Manufacturers are known to have annual ?Developer Days? or industry confab events and Genetec is no exception. Typically, each year Genetec brings in security publication reporters and editors from around the world to their Montreal, Quebec, Canada, headquarters for a couple days of ?state of the company? highlights. They will bring in senior managers to pontificate about certain aspects of the Genetec product offering and market positioning.

At such events, it is normal for the company President/CEO/Jafe to come in and give a couple words about the company, say something polite about us coming, and exit stage left.

Pierre Racz, CEO, founder, largest shareholder, and probably most important (at least to him, I assume) chief engineer, isn?t that typical CEO. Racz, a gregarious man at ~190cm (about 6?3 for us south of that border) with a commanding voice that you can discern at a gathering of 50 without much work, is obviously motivated about security within society.

Many CEOs are very good business managers, or financial managers, or people motivators, some even technical wizards. Few are all of these. And it is common knowledge that a business organization will take on the personality of its leader.

In this time when Genetec has been recently ranked as the #1 global VMS vendor (link), Racz has little concern for such attribution. ?Our goal is not growth. Our goal is perennity.? Choosing the word perennity in of itself is also not a fluke.

At first blush you may mistake Racz as brash or bearish. Spend any real time with him and you will realize that he is quick witted, Sherlock in his observational skills, and absolutely passionate about how technology should play a role in human wellbeing.

He really is more interested in Genetec being around for many years to come and has put into place succession plans that ?do not include my biological children but definitely include my adopted work children? to make sure of Genetec?s future.

?And trust me, I am making sure those leaders are looking at the business with the right mindsets and skillsets.? You quickly understand that he is not talking about financial management or KPI management. (Google the book ?Artisans, Craftsmen, and Technicians? he tells me.)

He continues to work shoulder to shoulder with his engineering team where he is looking at how security is much more than a video management software (VMS). He is not kidding around when he talks about how security systems should help ?protect liberal democracies? of the world.

Racz, at the annual Genetec press event three years ago, talked about the then decision of Genetec to stop supporting Hikvision cameras and how the Chinese government was not in the IP-camera business to make money. Interesting how the most recent news talks about the U.S. government placing bans on Hikvision cameras.

I find Racz borderline clairvoyant.

Genetec now has over 1,500 employees and has offices around the world. The Genetec team is proud to state that this growth has been organic and not through acquisitions ??that would just make our top line look better.?

Genetec is unabashed on focusing on enterprise-size customers and not the smaller ?mom and pop? customers. They are a channel driven organization and will ?shake up? their channel from time to time to make sure those integrators can continue to support the Genetec customers at the level Genetec feels is necessary.

The company believes that it needs ?to deliver a continuous flow of clever innovations by achieving excellence in execution and enhanced cooperation with the best-of-breed in our ecosystem.?

Racz looks at what Genetec delivers with an overarching eye of ?security of security.? Again, this really is not about a baseline ?video management software? suite. It is about a baseline of code designed for organizations to ?help make an average day, an average day.?

In today?s interconnected, online, world, where does security really begin and what systems can be built to help achieve an end-user?s corporate mission? Login passwords are just not enough anymore. Genetec is looking at systems that will integrate multiple levels of assurance as to whom a user really is.

They look at the world of security from a level of a unique identity, to that of a known identity, to a checked identity, to a verified identity. And what tools are needed by the user to go from a unique identity to a verified identity? Tools like ?UB keys.?

When Racz takes the front of the room and ruminates about technology that should protect liberal democracies, he is not being flip or grandiose. He believe Genetec needs to bring solutions to market that serve to validate with very high assurance the identity of the user (see above), that by using blockchain technology we can log and audit those users activities – while actually maintaining the privacy of those users, and utilize policy-based automation and oversight to ensure that those users can do what they should be doing when they should be doing it where they should be doing it from.

?If we have an access control system that badges in a user here in our Montreal headquarters who happens to be a manager allowed to sign off on purchase orders up to $25,000 during normal business hours, then our accounting system should not get an P.O. approval from someone that happens to be logging in on a Saturday from a Chinese location,? Racz shares.

This is the level of security that Genetec is thinking about when building out their systems. Genetec would like to see the day where policy-based automation and oversight are part of every organization?s daily workflow.

They would like the ultimate goal of a ?Sarbanes-Oxley? type legislation that would remove any CEO or company leader from claiming ignorance when there is a security breach within their organization.

Racz gets passionate about this and believes that any company leader that is too lazy or too uneducated on corporate security issues – and then their company gets hacked – then like the leaders of famed Enron (link to wiki) they should go off to jail as well.

He believes that the C-suite must be accountable for their company?s policies ? or lack thereof. That companies must remove the technological noise from their policy specifications and that the decisions management makes would be stored in a blockchain system for any future auditing. (And please don?t confuse this use of blockchain with Bitcoin.)

This will validate what security systems are in place, were in place at any given time, what actions were taken on any individual security issue, and how the company responded to them. Accountability.

Racz is rapid fire in his deliverance of these concepts and you start to get a sense of where he is looking to take Genetec. You learn that Genetec is a company with a ?Culture of Security? that is more than the just a VMS screen of video feeds and door alarms.

The Genetec team explains that the company has had a 12-year CAGR of 30% where every three years Genetec doubles in size. They are (as they should be) proud of how their Citigraf product has helped the City of Chicago?s 7th police district reduce violent crime by 25%. And they share that Genetec is seeing 22% annual market share growth while the surveillance industry itself is growing at just 10% annually.

The Genetec team shares that the old way of thinking about security systems from a ?security, operations, intelligence? perspective is outdated. ?We are changing the mindset to Intelligence, Operations, Security? to drive home that having the security system ultimately deliver business intelligence is a key performance indicator.

They look at the world by wanting to ?understand the everyday; improve the everyday; secure the everyday,? and this concept is a driving force behind the Genetec product portfolio.

Marketing VP Andrew Elvish

You see this in the ?Genetec Edifice? where the core products are around video, access control, and LPR. With the underlying pillars of the company focusing on overall operational efficiencies, making sense of all the sensors being utilized, and constantly defaulting to the security of the security system.

A customer close in proximity to Genetec?s headquarters as well as in terms of a close working relationship is Casino de Montreal. Claude Laram