By: Kelly Bond, Bridgepoint Advisors Featuring Kasia Hanson, KFactor Global
Running a business is a bold undertaking, equal parts challenge and reward. In the security industry, however, where the work is 24/7 and the stakes are high, those challenges can feel especially intense. Owners are constantly juggling critical responsibilities: hiring and retaining skilled talent, integrating new technologies, managing customer expectations, and protecting their bottom line.
It’s no wonder so many lie awake at night wondering if they’re doing enough.
This article marks a year in which I’ve been spotlighting security business owners who have bravely pulled back the curtain—shared what’s keeping them up and how they’ve risen to meet those pressures with clarity, grit, and strategy.
As we continue to move forward in this series, this month, I spoke with Kasia Hanson, CEO and Founder of KFactor Global.
Kasia- please tell us about your business.
KH: I founded KFactor Global in 2024 after a 24-year career at Intel in high tech and security. Drawing on my experience building billion-dollar businesses, I help clients develop AI-driven and modernized security strategies. We work with security manufacturers, integrators, software companies, and practitioners to create strategies that integrate advanced technology and security practices, delivering measurable value.
With over 20 years in technology, security, and business, KFactor Global leads in security and IT innovation. The firm guides clients in modernizing physical and cybersecurity infrastructure using emerging AI technologies, aligning tech adoption with business goals to mitigate threats and gain a competitive edge.
What’s one thing that you find keeps you up at night?
KH: I consider myself a pretty good sleeper, yet the responsibilities of starting a new business, nurturing its growth, and delivering value to clients are always on my mind late into the night. The rapid evolution of technology and the impacts on security require constant development and innovation. While starting a business is exciting, it is strategy that scales it, discipline that sustains it, and staying ahead of tech trends that maintains its’ relevance. With the continual advancements and the significant impact of AI on the market, developing effective strategies and technology solutions for clients is one of my main priorities.
How have you worked to overcome it?
KH: I spent the last two decades driving global technology businesses that required consistent focus on strategy, team development, collaboration, creating tech solutions, and delivering results while being agile.
Currently, I am focused on helping my clients navigate through today’s technological changes and opportunities. I spend a significant amount of time educating myself about AI advancements, physical security, and about cybersecurity risks and threats.
I lean into my network to learn about current challenges and opportunities to help the security industry stay ahead. I am building a trough of validated security and tech solutions that I believe will help the industry with improving operations, maximizing their resources (people+), increasing sales and delivering more value. While my priority is keeping people, places and assets safe and secure, today’s companies are beginning to look at other ways in which security can improve their operation.
As a segue, enabling security leaders with strong strategies to do this by leveraging AI is another priority.
Conversely, we cannot forget the impact cybersecurity is now having on an international scale. I spend a significant amount of time learning from my peers in the cybersecurity industry. The insight I receive provides a greater understanding on how those solutions or best practices can be applied in the world of physical security. Convergence won’t go away, so strengthening cybersecurity practices will help all businesses to be as resilient and secure as possible.
What advice do you offer other business owners?
KH: In today’s rapidly evolving business environment, the companies that thrive aren’t necessarily the ones with the biggest budgets or longest history, but instead are the ones that embrace continuous learning and transformation as core business practices. Make learning your competitive advantage.
Technology should never be adopted just because it’s new but more poignantly because it better serves your business and customers. I encourage all business owners to ask themselves two questions:
How does changing customer expectations create opportunities for you to deliver value differently?
What pain could new technology solve?
Your customers’ evolving needs should drive your technology adoption, not the other way around. In addition, customers are changing how they buy, and the generational buying profile will continue to evolve, so business will need to evolve with it to address how younger generation buyers want to experience security products and services.
Businesses that treat change as an opportunity rather than a threat will find themselves not just surviving but leading the way. Your willingness to learn, adapt, and reimagine your business model isn’t just about staying current, it’s about staying relevant to customers who increasingly expect innovation, efficiency, and value in every interaction.
Kasia provides a valuable perspective on the importance of placing requisite focus on AI as well as cybersecurity. These have been “buzz words” for a couple of years but today are an integral part of our businesses.
Kasia poses the question: How do changing customer expectations create opportunities for you to deliver value differently? This is an excellent question, and the answer should include bringing value to your business and your customers alike.
Follow or contact Kasia Hanson on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/kasiahanson
About Kelly:
Kelly Bond brings over twenty-five years of industry experience to her clients. A 2024 inductee into the Security Sales and Integration Hall of Fame, she serves as Partner of Bridgepoint Advisors LLC, representing buyers and sellers of alarm and integration companies.
About Kasia:
Kasia Hanson is the Founder and CEO of KFactor Global and is an industry-recognized security leader with over two decades of experience in technology and security, specializing in digital transformation solutions across Physical and Cybersecurity, Edge, IoT/OT, and Artificial Intelligence. Kasia is also the US Chapter President for the Global Council for Responsible AI, an international alliance advancing the ethical development, integration, and oversight of artificial intelligence in service of humanity and global well-being. She is also an Advisor at InfoSec Global (a KeyFactor Company), helping clients strengthen quantum security practices and prepare for post quantum security readiness.