Life in the Swimlane with Mark Bjerke, Regional Sales Director

Welcome to the “Life in the Swimlane” blog series. Here we will feature interviews with Swimlaners to learn more about their experience. This series will give you a preview of Swimlane, our culture, and the people who keep us going.

Hello! My name is Mark Bjerke, a Regional Sales Director at Swimlane. I reside in Edina, a suburb of Minneapolis, Minnesota. I attended Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, where I met my wife. We have been married for 27 years and have two children: a 25-year-old daughter who teaches elementary education and a 15-year-old son who just completed 9th grade.

How long have you been with Swimlane?

I have been with Swimlane for 20 months.

What does your job entail?

With decades of sales experience, I bring a unique blend of insights from various professional settings, including multiple startups, a larger corporation with 93,000 employees, and a smaller company of 12 individuals. This unique background enhances my role at Swimlane, making it very fulfilling. My responsibilities revolve around leveraging my extensive network, utilizing reseller partners and technology alliance partners, as well as nurturing existing customer relationships. A typical day for me includes phone calls, face-to-face meetings, and interactions with prospects, clients, and Swimlane’s current partners. I am constantly focusing on seeking out new contacts through my established partnerships and pushing to expand my network.

What do you enjoy most about working at Swimlane?

What I enjoy most about Swimlane is the people. The success within my role, and our company as a whole, are a direct result of strong teamwork. I also appreciate that I am able to utilize my diverse skill sets in the work I do at Swimlane and witness the tangible value and impact of my effort each day, which is unique for a role like mine.

What excites you most about your work? 

What excites me the most about my work is the opportunity to meet new people and to provide a best-in-class solution to help them address their automation-related security challenges.

What do you like to do when you aren’t working?

When I’m not working, I enjoy traveling with extended family to Cape Cod, Massachusetts and St. Augustine, Florida. Some other activities that I enjoy are golfing, fishing, and playing hockey. I do an annual fly-in fishing trip with several of my cyber-security sales buddies to a remote spot in Canada and have done saltwater fishing with my son on both coasts and many freshwater lakes. My family is avid Minnesota sports fans. We go to Wild, Vikings, Twins, Timberwolves, and Gophers games.   

Are there any clubs, volunteer/awareness groups, or social movements you’re passionate about?

My family and I are actively involved in church and supporting humanitarian aid organizations like Compassion International. I also enjoy participating in local cybersecurity groups here in Minnesota and the surrounding states.

What’s are some fun facts about you many people may not know?

A fun fact about me that many people may not know is that I co-founded a brewery in 2015 with three in-laws called Pulpit Rock Brewing. It’s located in Decorah, Iowa, the same town that me and the majority of my in-laws attended college.

Your motto or personal mantra:

“Success is won by those who believe in winning and then prepare for that moment.” -Herb Brooks

Three words that best describe you:

The three words that best describe me are convicted, motivated, and compassionate.

What Swimlane core value resonates with you the most?

The Swimlane core value that resonates with me the most is “punch above your weight class.” This is important at Swimlane as each individual provides value beyond their role as we are a smaller organization. Within cybersecurity, Swimlane is providing constant innovation.

What type of impact do you want to leave on our industry?

I want my clients to feel that their decision to purchase the various cybersecurity solutions that I have represented were a great decision…throughout our long-term partnership together. With regard to Swimlane, automation is an essential component to having a strong overall security posture, so having clients leverage our platform across their entire organization for all of their automation needs is of significant impact.