Episode #228. When Cyber Fails, Patients Pay: The Leadership Test No One Escapes, with Skip Sorrels, Field CTO and CISO at Claroty

Summary

Risk Never Sleeps Podcast – Episode #228

Title: When Cyber Fails, Patients Pay: The Leadership Test No One Escapes
Host: Ed Gaudet, CEO & Founder, Censinet
Guest: Skip Sorrels, Field CTO and CISO, Claroty
Date: June 1, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Ed Gaudet welcomes Skip Sorrels for his third appearance on the Risk Never Sleeps podcast. Sorrels, Field CTO and CISO at Claroty, discusses the critical intersection of cybersecurity and patient safety in healthcare. The conversation covers leadership lessons from a long career, the ongoing transition from provider to vendor, the role of AI in risk management, and personal philosophies that drive success in high-pressure environments. Through candid discussion about mistakes, humility, and the importance of authentic relationships, this episode explores how leadership and experience can make a difference when protecting patient lives from cyber risks.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Skip's Journey from Provider to Vendor

• Transition Details: Skip shares how he moved from Deputy CISO at a large healthcare organization to Claroty, motivated by positive experiences as a customer and a desire to broaden his impact.

  "Wanted to make a difference...to be able to pay it forward, but to do it from more than just one organization." — Skip Sorrels [00:46]

• Unique Role: The freedom to write his own job description, acting as a cross-industry thought leader.

The Value of Mistakes and Experience

• Sharing Failure: Both host and guest advocate for talking openly about their mistakes to help others learn.

  "I have no battle wounds I'm not willing to share in the hopes that somebody else will avoid them on their own." — Skip Sorrels [01:20]

• Early Lessons:

  "Underestimating any situation, any hacker, anything that crossed my path...you just, you can't take your eye off of anything." — Skip Sorrels [02:24]

• Preparation and Playbooks:

  "When you're stressed out, you can't think straight, you open up the book and you say, what do I do next?" — Skip Sorrels [03:08]

• Memorable Quote:

  "Proper planning prevents piss poor performance." — Ed Gaudet [03:40]

Building Trust as a Vendor and Partner

• Empathy in Relationships: Skip emphasizes how transitioning into a vendor role deepened his understanding of trust and empathy.

  "If I can empathize with that other person and they can hear that empathy, it strengthens a relationship and it gains trust." — Skip Sorrels [05:51]

• Advice for Vendors:

  "Have integrity. Tell the truth. Don’t blow smoke up anybody’s butt." — Skip Sorrels [05:23] "Listen more." — Skip Sorrels [05:24]

Leveraging Data and AI for Patient Safety

• Claroty’s Focus:

  "I want to drive the product and leverage AI...AI is a force multiplier when it comes to data analysis." — Skip Sorrels [07:13]

• Data Challenge:

  "We have probably one of the largest databases in the world of known medical devices...but you can't do that through human analysis and move at the scale and speed necessary for cyber." — Skip Sorrels [07:13]

• Risk Prioritization:

  "I want to know what's exposed and more importantly, what's exploitable...Prioritize our risk based on our exposure and the ability to take advantage...and then tie it back to dollars for patient safety." — Skip Sorrels [07:59]

Authentic Leadership and Personal Values

• If Not Cyber:

  "A rancher." — Skip Sorrels [09:10]

• Value of Hard Work and Humility:

  "Get rid of that foolish pride and get out of your own way." — Skip Sorrels (on advice to his 20-year-old self) [11:19]

• Leading by Example:

  "As leaders, we have to do the work that people aren’t willing to do...always do the things that nobody else is willing to do." — Skip Sorrels [16:02]

Advice to New Entrants in the Field

• Key Questions:

  "What do you want out? What's your why? ... There’s so many different disciplines...find that avenue and then go do your homework." — Skip Sorrels [15:07]

• Core Career Guidance:

  "Be coachable, trainable, eager, because it's a constant learning journey. You have to adapt, evolve and be driven." — Skip Sorrels [16:02]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Forging Relationships:

  "The vendors that become partners are partners because they know your family, your friend...you build trust, and so have integrity." — Skip Sorrels [05:02]

• On Transitioning and Empathy:

  "Getting to a point of empathy is very important. To become a partner, to be a friend." — Skip Sorrels [06:07]

• On Personal Fulfillment:

  "There's just a fulfillment in it every day." — Skip Sorrels (on ranch life) [11:00]

• Career Reflections:

  "Humility is a powerful, powerful [thing]." — Skip Sorrels [11:25]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:46] – Skip on his journey from provider to vendor
• [02:24] – First big career mistake: underestimating threats
• [03:08] – Importance of preparation and playbooks
• [05:23] – Advice to vendors: integrity and listening
• [07:13] – Claroty’s AI/data priorities for patient protection
• [09:10] – Alternate career as a rancher; roots and values
• [11:19] – Advice to 20-year-old self: humility and pride
• [15:07] – Advice for young professionals entering healthcare/cyber
• [16:02] – On being coachable, doing the hard work, and authentic leadership

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Closing Thoughts

Skip Sorrels’s insights center on humility, authentic relationships, and relentless preparation—essential leadership traits for those protecting patients from cyber threats. The episode seamlessly blends career wisdom, personal anecdotes, and real-world advice, making it both practical and inspiring for anyone navigating the intersection of healthcare, technology, and risk.

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For more resources and information, visit Censinet.

Transcript

[Skip Sorrels]

Foreign.

[Ed Gaudet]

Welcome to Risk Never Sleeps, where we meet and get to know the people delivering patient care and protecting patient safety. I'm your host, Ed Gaudet.

[Ed Gaudette]

Welcome to the Risk Never Sleeps podcast in which we learn about the people that are on the front lines delivering patient care and protecting patient safety. I made Gaudette the host of the program and I'm here with three time winner, Skip Sorrels. Three time winner Skip for people that haven't listened to the first two and things have changed, right, since the first two. Share a little bit about your current company, your role, and a little bit about you. Sure.

[Skip Sorrels]

So a year and a half ago, I left my former role as Deputy CISO, one of the largest healthcare organizations in the U.S. i joined the company I'd been a customer for, for six and a half years. Very impressed. Trusted partner, wanted to be a part of the team. More importantly, wanted to make a difference. My intent in the role, because I kind of had the opportunity to write my own job description, which was really cool, was as a thought leader that's been there, done that, to be able to pay it forward, but to do it from more than just one organization.

[Ed Gaudette]

Nice.

[Skip Sorrels]

So I really am a firm believer in I have no battle wounds. I'm not willing to share in the hopes that somebody else will avoid them on their own.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah, that's a great way to go through life. Right. Share all the learnings, all the missteps, mistakes. Celebrate some of the wins.

[Skip Sorrels]

Absolutely.

[Ed Gaudette]

But yeah, I don't think people do that. I think people are afraid or embarrassed or whatever. I love mistakes I've made and learning from them. I mean, I think that's the patina one gets through experience. Right.

[Skip Sorrels]

It's been my best experience and best teacher, to be honest.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah.

[Skip Sorrels]

I mean, listen, there's a lot of things that I've done well, done. Right. I share those too. But it's the ones that you really mess up and you go and I didn't really think about that. Well. Or I had no idea.

[Ed Gaudette]

Let's officially brand this the mistake episode.

[Skip Sorrels]

Okay.

[Ed Gaudette]

Let's go with your mistakes. Let's start listening them out.

[Skip Sorrels]

When you said it was my third time, so.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah. Yeah. All right, let's go back early. Mistake you made, maybe one of your first mistakes you made.

[Skip Sorrels]

Biggest learning from a generalized statement, I would say underestimating any situation, any hacker, anything that crossed my path and having this naivety that, oh, it's not going to happen now, it's going to be a while. And learning that you just, you can't take your eye off of anything. You have to anticipate all the time that it could be right now, it could be tomorrow. Yeah, but it's the preparation that goes into the what if.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah, interesting.

[Skip Sorrels]

Then what?

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah, that happened early in your career.

[Skip Sorrels]

Absolutely.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah. And then what did you do differently once you sort of became aware of

[Skip Sorrels]

that as a lesson planning, teaching, building relationships, looking at the team approach to, hey, we're, you know, we're in the thick of it. What do we do? What's your part? What's my part? Role playing that, like tabletopping it. Having playbooks, having written documentation so that when you're stressed out, you can't think straight, you open up the book and you say, what do I do next? And working with the teams to have that rigorous. Just like you would on the battlefield.

[Ed Gaudette]

Love that. I love that. Was it poor performance? What's the piss? I forget. I forgot what he used to say now. I should have played better. Proper planning prevents piss. Poor performance. There it is.

[Skip Sorrels]

There it is.

[Ed Gaudette]

Right?

[Skip Sorrels]

That's right.

[Ed Gaudette]

I knew it would come back to me from the drill sergeant days. And where. What are you doing now? What are you doing today?

[Skip Sorrels]

Field cto, cso, for clarity. And I am in the field doing basically what I described. Hoping to do that well.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah.

[Skip Sorrels]

Trying to meet as many people as I can. Because the other part of it is I love to learn. And so I like to ask lots of questions. I like to hear the answers, and I like to consume that and then. And then opportunity, reconvey it back maybe to somebody else that hasn't heard it that way. Or, hey, would you like to meet so and so? You guys ought to talk.

[Ed Gaudette]

A lot of people are making the transition from provider to vendor. What are some of the learnings you can share with folks that are in that transition, that journey?

[Skip Sorrels]

Be true to where you came from. I think that's probably the most important thing. I get asked that by my sales colleagues all the time. It's, what's it like to be the customer? What's it like to talk to vendors? And I said, it's brutal, to be honest most of the time.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah.

[Skip Sorrels]

The vendors that become partners are partners because they know your family, your friend, you know, you become friends, you have a relationship. It is not about the product. You build trust, and so have integrity. Tell the truth. Don't blow smoke up anybody's butt.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah.

[Skip Sorrels]

And don't get it. Talking to Mark last night, I said, don't answer questions not asked. Listen. Yeah, Listen more.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah.

[Skip Sorrels]

I think that's key. And I guess the last thing that, that I've learned, and I just had a conversation with someone here recently, I said, look, when we're talking to people and we're trying to understand their problems, I'm coming at it from the standpoint of I want to get to a point of empathy.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah.

[Skip Sorrels]

If I can empathize with that other person and they can hear that empathy, it strengthens a relationship and it gains trust. And I'm not doing it deceivingly, I'm doing it with my heart.

[Ed Gaudette]

Solve problems. Help them solve problems. Yeah, exactly.

[Skip Sorrels]

So getting to a point of empathy is very important. To become a partner, to be a friend.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah. I think over time, you know, you build that wall because like you said, a lot of, a lot of, I wouldn't say bad, but a lot of vendors that really don't get it, don't understand, are trying to do a transaction and really aren't going to spend the time to build that relationship and build that trust and empathy. And when you do come across a vendor that does that, that's when the magic starts, I think. Yeah. Because we can't go it alone, right?

[Skip Sorrels]

No, we can't go it alone in life. And I've been on both sides multiple times over the last 30 years and I still have friends and colleagues that are 30 years now because of it.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah.

[Skip Sorrels]

It's just the way. The way I want it.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah. Agree. Otherwise, what are we doing here? Like, if we can't come over to these conferences and feel like we're going back to high school.

[Skip Sorrels]

Yeah. Right. Union.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah. It's a reunion. It's nice to see friends. That's right. That's the best part of this. Over the next couple years, what are some of your strategic initiatives for clarity, strategy wise?

[Skip Sorrels]

I want to drive the product and leverage AI. Now, that's a pretty general statement. It's a buzzword. And don't get all excited about it. The point is, AI is a force multiplier when it comes to data analysis. We have probably one of the largest databases in the world of known medical devices and operational technologies and IoT and the power of that data is quite frankly unknown in large respect to us. And we're mining it and we're looking at it, but you can't do that through human analysis and move at the scale and speed necessary for cyber.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah.

[Skip Sorrels]

And so I'm super excited about how we're leveraging that to propel our innovation and our capabilities for the benefit of our customers. And so I spent a fair amount of time with that. I'm looking at things from my perspective. You know, I started back in the day where, oh, we got CVS score, blah, blah, blah. I could care less. I've seen millions and millions of vulnerabilities. You can't patch them. It's a fool's errand. I want to know what's exposed and more importantly, what's exploitable. And I want to zero in on that. And then I want to attach it to whatever business it's in, to the operational resilience. I want to tie it back to dollars for patient safety. And I want to say, now, this. Prioritize our risk based on our exposure and the ability to take advantage of that exposure and that vulnerability and exploit it. And that means that that chain of workflow breaks, which breaks and creates this operational resilience nightmare.

[Ed Gaudette]

If you weren't doing this job, what would you be doing?

[Skip Sorrels]

A near rancher, A ranger rancher.

[Ed Gaudette]

A rancher. Oh, I grew up on a farm

[Skip Sorrels]

as a ranch hand.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah.

[Skip Sorrels]

High school.

[Ed Gaudette]

Wow. I don't think I knew that.

[Skip Sorrels]

A lot of people know.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah, I don't think.

[Skip Sorrels]

Yeah.

[Ed Gaudette]

It's not like Yellowstone rancher like that. Horses and cattle.

[Skip Sorrels]

Yes, sir.

[Ed Gaudette]

Wow.

[Skip Sorrels]

Yes, sir.

[Ed Gaudette]

You still ride?

[Skip Sorrels]

It's been a really long time.

[Ed Gaudette]

Oh, boy.

[Skip Sorrels]

It wouldn't be much fun today.

[Ed Gaudette]

So you're not expecting to get back on a horse?

[Skip Sorrels]

As a rancher, I would love to have that problem to solve. Oh, there you go.

[Ed Gaudette]

Okay.

[Skip Sorrels]

Okay.

[Ed Gaudette]

What do you like about that? How long should you do that for?

[Skip Sorrels]

Well, I grew up doing it.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah.

[Skip Sorrels]

Mom and dad had cattle and then.

[Ed Gaudette]

Wow, cool. Like, you went and fixed fences and. Oh, chase cattle.

[Skip Sorrels]

Chase cattle.

[Ed Gaudette]

Herded them to different areas so they could eat.

[Skip Sorrels]

And he named it. I worked on the president of Walmart's ranch.

[Ed Gaudette]

Whoa.

[Skip Sorrels]

And we had three different herds of cattle. I was actually on the show team, so when the big shows came around, I would go with the bulls and the heifers and go to the fairs at the big shows, Denver and Show.

[Ed Gaudette]

Did you ever ride the bull?

[Skip Sorrels]

I've never intentionally gotten a bull. I fell off a fence once and landed on one turn in a rodeo. But I wasn't trying to hang on. I've bucked out horses, so I have. I have done a little bit of that.

[Ed Gaudette]

Cool.

[Skip Sorrels]

But the thing that I like about one, it's outside. And it's usually a very quiet, independent day. You know, obviously you come together and work as teams on certain things, but I could Start my day at sauna, watch the sunrise, say my prayers, Be proud and happy for the great outdoors. And at the end of the day, look back and see the work that I'd done.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah.

[Skip Sorrels]

Whether it be build a fence or move cattle or. There's just a fulfillment in it every day.

[Ed Gaudette]

Nice.

[Skip Sorrels]

And you sleep really well.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah, I bet. And you're back up at 4:00am yes. If you go back in time and see your 20 year old self, what would you tell them?

[Skip Sorrels]

Get rid of that foolish pride and get out of your own way.

[Ed Gaudette]

Nice. Yeah. Why don't we do that to ourselves when we're young?

[Skip Sorrels]

Humility is a powerful, powerful.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah. It's almost like we need to be spanked a couple of times to realize. Shaken.

[Skip Sorrels]

That's where those mistakes come in. You learn your lessons.

[Ed Gaudette]

Right.

[Skip Sorrels]

And somebody is built upon that.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah. No kidding.

[Skip Sorrels]

Yeah.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah. The hubris is just not a good thing. So rancher, I just can't get. That's. That's awesome. Like would you go to Montana? Like Wyoming? Texas.

[Skip Sorrels]

Texas, yeah.

[Ed Gaudette]

Texas. Yeah.

[Skip Sorrels]

I love Texas.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah. It's different too, right? Different style of ranching. It can be.

[Skip Sorrels]

It just depends on. That's the crazy thing about Texas. So big.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah.

[Skip Sorrels]

You can go from east Texas in the big piney woods and go to west Texas and all you see is cotton fields and dust bowls.

[Ed Gaudette]

People don't realize Texas is the size of France. It's actually probably bigger than France, but it's like it's the size of a country. I remember its own country.

[Skip Sorrels]

Car trip from one part of Texas to the other part of Texas. And then one day we. We drove 13 and a half hours and we still hadn't gone. We were still inside the one same state.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah. It's very similar to California in that the diversity of the state. You're on a desert island. You could bring five records with you. What would you bring? What kind of music? Yeah.

[Skip Sorrels]

Allow all sorts of music. Struggling here. My energy song has always and probably forever will be Jump start my heart.

[Ed Gaudette]

Oh, okay. Yep.

[Skip Sorrels]

Love a couple of really good Garth Brooks songs. Gotta have some George Straight. Can't forget mom and her Willie.

[Ed Gaudette]

Oh, yeah.

[Skip Sorrels]

Have to have a choice of some good jazz.

[Ed Gaudette]

Oh, jazz. Kind of jazz.

[Skip Sorrels]

I like the wind instruments. I like that. Deep baritone voices and soulful. Yeah. Jazz.

[Ed Gaudette]

Okay. Trying to think of some of the wing. The flute. Like a flute.

[Skip Sorrels]

Good sax. Good.

[Ed Gaudette]

Oh, good sax. Good flute. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Nice. What are you hoping to get out of this show Alive? Don't we all. Another show. Did you go to Vibe? I don't know if I asked you that.

[Skip Sorrels]

No. We had ourselves kick off this week.

[Ed Gaudette]

That's right.

[Ed Gaudet]

It's hard.

[Ed Gaudette]

These shows are hard.

[Skip Sorrels]

This is the hardest one for me in the whole year, out of all the ones that I do.

[Ed Gaudette]

It seems to be off, though. It seems to be a little.

[Skip Sorrels]

The numbers seem to be lighter.

[Ed Gaudette]

They're saying 40,000, but I don't think there's 40,000. It doesn't feel like 40,000 people.

[Skip Sorrels]

Not today.

[Ed Gaudette]

No. No. But today's not really the official. But even today in past shows have been pretty busy.

[Skip Sorrels]

I agree. Last year.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah.

[Skip Sorrels]

Just this time, it seemed just packed.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah.

[Skip Sorrels]

What am I going to get out of this? Well, you said it before, it's like high school reunion.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah. I see a lot of friends and

[Skip Sorrels]

family, reconnect with friends, catch up, see where they're at, you know, all that kind of stuff. That's always good. I always look forward to meeting someone that I wasn't expecting to. There's always a surprise.

[Ed Gaudette]

Love that. Yeah.

[Skip Sorrels]

And end up talking to somebody that may or may not do something I know anything about. So I just like meeting people and learning something new. Something new.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah.

[Skip Sorrels]

I've got a couple more interviews, so that's always exciting for me. That's kind of a new. New thing.

[Ed Gaudette]

Nice. Yeah.

[Skip Sorrels]

Talking to the media.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah. We talked about that last night. You're good at it, man. Yeah.

[Skip Sorrels]

Yeah. I get the jitters.

[Ed Gaudette]

Do you?

[Skip Sorrels]

Oh, yeah.

[Ed Gaudette]

Really?

[Skip Sorrels]

I've said to myself, if I ever go into anything where I'm talking or presenting and I don't have the butterflies, I probably ought to turn around and walk away.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah. Yeah. It does keep you honest. Anyway. Yeah. What advice would you have to someone that's coming out of school, that wants to get into healthcare or tech, or has aspirations to be a CIO someday?

[Skip Sorrels]

Oh, man. I think generally when I'm asked that, I usually ask a couple of questions like, what do you want out? What's your why? You know, you need to understand why. That's important, too. Yeah. I think the other aspect is, what part of it do you want to be in?

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah.

[Skip Sorrels]

Because there's so many different disciplines. Having been a former nurse, I see trauma nurse, whatever. Everybody's like, well, how's this nurse different than this nurse? And I said, well, they're disciplines. Yeah. In cyber is no different. You've got incident response, you got vulnerabilities, you've got operations. There's all these different roles. And so you have to ask yourself what do you do. That's fun, right? Like, do you like to solve problems? Do you like numbers, spreadsheets? Give me an example of a job or a task that you've done. And you were like, man, this is easy. I love this stuff.

[Ed Gaudette]

You get energy from it.

[Skip Sorrels]

Think about that in terms of the different roles with, in healthcare or cyber and find that avenue and then go do your homework and understand like Google what's the life in the day of incident response coordinator. And understand it, but then embrace it with enthusiasm and be coachable and trainable, eager because it's a constant learning journey. And you, you have to adapt, evolve and be driven. And I think the thing that I tell, even my son, I tell them all this time, it's like, whatever job you do, always do the things that nobody else is willing to do. Always excel as a leader. If that means sweeping the floor while everybody else stands around because their so called job is done for the day, that's doing more than anybody else.

[Ed Gaudette]

Amen. Amen. Yeah, that's a really important lesson. As leaders, we have to do the work that people aren't willing to do or might be, you know, below them. What does that even mean? Who knows?

[Skip Sorrels]

I don't know. I grew up pretty poor, didn't know it and was grateful and looked back and went, exactly. Mom and dad do that?

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah. No, get that work ethic, right? Yeah, it's part of that DNA. Well, Skip, I appreciate it. Third time is a charm.

[Skip Sorrels]

Thank you.

[Ed Gaudette]

You're a good man. Thank you for coming on the podcast. This is Ed Gaudette from the Risk Never Sleeps podcast brought to you by Senseinet, the leader in third party and enterprise risk management for healthcare. If you're on the front lines protecting patient safety or delivering patient care, remember to stay vigilant because risk never sleeps.

[Ed Gaudet]

Thanks for listening to Risk Never Sleeps. For the show, notes, resources and more information and how to transform the protection of patient safety. Visit [e-mail] that's C E N S I N E T.com I'm your host, Ed Gaudet. And until next time, stay vigilant because risk never sleeps.