Stop Selling to the Office Manager: How an MSP Owner Became the Board's vCISO
with Dave Lane, Owner, Good Choice IT and Amalan Advisory. A managed service provider (MSP) since 2006, now fractional information technology (IT) leadership and virtual chief information security officer (vCISO) work for boards
Dave Lane has run an MSP since 2006 and moved it from the UK to Malaga. Then he did what most MSP owners only talk about: he stopped competing in the break-fix race to the bottom and rebuilt the business as fractional IT leadership and vCISO work, sold directly to boards. His reason is plain. While his contact was the office manager, he could not deliver real business value.
We also get into the “two bosses” problem of working through other MSPs, what shadow artificial intelligence (AI) does to a company that thinks it has IT under control, and governance built on policy, training and least privilege rather than surveillance (yes, the mouse jiggler story). He makes the case too that one and two person MSPs are heading into a consolidation wave as cyber and AI risk outgrow them.
What we cover
- Building an MSP from 2006 and moving it from the UK to Malaga
- Why break-fix stopped being defensible, and what he rebuilt instead
- Selling direct to boards, and the “two bosses” problem of working through MSPs
- Shadow IT versus shadow AI, and why the second one is worse
- Governance without surveillance: policy, training and least privilege over spying
- AI security tooling that cost tens of thousands of pounds a month five years ago and hundreds now
- Why one and two person MSPs face a consolidation wave as cyber and AI risk outgrow them
What's inside
- 00:00 Cold Open & Intro
- 02:21 Break-Fix to Fractional vCISO
- 07:25 Where the Quick Wins Hide
- 11:27 Stop Selling to the Office Manager
- 17:00 Where the MSP Industry Goes
- 18:54 Shadow IT vs Shadow AI
- 20:53 AI Governance Starts With People
- 26:38 Governance vs Surveillance
- 29:02 Lightning Round
- 31:25 Small Business Compliance and Cross Border Teams
- 36:47 Where to Find Dave
The guest
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