Women in IT Security

“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.”

For the Seattle Public Schools chief information security officer, her passion is clear: "small businesses and nonprofits, and in particular, schools. They’re in the same boat. They may be larger, but they don't have the resources. They need something that's easy, inexpensive, and straightforward.”

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.

"I was once told that I may not be a vulnerability researcher. That's something that I know, I'm never going to tell my team — not today, not ever — because it affected me as an individual who was trying to build a career in cybersecurity. I always come up with a plan to ensure that I am providing them with the resources, with the technical skillsets or training that is needed for them to achieve what they want to achieve.”

“For an industry that builds client relationships and growth on partnership and trust with its customers, we're also an industry that sells zero trust, as a goal. So those two things can be very dichotomous in concept,” said the chief information security officer for the cloud services of NTT.

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.”

Said the chief technology officer and founding partner of advisory firm SecurityCurve: "I always like to keep a balance. I think it's really easy to just start looking through one lens — forget what else is out there.”