Tony Iuliano is a cybersecurity revenue leader who found the world of technology and startups with a little help from his friends, who became family. Today, Tony is the Senior Director of North American Sales at cybersecurity leader Recorded Future, the largest aggregator of threat intelligence in the world outside of the U.S. Government.
His responsibilities, leadership, and talents are wide ranging. But it wasn’t always that way! Tony has leaned on the people around him to help show him the way to a better future (pun intended) he didn’t even know existed growing up. His family hails from Western Mass and was (is) an extremely supportive, blue collar family that taught him the fundamentals that would drive his later success. Because if you want to go fast, go alone. But if you want to go far, you’ve got to go together.
Tony’s dad worked two jobs to help support the Iuliano family. He worked in the prison system during the day and as a bartender at night to give Tony and his two sisters the opportunities he himself hadn’t had. Mr. Iuliano saw all different sides of people in those roles and encouraged Tony to be someone who got along with other people, had a positive mindset, and didn’t cause problems. “If you work hard, good things will happen” he would say. Tony took that to heart.
Tony was a high school hockey captain who proudly wore equipment financed by the tip money his dad brought home from the local watering hole on Friday nights. Tony’s mom was a college graduate that finished her degree a bit later while Tony & his sisters were little kids. And she didn’t stop there. Mrs. Iuliano went on to get her doctorate in speech language pathology. It was an incredible example to see his mom do so much heavy lifting at home and then go off to school to get her PhD. Moms rule.
Tony attended Bridgewater State as a Management major and worked year round to help pay for school. He rotated through jobs as a server, bank teller, and at GNC. Taking his vitamins in more ways than one, he learned the responsibility of paying for rent, utilities, and being smart with the money he earned.
After college, Tony worked in Customer Support at EMC for a couple years before heading over to John Hancock to try out financial services. As a Business major, both institutions made perfect sense to start his career. He learned a lot from these roles but he was looking for something faster paced with different incentives.
Then Tony got lucky. Really lucky. Just a couple years out of college, through some mutual friends, he met his future wife Isabel at a Boston Marathon fundraiser. She was a thoughtful listener who heard what he wanted out of life, a career where greater effort would be rewarded. “You need to get into sales”, she encouraged him. Isabel even went out and bought him a book, the equivalent of a “Tech Sales for Dummies”, so Tony could begin to research this new field he knew nothing about.
He fortunately had a few friends working in tech sales to convince him it was a career worth trying and he applied to an SDR (sales development rep) role at emerging cybersecurity leader Carbon Black. But he didn’t just apply. He did proactive outreach to everyone he was going to interact with during the interview process. Which of course helped him stand out. Tony was hired and fortunate enough early in his career to be at a company on an ascendant path. So for anyone looking to break in somewhere during this difficult job market, get creative like Tony!
But as we know, luck only takes you so far. Tony grabbed this opportunity by the horns and hit the ground running like Evens Chabet. He was promoted to Account Executive after only 4 or 5 months covering the Southeast. He closed a lot of new logos and became a consistent performer his teammates and management team could depend on. This track record allowed him the opportunity to manage an Inside Sales team after only ~2 years.
Tony had always wanted to get into management and leadership (he was a management major after all) and he went about building his career in leadership as quickly and as thoughtfully as he could. What helped him advance so fast? Getting uncomfortable. If there was a chance to get in front of Carbon Black’s leadership he would use those opportunities to make sure they knew he was interested and ready for management when the opportunity presented itself.
As a first time manager, Tony had to build trust when managing his former peers. He had to learn how to hold them accountable but also trust him in this new role. He had to learn how to manage people with different personalities and different career goals. He excelled. After another year and a half he was promoted to manage Carbon Black’s Corporate Sales team, closing more business and larger deals.
He did the hiring and helped his team drive deals to execution. Tony hired 10 new sales reps without a lot of personal hiring experience. He provided them coaching and enablement to help them ramp up quickly and didn’t assume that he knew everything either. It was an all around amazing experience for an up and coming leader. Tony was also fortunate enough to stay with Carbon Black through their IPO too.
Eventually, the all too familiar itch to try something new crept in. Tony aspired to execute at an even higher level managing Enterprise teams. Some previous Carbon Black colleagues had gone over to ecosystem peer Recorded Future, the “Google of Cybersecurity”. Recorded Future had a Strategic Accounts position open covering the West Coast and Tony jumped at the opportunity.
Tony managed their Strategic Accounts team in North America, a hunter/farmer model, taking advantage of the opportunity to manage Enterprise Sales teams. He handled the growing pains of bringing in the right people and properly positioning the team. This led him to take over the North America’s Commercial business, a New Years promotion in January of 2022 to help the company continue to scale from $XXM well past $XXXM in global revenue over the coming years. He was the top manager at the company for team quota attainment in 2021, helping Recorded Future deliver some serious scale!
He loves what their team is building at Recorded Future. They’ve “coincidentally” hired some former professional hockey players who play on their corporate team, competing against larger local companies like LogMeIn or Rapid7. Is that allowed?? They’ve got a great office culture near Davis Square and enjoy getting the team out together when they can for team building events.
The Commercial business is Recorded Future’s 2nd largest acquisition business segment representing almost 40% of revenue. Tony’s team (and their business) spans 4 regional managers and almost 30 sales reps in Boston and around the country. The team is focused on acquiring new logos with a more important goal in mind – how do you create a more repeatable go to market motion for net new business and drive more efficient sales cycles? Nothing too difficult..right?
From a team perspective, Tony is always trying to get people together for enablement and strategy sessions in a hybrid world. He helps moderate “war rooms” on a bi-weekly basis and delegates player only meetings to get the reps collaborating and sharing ideas all in an effort to grow the Commercial side of their business.
Tony balances all of that responsibility while balancing his other major priority in life – his growing family. The direct reports at home always come first and Tony makes sure he’s performing at a high level in that role too, whether it’s hikes at local orchards or trying to get everyone out of the cold to a warm weather vacation when the opportunity strikes.
Here are the four things Tony shared with me that have informed his path from Western Mass to Boston to the Internet and beyond:
Fast is Slow, Slow is Fast: “Get really really strong with what you’re doing currently and become an expert in that. Do all the right things you need to do in your current position so that when the next opportunity presents itself you’re ready”. Being confident in the next thing by mastering the current thing is essential
No Assholes: One of the best leaders Tony has worked underneath was Carbon Black’s CEO Patrick Morley. He famously had a no asshole policy and Tony added “It resonated through the whole company and all started with him. As a leader, I’ve tried to have the same policy and that has really helped craft the direction when you thoughtfully hire the right people. Humble, coachable people”
Checking Your Ego: “Always be learning and take feedback from all places, including different levels. You’ll never know everything so be open to taking feedback from peers, managers, and direct reports”
Accountability: “Everything starts with me, including failure. I try to take extreme ownership of everything I do.” As he became a Director Tony learned it’s even more important to be accountable for everything he does, including the failures
Tony loves the cybersecurity industry and wants to keep growing in this exciting space. Eventually he aspires to serve as a Chief Revenue Officer learning from great mentors and leaders like Ed Filippine at Carbon Black and Todd Chronert at Recorded Future. His goal is to create the same type of environment he learned from in a group that one day he leads.
To learn more about Tony, you can find him on LinkedIn, hanging with his growing family, or perhaps dismantling an underprepared and less talented local corporate hockey team. There’s not really time for much else! Thanks for sharing, Tony. We can’t wait to see the impact you have on revenue teams and future leaders in the years ahead!