Spotlight on Ben Godard: Defending our organization across cyberspace

It takes an experienced professional to lead a Security team in the travel industry. At Spotnana, our fearless leader is Senior Director of Security Ben Godard.

At Spotnana, Ben oversees our incident response, governance risk, compliance, application security, and enterprise security. His team provides Spotters with clear, expert guidance on our security landscape, enabling us to safeguard our organization and protect the people we serve.

Ben spoke with us about his career stops at the National Security Agency (NSA) and Microsoft, what it’s like to work on the Security team, and what he enjoys about being a Spotter.

Can you share your career journey prior to Spotnana?

Senior Director of Security Ben Godard

“I started my security career working for the NSA. For several years, I worked on the offensive and defensive sides. I was overseas when Microsoft recruited me for their Red Team in Microsoft Office. The Red Team emulates an attacker in order to provide insight into security risks and response. At Microsoft, I worked on several Red Teams and on the HoloLens product team as a developer. I wrote tools that the other Red Teamers could use to act like sophisticated, state-sponsored attackers.

“During this experience, two things became very clear, the first being how unbalanced the fight is between an attacker and the defenders. Three days of work by someone using my tools could generate weeks of work for a team of defenders trying to respond and recover. What also became clear is the glaring need to focus on security investments that actually stop attackers. Unfortunately, some investments only look like they can. These learnings centered my focus on facilitating defender response and recovery as well as providing secure defaults for employees and developers. If we can provide a solution that makes life easier and is more secure by default, it is a win-win for everyone.

“I left Microsoft during COVID to work for a startup that was building out their security team. After a few years there, I was introduced to Spotnana, which was ready to make a substantial investment in security in just year two of its lifecycle. After talking with Spotnana’s Founder Sarosh Waghmar, it was clear that he understood that the travel industry is an attractive target to hackers and that he was willing to invest in real security controls.”

Why did you choose to work at Spotnana?

“At Spotnana, it’s clear that employees are serious about security. Everyone here genuinely wants to improve and learn more secure ways of doing things. I don’t think I have ever heard anyone say, ‘This is good enough.’ I appreciate the persistent drive to strengthen defenses, refine processes, and explore innovative ways to safeguard data and systems.”

How has your career evolved here?

“Last year, I was asked to be the Senior Director of Security at Spotnana. Honestly, it really wasn’t something that was on my radar, given that I enjoy being in the weeds, building, and fixing things directly. That said, I knew my cumulative hands-on experiences prepared me to bring a practical perspective to securing our service and enterprise in this new role.

“I am a builder at heart who is excited to find fresh ways to enable our talented dreamers and developers to do their best work without having to worry that they are increasing our risk.”

What are the dynamics and goals of the Security team? What is it like to work on your team?

“Our mission is to empower the organization to confidently pursue innovation and growth by providing clear, expert guidance on our security landscape, ensuring we build and maintain trust in every endeavor.

“Working on our team is very dynamic. There is a lot of focused work where we maintain our compliance and standards, build automation, and tackle large improvements. However, there is also a lot of interruption-driven work. It’s important to adapt and be willing to change directions as we see new threats and issues start to materialize.”

Can you share how in-person Spotnana gatherings have shaped your Spotnana experience?

“I attended both of our company offsites: Converge 2022 in Jaipur and Converge 2024 in Dubai. It is amazing to travel together as a global team and share in the joys of traveling to an unfamiliar country. Meeting everyone in person has enabled me to develop so many great relationships across the entire company in just a few short years.

“Although I work remotely, I feel incredibly connected to everyone in the company. Your sphere of interaction certainly widens when you travel to be together.”

“Travel is very important to me because, even today, there are still a lot of things that can only be done in person. I believe that travel is always going to be a significant part of the human experience. 

What is your favorite thing about working at Spotnana?

“The people. I am really proud of the Security team we have built at Spotnana. Since security is extremely broad, it is really hard to find team members that can operate at such a high level of aptitude across so many different disciplines. 

“My Security team colleagues at Spotnana are the best of the best, and they are great at wearing many different hats in a function that requires it.”

Fun Facts!

• What’s the best trip you ever took and why? Disneyland with my family for my birthday during Valentine’s Day weekend. There is something magical about experiencing Disneyland through the eyes of our children. Since our balcony was in California Adventure Park, we could see the park at night after everyone had left and early in the morning before anyone arrived. It was truly magical.

• What’s your favorite thing to do at the airport? If I can find an outlet, I like plugging in my Steam Deck and playing games before it’s time to leave.

• What’s your favorite airplane snack? Pretzels and ginger ale.

• Aisle, middle, or window seat? Window.

• What’s your go-to show to watch on a trip? I always try to watch something I haven’t seen before.

• What’s the top destination on your bucket list? Hawaii.