For much of his career, Jacob Luna has had “highly technical conversations with highly technical people about highly technical things.” With a concentration in cybersecurity, he has often guided customers through problems they are having and recommended specialized solutions to meet their needs. He spent nearly 14 years with ADP as an architecture lead and principal technologist before transitioning to Oracle as a senior cloud advisory consultant. By the end of 2022, though, he returned to ADP as director of client security advocacy. In this most recent role, he leads a team of security consultants in the company’s global security organization and is responsible for forging trust with both customers and associates. And he credits one thing in particular for preparing him to take that next step in his career: MIT Sloan Executive Education.
“During my original tenure with ADP, my transformational leader at the time reinforced that I too was a leader and encouraged me to develop my management and leadership skills,” explains Luna, who earned his Executive Certificate in Management and Leadership in July of 2022. “When I stepped into the management and leadership courses at MIT, it was very eye-opening for me. I started to realize just how important it is not only to understand how things fit together logically in technology and cybersecurity, but also how to go beyond logic and meet people where they are. Once I developed that muscle, my career took off.”
For the Asking
When Luna took his first Executive Education course, Inquiry-Driven Leadership with senior lecturer Hal Gregerson, he knew right away that he had chosen correctly with MIT Sloan. He immediately recognized the challenges he personally faced with posing questions to the people around him. As he proceeded through the course modules, he learned how to break down the barriers that stopped him from asking both clients and co-workers questions, which, as a leader, held him back from fully understanding their needs so he could cater to them. “I didn’t know how to tap into that skill. Now you can’t get me to stop asking questions,” he says. “I want to know more in a meeting so I can understand the other person. I’m unafraid to ask questions, and I walk into every single call or meeting knowing that it’s an opportunity for me to learn more. It built confidence in me.”
“At the end of the MIT courses, I had something practical to use. I had guardrails and guidance provided by very tenured professors. And all of that knowledge helped me plug into what I truly care about professionally."
Luna followed that experience with an array of additional courses, including Neuroscience for Business, Cybersecurity for Managers: A Playbook, Building Organizational Resilience: A System Approach to Mitigating Risk and Uncertainty, Understanding and Solving Complex Business Problems, Cybersecurity Governance for the Board of Directors, Managing Technical Professionals and Organizations, and Leadership by Design: Innovation Process and Culture. In all, he spent nearly a year and a half pursuing his Executive Certificate. And through that process, he not only developed an array of soft skills that he continues to use daily in his leadership role at ADP, but he also began stepping out of his comfort zone and accepting unexpected opportunities, such as speaking publicly to large groups of professionals about cybersecurity. He even took on a Dallas/Fort-Worth board leadership role with San Francisco, California-based NextGen Cyber Talent, a nonprofit organization that is dedicated to educating underprivileged, underserved talent and increasing diversity in cybersecurity. What’s more, he also became involved in his local chapter of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
Luna observes, “At the end of the MIT courses, I had something practical to use. I had guardrails and guidance provided by very tenured professors. And all of that knowledge helped me plug into what I truly care about professionally.”
On a Personal Note
What surprised Luna most, however, was how applicable the management and leadership skills he developed were in his personal life. “MIT Sloan Executive Education made me a better leader professionally, but it also changed the way I conduct myself with my family and the way we make decisions,” he says. From sitting down with a spreadsheet to discuss family issues to helping his young son create a weekly intent board and teaching him to ask questions regularly, Luna’s new skills have gone far beyond the office setting. He adds, “The courses made me a better leader at work and a better father at home. I’ve really seen the return on investment of Executive Education beyond financials.”
Today, Luna looks forward to continuing his experience with MIT Sloan as he plans to work towards his Advanced Certificate for Executives in Management, Innovation, and Technology (ACE). In the meantime, he will lean on the skills he developed during his initial Executive Education experience. He concludes, “I understand that there are jobs that will eventually go to machines. But there’s something that can never be taken away from us—motivation, creativity, emotion, intuition, and brain-body connection. Those are the skills that machines can’t replicate. We, as leaders, have to build those muscles because that is the only way we are going to be able to inspire positive change.”
Learn more about MIT Sloan Executive Certificates.