This week on Privacy Please, we welcome a unique chameleon, a guru with an extensive background ranging from networking, public speaking, tech, and marketing, Mr. Chris Grundemann.

We talk about his beginnings, how he ended up as the VP at Myriad, go to market strategy for Privacy and Security, networking, encrypted traffic challenges, balance between enterprise security and individual privacy, proudest moments in his young career, and much more!

Don’t miss the private segment at the end where Gabe and I cut loose with our guests and dig into their darkest unknowns for some laughs!

We appreciated his work ethics and clarity of thought. His mind was always on the “next step” and kept us all on our toes.

Ed Partch, American Tech Support

Chris was the driving force behind the creation of the ISOC Colorado chapter. I appreciated his leadership and technical skills and his determination. I enjoyed working with Chris on this project and I am looking forward to doing it again.

Yannis Konstantopoulos, Lumen Technologies

Chris has the talent to completely embrace and encompass a technology and from that drive results. It is obvious that Chris enjoys sharing his knowledge base and ideas with others. It was a pleasure working with Chris.

John McQueen, Broadcom

Chris Grundemann was among the most energetic and competent members of our Council throughout his time as an elected member. I found(find) Chris a most thoughtful man who brought insight and experience to the role, but was also always a genuine and professional member exerting leadership with tact and good humor. I think highly of Chris both as a technical professional and community leader, but also as a trusted friend.

Bill Darte, ARIN Advisory Council

Chris is an excellent organizer and leader with vision and energy. He pulled together the Colorado Chapter of the Internet Society, wrote the inital by-laws and saw the process through to the actual chapter formation.

Karen Mulberry, Internet Society

In a wireless organization the network your products operate on needs to be reliable, dependable and operating at top efficiency. Chris made sure that was a reality. Chris was a leader in the day to day operation of our network, on initiating improvement designs for the future and helping out the other departments to close performance gaps. There was never a problem to hard to solve, a solution he was not willing to seek out or a cutting edge idea he hadn’t already researched.

Wayne Gibson, WavMax

Chris is an excellent worker with a driving pulse for new technology and leading the industry. His work ethic is second-to-none and his teaming with others always ensures fantastic collaboration with positive outcomes. I am confident that Chris will continue to drive new technology evolution in our industry.

Mike McNamara, tw telecom

One thing everyone should know about Chris, he always provides nothing less then quality customer service and technical support. His professionalism and skill far exceeds all expectations because he always goes the extra mile.

David Corbett, tw telecom

Chris is a strong team player with tremendous attention to detail. His approach was always well thought out with solid backing to his ideas. His role and growth in the company were key to its survival. He was also very willing and able to wear multiple hats and was a flexible asset to have on hand.

Mikael Rasmussen, WavMax Broadband

Chris is very knowledgeable, is always willing to explain and discuss, and is great at pulling together everyone’s input and moving things forward. Working with him has been a great experience.

Lisa Ruby, Motorola

Chris consistently generates and delivers on new and creative ideas both within the guided bounds of a project or team goal as well as when left unbounded and allowed to explore. In addition Chris is a great team player willing to help whenever asked. Chris is also a competent and organized leader with great communication skills capable of managing projects from inception to completion.

Joey Padden, CableLabs

Chris is a superior problem-solver with great people skills and ability to ask the really hard questions. A team player who is engaged and approachable, I expect Chris will have significant impact in the tech industry.

Deb Gerring, CableLabs

Chris is a great asset to any company. His dedication and drive for results makes him a consistent high achiever.

Henry Yu, tw telecom

Chris was an excellent coach, mentor and problem solver. Chris consistently possesses a “can do” attitude while taking on more and more responsibility and taking the time to fully understand, upskill and learn as required for success. Chris is very organized and patient. He is proactive in identifying and addressing risks and issues that could erstwhile derail hard-earned successes. Chris’ list of talents and intangibles is long, but never a surprise once you get the opportunity to work with him.

Scott Perricone, Myriad360

Catina Ross, GigaOm

He would always be available as a sounding board for complex issues and provided me with amazing insight on long term planning and ways to scale up teams and business processes.

Alex Tief, Myriad360

Together we conquered many challenges, won impossible battles in the vendor industry and created a unique security practice. He has an interesting set of talents of being an engineer, innovator, and a thought leader, but never mixes any of these roles. That is what makes him successful as a leader. “Never be comfortable” is what Chris would tell me, which is what pushed me to do my first tech talk. I now have dozens behind me within some of the largest conferences known in the security vendor industry. Chris is nothing short of supernatural.

Leo Cruz, Myriad360

Chris is an engineer and leader of the highest caliber as demonstrated by his ongoing volunteer responsibilities within the Internet technical community and his unwavering drive.

Connie Kendig, Internet Society

Kenyanna Cornely, GigaOm

Chris is one of the sharpest minds you will be lucky to come across, whether in a personal or professional setting. His ability to cut through the noise and see the relevant elements and data in any situation is remarkable. 

Chris is intensely focused, dedicated, and capable. He absorbs and synthesizes data quickly, finds the leverage points, focuses on what matters, and delivers results. Any high-performing team will get a boost from engaging with Chris.

Andy Fisher, Myriad360

His intelligence and wit are only outshone by his friendly and helpful nature. Working with Chris is always a pleasure and a smashing success.

Susan Forsman, tw telecom

Enrico Signoretti, Juku consulting

Chris is an exceptionally energetic individual, a talented thinker and an accomplished public speaker. He is a very rewarding person to work with due to the level of organization he brings to every project. He has vision and probity, a rare combination. I has been a great privilege to work with him.

John Springer, ARIN Advisory Council

I enjoy working with him on a professional and personal level.

Diane Turley, tw telecom

Chris is a really hard working person. Very smart technically & could handle issues very promptly. Was very nice working with him.

Nirali Desai, Virtela Technology Services Incorporated

Chris was an amazing colleague to work with. I admire his ability to understand very technical concepts as well as business and market driven ones. He has amazing stakeholder management skills, and has the ability to build relationships and manage working groups and teams. He is a true leader who is very passionate about whatever he is working on. His desire for framing strategic direction and leading execution would be an asset to any organization. I would welcome any opportunity to work with Chris again.

Rupal Patel, CableLabs

It was a pleasure to work with Chris. Chris possesses very detailed technical knowledge and solid experience, but never lost sight of his strategic and business goals when using that knowledge and experience.

Graham McKinley, Overture Networks

Don MacVittie, Ingrained Technology, LLC

As Chris’ Editor for Exploring IPv6, a Day One book, he kept to his schedule, output exceedingly lucid prose, and gave a sense of instructional design to an extraordinary tough technology to deploy. On time, better than could be expected, and executed with grace.

Patrick Ames, Juniper Networks

Chris is always happy to contribute to a discussion or to an issue and is more than happy to lend a hand to both assist team members with their tasks or to lend his expertise in order to benefit the requestor. He is constantly providing knowledge transfer in a peer to peer manner, engaging others to work together to move a project forward or to resolve an issue. Most importantly, Chris is an open and honest communicator about whatever the topic of the moment is, something that is refreshing in today’s world. I could always count of Chris to lend his opinion or his ideas to any subject matter, and this becomes an important contribution for any team. Chris has tremendous talent and is a very hard working, team player. I would welcome Chris to my team at any point in the future.

Paul Diamond, Markley

Chris is a consummate professional. Motivated, expressive, talented in everything he attempts. His skills in making things happen for the better are top notch.

Mark Woodworth, CableLabs

Working with Chris has been a real pleasure. He is open, fri