“The executives never had visibility.” – Elizabeth Wu on Fixing the IT and Leadership Disconnect

Send us a text

Cut The Tie Podcast with Elizabeth Wu

What happens when the people ultimately responsible for a company’s survival are the least informed about its biggest risk?

In this episode of Cut The Tie, Thomas Helfrich sits down with Elizabeth Wu, a lifelong entrepreneur, IT auditor, and inventor who has spent four decades building businesses without ever working for someone else. Elizabeth breaks down why data breaches keep happening, why executives are being fired for failures they never had visibility into, and how the disconnect between IT and leadership has quietly become one of the most dangerous problems in modern organizations.

Elizabeth shares how a forced pivot during COVID led her to invent a new category of cybersecurity visibility designed specifically for executives. What started as solving her own problem has now turned into global conversations with governments, regulators, and enterprises looking to prevent breaches before they happen. This is a conversation about cutting the tie to blind trust, technical intimidation, and boxed-in thinking.

About Elizabeth Wu:
Elizabeth Wu is a serial entrepreneur with over forty years of experience building and scaling businesses. She is the founder of EDD-i, a cybersecurity platform designed to give executives real visibility into the security status of their organizations. With a background in IT auditing and infrastructure, Elizabeth focuses on preventing data breaches by addressing vulnerabilities from the inside out. Her work spans private enterprise, government policy, and international cybersecurity initiatives.

In this episode, Thomas and Elizabeth discuss:

• “The executives never had visibility”
  Why CEOs are being held accountable for IT failures they were never equipped to understand.
• The real reason data breaches keep rising
  How companies focus on perimeter security while leaving internal vulnerabilities exposed.
• Why compliance does not equal security
  The dangerous assumption that certifications automatically mean protection.
• The IT power imbalance inside organizations
  How technical opacity creates fear, dependency, and poor decision making at the executive level.
• Safe Harbor and executive liability
  Why legislation is shifting responsibility and how leaders can protect themselves.

Key Takeaways:

• Visibility is not optional
  Leaders cannot manage or protect what they cannot see.
• Executives are paying the price for ignorance
  One in three CEOs are fired after a breach, even when the root cause sits elsewhere.
• Security must be practical, not theoretical
  Checklists do not stop breaches. Understanding does.
• True innovation solves communication problems
  The biggest gap is not technology, it is language.

Connect with Elizabeth Wu:
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabeth-wu11/
🌐 Company Website: https://www.edd-i.com/

Connect with Thomas Helfrich:
🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/thelfrich
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thelfrich/
🌐 Website: https://www.cutthetie.com
📧 Email: [e-mail]
🚀 Instantly Relevant: https://instantly

Support the show

Serious about LinkedIn Lead Generation? Stop Guessing what to do on LinkedIn and ignite revenue from relevance with Instantly Relevant Lead System