in and says, you gotta rip and replace everything.
[00:10:26] Michael Parisi: Right.
[00:10:27] Sean Martin: That's very disruptive.
[00:10:28] Michael Parisi: That's right.
[00:10:29] Sean Martin: Yeah. Unless, unless you plan for that.
[00:10:30] Michael Parisi: That's right.
[00:10:31] Sean Martin: And we just, we have a case study that we just did where on alongside build
[00:10:36] Michael Parisi: Exactly.
[00:10:36] Sean Martin: Was the right path.
[00:10:37] Michael Parisi: Right.
[00:10:38] Sean Martin: But that required a conversation to understand where they were, what they're trying to achieve, and, and how they were gonna get there.
[00:10:45] Michael Parisi: That's right. Yeah. I think it, it comes back to people. So when we recommend a certain partner or a solution, it's not just based off of capabilities, but it's based off of personality and culture. Now, I may recommend somebody different for Marco than I do for you because your personalities are different, right?
[00:11:07] Sean Martin: Absolutely.
[00:11:08] Michael Parisi: I'm probably gonna recommend, you know. An Italian firm in Florence for, for, for Marco. And maybe somebody different for you, but we have all of that perspective, right? Um, just from talking to firms.
[00:11:18] Sean Martin: Yeah. So the reason I'm having this conversation is you, is we, we took a lot of time kind of analyzing. These paths. These journeys.
[00:11:31] Michael Parisi: Yeah.
[00:11:31] Sean Martin: And with with a aim to give people who have questions or have a thought of, this is where I am going or haven't started.
[00:11:42] Michael Parisi: Right.
[00:11:43] Sean Martin: I need to validate the path. I started, but I'm stuck. I'm spending too much money.
[00:11:47] Michael Parisi: Yep.
[00:11:48] Sean Martin: I don't know that I'm actually going to achieve the end result. I can get it here, but the audit might fail or whatever it is, all the way down to I need a team on, on site full-time, or I just need a set of partners that I can trust. Yeah. To support my team. And that analysis comes with. Questions. It comes with statements of where they are, statements of where they're struggling, conversations. You've had hundreds if not thousands of over the years. Same with Jason, same with the rest of the team. Steel Patriot Partners.
[00:12:20] Michael Parisi: Yeah.
[00:12:21] Sean Martin: And we essentially consolidated that and synthesized it down to a very small number of questions and answers that people could, could sign into. If you are or enter into.
[00:12:36] Michael Parisi: Right.
[00:12:37] Sean Martin: And that'll validate where they think they are.
[00:12:41] Michael Parisi: Yeah.
[00:12:42] Sean Martin: And what they think they, the next steps might be. And it gives you some insight to that as well, so that you, if they choose to, can come together and have a conversation grounded in their truth, your understanding of that truth.
[00:12:56] Michael Parisi: Right.
[00:12:57] Sean Martin: As a starting point to say. Is this a market you should enter?
[00:13:02] Michael Parisi: Right?
[00:13:02] Sean Martin: Is it worth the investment?
[00:13:03] Michael Parisi: Yeah.
[00:13:04] Sean Martin: You've con you've started it, you're spending a lot of money. Should you continue? Is that the right path? And it, and I think Jason says this many times, if you come with an open mind, then come with an prospect, right? Prospect, it gives you a chance to have a conversation, gives you a chance to share your experiences and insights. Gives you a chance to ask them questions
[00:13:24] Michael Parisi: right
[00:13:24] Sean Martin: further. Um, so your, your, your hope with, we'll call it the qualifier tool, it's called Find Your Path on the Steel Patriot Partners site.
[00:13:33] Michael Parisi: Yeah.
[00:13:33] Sean Martin: Your, your hope with that in terms of. What people get out of it by visiting that
[00:13:37] Michael Parisi: site. I mean, it's very unique and thanks to working with you and Marco, you know, you were able to help us tell that story because we knew we had something, uh, that really differentiated us from, from others, but we didn't know exactly how to frame it, tell the story. So what I love about. Find your path is it's, um, it really resonates with individuals,
[00:14:02] Sean Martin: right?
[00:14:03] Michael Parisi: And humans from an interaction perspective, right? It's not a robot, it's not an LLM, it's not an AI tool. It's not, it's more, hey, this is where I am from a journey perspective individually, but also maybe from a company standpoint. Mm-hmm. So, you know, my, my goal is, um. I hope the value that organizations get just from going through that experience, um, helps them to let their guard down to have a conversation with us directly. Yeah. Um, because again, we'll talk to anybody. We want to talk to anybody. Yeah. And one of my favorite things to do is to validate for folks that maybe they don't have to do something or maybe they shouldn't do something from a business perspective. It's hard to cut through that with everything that we have in society today. So that's my goal.
[00:14:56] Sean Martin: Yeah. And I think I've also heard, I think both you and Jason say this, um, have you considered
[00:15:03] Michael Parisi: Right. '
[00:15:04] Sean Martin: cause
[00:15:05] Michael Parisi: Right. We
[00:15:05] Sean Martin: might get a lot of input. Maybe too many to even think about. Um, there's always that one that you haven't considered.
[00:15:14] Michael Parisi: Yes.
[00:15:15] Sean Martin: And like I said before, you, you, you've seen a lot scenarios and even just that one question, have you considered can open somebody's mind up to that? That's a different path.
[00:15:25] Michael Parisi: Exactly. And also the, the foresight to, so not only have you considered, but also watch out for,
[00:15:34] Sean Martin: right,
[00:15:34] Michael Parisi: right. It hasn't happened yet. Mm-hmm. This is gonna happen. You're gonna hit this decision point, you're gonna hit this inflection point, um, whatever that may be, right? Right. You're gonna hit a, a roadblock and this is how you navigate around it, right? So it's that foresight to say, depending upon where you are in the journey. Not only are we able to validate for them, but we're also able to tell 'em, if you continue down this path, this is what's gonna happen.
[00:16:04] Sean Martin: Right?
[00:16:05] Michael Parisi: And when this happens, these are the things that you need to think about,
[00:16:08] Sean Martin: right?
[00:16:09] Michael Parisi: Um, and oftentimes that's where the real engagement comes,
[00:16:12] Sean Martin: right?
[00:16:13] Michael Parisi: Because after we validate it, or after we point them in a certain direction, we tell them. You're gonna hit this at some point. When you do, we're here for you. We get the phone
[00:16:22] Sean Martin: call. Yeah. And I'm gonna close with this because when you, if you walk through the journey and you find the path that connects with you. I'm gonna loosen that connects with you?
[00:16:35] Michael Parisi: Yeah.
[00:16:36] Sean Martin: Just a little bit.
[00:16:36] Michael Parisi: Yeah.
[00:16:37] Sean Martin: Because I've heard you say this many times you might reach, somebody might reach a point where they say, this is what I need. They have a conversation with you and you say, I agree, that's what you need. We can help with some. We can't help with any.
[00:16:53] Michael Parisi: Right.
[00:16:54] Sean Martin: But we know somebody,
[00:16:56] Michael Parisi: right? Who
[00:16:56] Sean Martin: can, and I think
[00:16:57] Michael Parisi: I know a guy.
[00:16:57] Sean Martin: I know a guy. I know a guy and I think that there's tremendous, it's easy to say, but tremendous value in that. And I know you have many, many examples of, of those conversations.
[00:17:08] Michael Parisi: Yeah.
[00:17:09] Sean Martin: But I think to me that's, that's as valuable as finding the path to actually work with you.
[00:17:15] Michael Parisi: That's one of my favorite things is to connect. Hm. People, right? Um, we are connectors, right? We say we're business owners first, which is true. And as a business owner, you need to be able to connect with folks, right? Um, so if nothing else, I mean, even if it's something that we don't do, for example, development. Um, we know somebody right. To connect you with from a partner perspective.
[00:17:39] Sean Martin: Yeah. Well, Michael, it's, uh, a great journey
[00:17:44] Michael Parisi: Yeah.
[00:17:45] Sean Martin: Riding alongside you with this and, uh, yeah. I'm excited for people to, to jump on and find your path and to connect with you. You too. To have those conversations and, uh, yeah. See what, see what makes sense for their business and see how you and, and your. Connected ecosphere, uh, can help him out. Yeah. If anybody knows Mike, they'll vouch and say he's a connector. Sure. Mike, thanks a thanks
[00:18:08] Michael Parisi: man. Good to see him as always.
[00:18:09] Sean Martin: Always. And thanks everybody for, uh, listening and watching. Stay tuned for more and, uh, connect with Mike and the Steel Patriot Partners.