Cyber veterans

Said Forescout's chief customer officer about her transition away from technical work to leadership: "When I want it I can grab it. When there's a deep technical issue, I can sit down and say, ‘OK, help me understand this.’ And I do find customers that appreciate when I come back."

Said the founder of KeyCaliber: "I probably know most of the women entrepreneurs in cybersecurity because we’re just so few and far between.”

Said the chief security officer at Elevate Credits: "As complex as security is, one wrong change could be that one time you think ‘I shouldn’t have done that’ and then it could be an entry point for a threat actor.”

Said chief information security officer of Auth0: “Representation is so much more important than we realize. And it’s not just about what you can give to the organization. It’s about those young people being able to see the world as it truly is, and it’s a truly diverse and beautiful space.

The chief trust and security officer of OneLogin didn't let "hitting a lot of brick walls" in the 1990s world of telecommunication get in the way of success. “I tell young people and any people of color, just keep going. You don't have to know everything, you just have to know something.”

Fifteen years ago, working in as an intelligence analyst covering transportation issues for Air Force Special Operations Command, Stephynie Velez saw a growing threat space across her supply chain. “It was a time when there weren’t cyber threat analysts — they weren’t sure if you needed to take cyber personnel and make them learn intelligence analysis or the other way around." Velez was the other way around.

“Partnering with ambassadors allows us to tailor content for regions and cultures, as well as threat trends targeting specific job functions or locations,” said the head of security awareness at Equinix. “To keep ambassadors engaged and motivated, I developed recognition and certification plans that give them visibility at the corporate level for all their efforts, and provide certificates they can put on their resumes for external recognition.”

Having transitioned from the public sector to the private, Teresa Shea recognizes the need for those two verticals to work better together. The mutual skepticism bordering on distrust, which has been omnipresent for years, is both inefficient and unwarranted.