Latest / The Decision Advantage / Meet the Founder: Dr Dawn Hersey, CEO of Ferndon
Transcript
- speaker-0: Mm-hmm. speaker-1: Welcome to the Decision Advantage, a fusion intelligence podcast by Fernand Consulting. I'm Brian Leclerc, and today I have the pleasure of speaking with CEO and founder of Fernand Consulting, doctor Don Hersey. Don, welcome to the show. speaker-0: It's great to be here. speaker-1: Now Ferdinand Consulting is a new company that is striving to combine intelligence information and integrate that into both government and civilian sectors. Could you share with us a little bit of your background and why this integration is needed? speaker-0: Fernand Consulting is a groundbreaking initiative that brings together experts whose collaboration is a significant differentiator. So my background is in military intelligence, history education, and civil military relations. I've spent most of my years overseas as an adult rather than in the USA, which is kind of odd, actually. And I've learned that the regions of the world, the many different regions, they're both very different and very similar. And while I love talking about how fascinating the world is, and I think many aspects of where I came from is is fantastically interesting, the takeaway here is that American industry and infrastructure have been well isolated from much of the turmoil and events happening overseas. And to use an old history teacher's analogy, it's almost like how the Western Hemisphere was mostly isolated from the diseases of the old world, as we may have called it. Measles, smallpox, and the like prior to the European arrival. And then we saw the devastation that brought. And now, while the world is extremely interconnected and interdependent, America has an incredible bubble around it that has minimized more significant threats. This protective coat, we could call it, we have enjoyed for many years. It is beginning to be pulled away with policy changes, geopolitical unrest, and dynamics within this supply chain that we haven't seen before. People used to be able to chart a path from historical projections. Especially business executives with all of their experience and knowledge, training and orientation. These projections would help them anticipate changes, developments, or where the company could actually go. But now this is no longer a reasonable approach if if one actually wants to thrive or gain an advantage over competition. Now we also have brilliant machine computations that have the capacity to process all sorts of material, but that material has to be available to them. What do we have to process that nuanced feedback for executives that's based off of direct personal experience or subject matter expertise, the really deep subject matter expertise, and use exceptional communication skills? We have this cool thing. It's called IS or Intelligence as a Service. And that is why I find this so fascinating. I see this as needed because the world is changing so much right now. We need the ability to bring in dynamic information. We need the ability to bring in an understanding of how to make projections into a changing environment. And our critical infrastructure is very critical. It's valued and it's important. And it hasn't been able to use this or it hasn't really needed it before, but now it does. speaker-1: It is fascinating how you're pulling all this information together and lining up the right people to understand it. I think it would be helpful if you could explain what the difference is between intelligence and information and specifically how a business leader would employ your intelligence. speaker-0: ⁓ this brings up a great difference. Thank you for asking this question. There is, to me and to many intelligence professionals, a huge difference between intelligence, as the government or militaries would see it, or business intelligence. Most business intelligence focuses on the company's health, trajectories, and opportunities, and this is done within a known context. This is not what Fernandin does. Ferndon uses more of the military approach to intelligence. First, our focus is minimizing noise. We don't want to provide you information about a topic. We want to provide you the specific details that can guide you to a decision in a rapidly changing and often rather tumultuous environment. We understand the dynamic state of the world. So we use not only historical and organizational data for a generalized framework, but we also integrate a broader focus for personal. Pertinent data points, then we start narrowing down to the answer. Intelligence, as we understand it, provides nuanced insight for a specific objective within a defined environment. We identify that which is known, but then we also emphasize an importance to find that which is unknown, that missing data point that's not recorded or that's not in the news, because we're not collating that which is. We are seeking to frame that which will be. And such an assessment is very challenging in a non static environment. So IAS. IAS is intentionally creating our understanding of intelligence in a usable manner for those who need it or those who seeked an advantage over their competition. So this means that we do intelligence work and then we ensure it is tailorable to your needs and your situation within your organization. We have a team which includes expertise in so many different sectors, everything from information operations in public affairs, and to counterintelligence and special operations, physical and cybersecurity, engineering and legal knowledge, business executives, military leadership, and so many more areas. All of these perspectives are needed when the system is this dynamic, when things are changing so rapidly. And our interconnectedness and interdependencies, and often our silos of knowledge and information need to be broken to maximize your opportunities for growth, success, and resilience. speaker-1: This holistic approach to intelligence seems like a great way to tackle so many of the big questions and issues that are out there in the world today. You mentioned that Ferdinand is offering intelligence as a service or IS. Can you please share a little bit of how IS is a solution for various government and civilian sectors? And really how IS can help these sectors solve a problem. speaker-0: I would be absolutely delighted to do so. So IAS, as one of my retired intelligence colleagues exclaimed after he was looking at our website and looking at our work, he said, IAS is the future of intelligence. Everyone is going to be getting on this bandwagon. And he basically also said, and if they don't, he's like, so business intelligence and many of these other analytical provisions focus on building the trajectory, right? This trajectory is based on historical data. But what happens when the context for that data is significantly changed? How many companies did not see the Hormuz straight closing, or the rapid evolution of the Western Hemisphere oil businesses of 2026? Or even how the US federal government's policy and tariff changes would likely impact their operations. Or they just didn't understand how to read between the lines to figure these things out, right? There were so many questions after each instance. I guess was able to predict these. and predict what would be happening and on how it would unfold, we do use the historical data points for a foundation of what is expected, but we overlay this with extensive expertise in international business, culturally driven behaviors and even cross sector misunderstandings, like the misunderstanding between intelligence and business intelligence or analysis and information. In today's world, historical frameworks are great for some trajectories and basic analytics are fantastic for generalities. But a cross-functionally enabled understanding of nuanced relationships and interconnectedness is something that our artificial intelligences, our standard business intelligence models and busy sector leaders struggle to internalize sufficiently to apply a holistic solution to their needs. I've worked with many executives and experts who are excellent in their fields. But this year has turned many of their operations upside down or sideways, even with their hard work and historically effective projections. IAS isn't replacing basic analytics. AI is doing okay with that. IAS is filling the niche of nuanced insight, fed from collaborative experts with deep understanding and a passion for excellence. Projections of this sort are not in the lane of basic analysis, business intelligences, artificial intelligences. This needs years of being there doing that, seeing the results, and being in the room where decisions were made, discussed, and often the details are not recorded. speaker-1: Fernand's ability to take intelligence and decipher that data is is so needed. Don, I'd like to take a moment and focus on on how hiring Fernan can save a government entity or civilian company some money or time, or even potentially help them achieve results faster. speaker-0: Goody, this is fun. I would say that just because we're awesome is a great reason, but that's not quite what you're looking for. One could say that contracting Fernandin for fractional support or even expert consulting will mitigate the need for full time employed analysts to keep oversight of AI analytical outputs. That's true. But it takes this one step further. You're getting that which AI does not have. You're getting that which Analysts, most of them do not have the personal experience of experts with the insights that were never put into materials or programming that cannot be computed by AI. This supplants or optimizes, or whichever is needed for the company, the full-time analyst role. Another benefit is that our expertise has enabled a lot of almost eerie or eerie to some, normal to us, projections of upcoming turns and shifts. We talk a lot about damage to supply chains with Hormuz closure. We gave our customers a heads up about it about a month beforehand because we saw the signs. There were expectations that Hormuz would reopen soon, later on. We had a different projection based on cultural and leadership personalities. And these frameworks were constructed and then tweaked just a little bit within our tense geopolitical environment. We advise on the underbelly of that which is reported. And none of this is classified or super sensitive. It's all out there. You just need to be able to make sense of it. And to do so, that requires direct experience in the field, out there, having done that and been there. Who is aligned to profit from this change in policy or that financial allocation? Getting caught up in an international financial crime investigation is definitely not something you, or at least I, would really want to endure. So we become an invaluable asset to optimizing your risk management framework. And this enables your leaders to make the decisions based on a more realistic understanding of that which is emerging and that which is now rather than that which has been or would have been projected. speaker-1: This all sounds like great information for companies or government groups to have. It's really the analysis that they really need. Fernant has the ability to support various sectors in the industry. Could you highlight a few of these groups in a little bit more detail? speaker-0: I think everyone could use our expertise. But yes, there are some areas which probably would be able to use us more than others, especially right now. The first one, one of our huge focuses is the defense industrial base, the DIB. I do love the name the DIB. Why? Well, because these hardworking manufacturing companies, large and small, have been trying to continue providing high quality services, with their orders changed, the tariffs impacting their supply chain, and sudden shifts in policies and expectations. We can provide intelligence to their supply chain analytics and resilience. Simultaneously, too, we can help them defend against the growing threats of economic warfare that are operationalized through proxies, cyber capabilities, and information. Another area, another sector we're very passionate about, is the electrical or the energy companies, and then also the communications infrastructure. Both of these networks are intrinsic to coordination. survival and economic stability. Both of these networks are being actively targeted, directly and indirectly. And both of these networks are what I call lasagna networks. They have many layers of security, hardware, and operational control systems. And each of these layers has its own supply chain and each layer too has its own vulnerabilities. We can partner with both energy and communication sectors to alleviate the pressure A pressure that's pulled on junior analysts or depending on an artificial intelligence, which is programmable or has hallucinations. And we can help provide that highly refined, those specific insights into their vulnerabilities and optimizing the realistic rather than the traditionally developed accuracy of their risk management framework in the emerging geopolitical environment. Those three noted sectors are not the only ones. We can support aviation with supply chain analytics. We can support financial institutions with emerging payment systems and detailed understanding of their international liabilities. We can help with your cybersecurity resilience and help you understand of the combination of threats both from the cyber hackage or the insider threat that can set away to exploit your systems internally for from the inside. We can upskill your analysts and managers to have greater foundations to leading in risk management and intelligence, because a lot of us are actually teachers as well. So Upskilling is one of those very, very important things about which we are passionate. But in addition to upskilling, we help with reskilling as well. Reskilling accountants or assistants into analysts. We care about supporting our law enforcement, the military, and other government entities, and our background in targeting, combined with our understanding of homeland and the businesses, is invaluable to Creating an accurate understanding of situations and evolutions within homeland security. speaker-1: Those are great examples of where Fernand can really have a huge impact. You have really shown that Fernand has a lot to offer and can support leaders in their decision making by providing intelligence, saving them time, money, and supporting them in making more well informed decisions, which is great. As we wrap up, what is the one message that you'd want people to take away from today's conversation? speaker-0: This is actually really hard, but I'll give it a go. My attempt to answer this says very simply, and this is this is from my Dr. Dawn perspective, the world has gone through a paradigm shift. We are in a different world now than a couple years ago. Our projections have changed, our needs have changed, our technology has changed, the people themselves haven't changed, but the entire world within which we are making decisions is different. And that means that the way we get our information, it needs to change as well. The ability to process a lot of information is is important. But the ability to find those nuggets and find that which isn't there, that's also extremely important. The knowledge that comes from experts who have been in the room. And had those conversations and dealt with the consequences, many of which were not recorded and are not being processed. That is what we need to be able to integrate into our decision-making processes right now in this time of geopolitical change. Right now, what we need is in addition to our analysts and our artificial intelligences processing information and data, we need those subject matter experts to provide usable insights. But it has to be in a way that's communicatable. And that's where Ferndon comes in with our intelligence as a service. Because it's not just intelligence for intelligence's sake because we want to come up with all these projections. We want to make sure that we're able to partner with our partners. We want to make sure that their needs are served. We want to make sure that the accurate information that they need with the necessary nuances, with the necessary context. Is provided in a way that they can understand, internalize, and act upon. So in closing, I think the one takeaway is we are in a paradigm shift. The world has changed. Fernden is here to be your partner to help guide you through this storm. We look forward to working with you. We can be contracted through our partnership with Lone Gain Associates. We can be found through the GSA schedule through our partnership. Also, We offer a free initial consultation. With that free initial consultation, you can determine whether or not you want to work with us. We can talk about what we can service and what we can't service. So yes, the world has changed. We are here as your partner. speaker-1: That is a great summary. And thank you for the deep dive into what Foreign Consulting is really all about. As Dawn said, please reach out for more information and thank you for tuning in.