Some careers follow a clearly defined path, while others are shaped by diverse experiences and opportunities. Alex Ryals’ career has followed a less conventional path, with each role adding a new perspective and deepening his understanding of the technology industry. Becoming a Chief Information Security Officer was not part of his original career plan. Instead, he built his career one opportunity at a time, allowing each experience to shape his professional journey and expand his expertise.
Currently serving as Chief Information Security Officer and Senior Vice President at MicroAge, a ScanSource company, Alex brings more than 19 years of cybersecurity experience to his role. His career across four distinct perspectives has given him a broad understanding of the technology industry and its evolving challenges. While Alex considers his career path unconventional, he sees this diverse experience as a defining strength. It enables him to connect technology with business objectives, partner requirements, and customer needs, allowing him to make practical and informed decisions.
A 360-Degree Perspective
Alex began his career as a customer, managing technology for FedEx before moving into solution consulting with an HP reseller, Pepperweed Consulting. This experience as a reseller partner allowed Alex to work directly with customers in solving their technology challenges and later led to his interest in revisiting this experience with his current employer, MicroAge.
Between these roles, Alex spent several years at distributors including Avnet, Tech Data, and TD SYNNEX. In these positions, he sold technology to reseller partners. Most recently, he worked at Ping Identity, an independent software vendor, where he led a global channel organization which enabled other resellers to sell Identity and Access Management solutions to their customers.
Few executives have experience across all four positions in the technology channel ecosystem: customer, value-added reseller, distributor and vendor. Alex has spent nearly 15 years focused on cybersecurity. During that time, he worked closely with dozens of CISOs and gained a clear understanding of the challenges they face. Listening to their concerns and priorities eventually gave him the confidence to take on the role himself.
This experience also shaped his view of what distinguishes an effective CISO from an average one. He observed that security leaders often tend to focus on one of two areas. Some prioritize technology, while others focus primarily on compliance. Alex set out to develop expertise in both.
His early experience as a CTO, software developer, and pre-sales solutions architect gave him a strong technical foundation. He later invested significant time in understanding compliance and regulatory requirements. This combination of technical expertise and compliance knowledge now shapes his approach to cybersecurity leadership at MicroAge.
Influence Through Leadership
Alex describes his leadership style as one based more on influence than authority. He is comfortable giving direct instructions when a decision has already been made. For example, when the company decides to deploy a new security tool, someone has to take responsibility for implementation.
However, Alex prefers to involve his team in the process. He encourages team members to participate in selecting the right technology. He may ask some employees to work with the vendor on pricing and others to develop the deployment plan. By the time he gives the final approval, the team already understands the decision and supports the project. This creates stronger ownership and commitment to successful execution.
Another important part of his leadership philosophy is the principle of failing fast. Cybersecurity changes quickly, and tools or processes that appear effective on paper may not work well in practice. Alex encourages his teams to recognize problems early and take corrective action.
He believes holding on to a poor decision because of stubbornness, internal politics, or sunk costs can create greater problems. Admitting a mistake early allows the team to learn, adjust, and move forward with a better solution.
Empowering Through Trust
Alex wants his team to see him as anything but a micromanager. Part of this approach comes from necessity. He does not have the time to oversee every decision. More importantly, he believes in hiring capable people and giving them the freedom to do their jobs.
His team members are experienced leaders in their respective areas. He meets with them regularly, usually on a weekly basis, to review progress and discuss key issues. He asks direct questions to understand whether they are simply following instructions or taking ownership and developing their own ideas.
Alex is willing to challenge a direction when he believes a different approach would be better. At the same time, he gives his team the space to make decisions and take responsibility for the results. He also accepts that people may sometimes make mistakes. In his view, failure becomes a problem only when it is not recognized and addressed quickly. This balance of trust, accountability, and timely intervention allows his team to operate with greater confidence while keeping projects and priorities on track.
Innovation as a Habit
Alex believes innovation should become a regular part of the company culture rather than an occasional initiative. He sees this as a fundamental cultural shift. He organizes his time around two key areas: strategy and execution. At the beginning of each fiscal year, and to a lesser extent each quarter, he moves into strategy mode.
During this period, he works closely with his teams to review their technology, processes, and priorities. They assess what is working, identify areas for improvement, and make changes where needed. This strategic approach led to the creation of the Business Optimization team at MicroAge last year. The team is led by a director who looks across the business for opportunities to improve efficiency and introduce new solutions. This includes using AI to automate manual processes.
The director provides monthly updates to the leadership team and quarterly updates to the entire company. The team has already developed several AI-based tools that simplify work across the organization. Alex believes these efforts have also helped create a stronger culture of innovation. As each quarter progresses, he shifts his focus from strategy to execution. He holds his team accountable for delivering on the goals and priorities they established during the strategy phase.
Empathy in Action
After two decades in leadership, Alex has developed what he describes as an empathetic approach to leading people. He credits this approach with much of his success.
He believes in being clear and direct when communicating difficult news to employees. He avoids ambiguity and ensures that people understand the situation and its impact. He sees this clarity as both a leadership discipline and an important part of empathy. He balances direct communication by recognizing and celebrating his team’s achievements. He believes people should receive the same level of respect and support during both good and difficult times.
For Alex, consistency builds trust. When employees know that their leader will be honest during difficult situations and recognize their successes, they are more comfortable having challenging conversations. This trust creates an environment where people can communicate openly and work together effectively.
The Power of Learning
Alex considers himself fortunate to lead at a time when technologies such as generative AI can support everyday decision-making. He often uses chatbots to explore different options and consider possible approaches before making a decision. Podcasts are another regular source of learning and inspiration.
He follows leadership and business podcasts such as “Grit” and “All-In” to learn from experienced executives and understand how they approach challenges. His advice to other leaders is simple. Stay informed about new technologies as they emerge. Take the time to understand how they can support the business rather than ignoring them. Most importantly, practice translating the complexity of the technology that is evolving in the market into language that employees and customers can understand and relate to. This is a skill that Alex has been intentionally practicing for most of his career.
Developing Future Leaders
One leadership lesson has stayed with Alex for many years. A mentor once told him that he could not move from director to vice president because he had not yet developed someone who could take over his responsibilities. The advice had a lasting impact on him.
Since then, he has made developing future leaders an important part of his leadership approach. He believes every leader should work toward having someone ready to step into their role when needed. He also sees succession planning as a way to prepare for future opportunities and career growth.
Alex typically mentors three or four people at a time. Many of them approach him directly and request monthly mentoring sessions. Although he initially found the requests humbling, he now considers mentoring an essential part of leadership. It allows him to support emerging leaders while also gaining insight into what is happening at different levels of an organization. Currently, he mentors two people outside MicroAge and two within the company. He follows one simple rule for every mentoring session. The mentee must bring the topic for discussion.
He has found that people who arrive without a clear topic are often less engaged, and the conversation tends to produce limited value. In contrast, discussions become more productive when mentees bring real challenges to the table. These may include questions about earning a promotion or managing a difficult colleague. By focusing on practical issues, the mentoring relationship becomes more meaningful and useful for both sides.
Confidence in Crisis
Guiding a team through a crisis requires calm and confidence. Alex believes that maintaining confidence in others is especially important during difficult situations.
He remains calm under pressure and tries hard not to show panic, anger, or fear at work. While this composure comes naturally to him, he also makes a conscious effort to remain steady so that others feel more confident. This isn’t always easy, but it is usually worth the result when helping a team through change.
Preparation is another important part of his approach. He makes an effort to understand the issue at hand, even when it requires additional time and research. He may spend an evening watching videos or studying a topic so that he is prepared to contribute meaningfully to the next day’s discussion.
This preparation strengthens confidence in his leadership. It also sets an example for his team. When people see their leader taking the time to understand a problem, they are more likely to follow the same approach and prepare themselves to contribute effectively.
A Defining Achievement
Alex is most proud of an initiative he developed while leading the North American cybersecurity business at Tech Data. He wanted to provide reseller partners with more than product licenses and give them a practical way to help their customers understand cybersecurity solutions.
He proposed creating an event center where partners could bring their customers to learn about cybersecurity and experience vendor solutions in a practical environment. The Tech Data board approved the funding, and he assembled a team to develop what became the first Cyber Range in the distribution industry.
The center opened just two months before the COVID-19 pandemic forced it to close. It reopened 18 months later and continues to operate today under TD SYNNEX, following the merger of Tech Data and Synnex. For Alex, the initiative remains a significant achievement because it addressed a clear need in the channel and created a lasting resource for partners and their customers.
A Legacy of Impact
Looking ahead, Alex wants to continue becoming a leader who helps others achieve more than they thought possible. He believes results and execution are important, but he measures great leadership by the people it develops.
He hopes the people he has worked with remember that he listened to them, treated them with respect, and explained the reasoning behind important decisions. Most importantly, he wants them to know that he genuinely cared about their success.
He also wants to be remembered as a leader who encouraged people to grow, supported them during difficult times, and created an environment where their ideas were valued. For him, leadership is not only about achieving business goals. It is also about helping people build confidence, develop their abilities, and reach their full potential.
