Breaking Barriers: Women Redefining Cybersecurity

Raghu N  00:12

Hi everyone. Welcome to this very special episode. Today we're exploring an often overlooked reality: the challenges women face in cybersecurity and how they're navigating them and changing the game. You'll hear from women who've built their careers by taking on tough jobs, pushing through biases and challenging the status quo, proving that resilience and determination are just as critical as technical skills. We'll also talk about how we can move beyond simply getting more women into cybersecurity and focus on keeping them, supporting them and empowering them. I'm incredibly proud and grateful to be part of this discussion, and I hope it inspires all of us, men and women alike, to create a stronger and more inclusive cybersecurity community. Let's get into it. Aparna, Emma, Sumi, Welcome to The Segment. So before we sort of get into the conversation, it would be lovely to hear briefly from each of you about your backgrounds and how you got to what you're doing today. So Emma, why don't we start with you?

Emma  01:12

Yeah, I guess I fell into cybersecurity kind of accidentally. I grew up thinking I wanted to be a lawyer, and then I discovered it wasn't exciting enough for me, and fortunately, I had an IT teacher, technology teacher at school, who suggested maybe I tried to look at something that combines them. And he suggested going down the route of cybersecurity, or computed security, as it was when I was at university, and I've sort of fallen into it since then. So I came from university and was lucky enough to get into industry. I think I've been in cybersecurity about seven or eight years now.  

Raghu N  01:43

Amazing. I hope you you've fallen in love with it as well.  

Emma  01:47

Definitely, yeah. And I think that love grows year on year, day on day, month on month, whatever, however we want to look at it.  

Raghu N  01:52

Amazing. Oh, great to have you here, Emma. Aparna?  

Aparna  01:55

My journey starts from being a student of pharmaceuticals and pharmacy. Then came to this country and 9/11 happened, very tragic. And the H-1B the sponsoring was closed back then, so I had to quickly pivot to anything technology, because that's where the opportunities at that time were, and that's where the sponsoring was. So this was driven by necessity more than anything else. So I landed into technology. Had no clue what it was, because I never studied math or computers after a certain point, and struggled my way through in the first because I couldn't code to save my life. So did that. Then started to going through the motion of learning, which is technology being a production support analyst and slowly doing PMO, BMO, getting a lot of SDLC portfolio under my belt. And then, like Emma, seven years ago, I had the opportunity to join the InfoSec organization as an Operations Manager. That operations role required me to be 24/7. So I had gone from being a production support analyst to being a project manager to being an engagement manager, and then going back to what I love the most: solving problems and sleeping well at night. And once I got into InfoSec operations, I started building great teams, engineering teams, infrastructure, endpoint and cloud protection teams, and that's how I got into cyber. And this is where I probably might retire.  

Raghu 03:29

Love the story, Aparna. Sumi, what about you?  

Sumi 03:31

Fantastic. I love the journeys. I came to U.S. as an immigrant, just like Aparna shared. I do have a background in computer science engineering. So I worked in different storage, networking, cloud computing, SDN. I pivoted from engineering jobs into technical sales. Then I stumbled across Illumio for the eight plus years I've been here. I lead the systems engineering team for U.S., Central and Latin America. That's my journey. And happy to be here.

Raghu N  04:00

Fantastic. And I thank you so much all for sharing that. Because I think just the what it encompasses is just sort of the diverse, really backgrounds that you've all sort of come from that have led you down the rabbit hole that is cybersecurity, right? The loss to the pharmaceutical industry, the loss to the legal profession, and I guess, Sumi, in your case, you've stayed very much in computer science, but moved and cybersecurity is, of course, cybers gain. And Emma, you mentioned something about getting excited about cyber. So what makes cyber so exciting, and why should anyone listening to this think beyond just it's how I keep my login to my Facebook or Insta secure, right? How do you make how do we make this exciting?  

Emma  04:42

I think, from my point of view, no two days are the same, which is what keeps me excited about the job. I never know what I am logging into. And I think there's just so many different avenues that you can take in cybersecurity. I think that's part of the reason not as many people get into cyber as it'd be nice to see, they don't realize the breadth of the jobs there are in the world of cyber, there's there's that impression you see the people on telly in a black hoodie sat in a dark room hacking away at a computer. But that's not, in fact, that's not, 90% of cyber isn't like that. I think that's part of what it is, and it's also taking people on that journey. I think people are still a massive part of it. For me, I'm definitely not the typical cyber geek. I like being around people and taking them on that cybersecurity journey with me.  

Raghu N  05:26

Awesome. Sumi, anything to add to how do we make this exciting as a profession?  

Sumi  05:31

Well, there's always demand for cyber professionals, right? Especially in these times. And it's a noble cause you are, whatever you do, how much or little or big you do the noble cause to protect sensitive data, protect people's information, reputation, trust, and to keep the businesses running, right? And that's exciting?

Raghu N  05:51

Yeah, absolutely. So Aparna, I'm actually going to pose a different question. You said something about how you love like solving problems, right? And that's something that that cyber that your current role, gives you plenty of opportunities to do. So can you talk about a challenging problem or a challenging role that you essentially just dive head first into and made a success out of?

Aparna  06:16

Absolutely so I want to add a little element on how I was a cybersecurity professional even before I was professionally a cybersecurity professional. I have an 80 plus year old mother who's worse than any of your teenagers that you probably have at home. So having to safeguard all the clicks that she does on her iPad, having in or spending enormous time on the iPad, I was already doing cybersecurity, making sure the controls are in place and making sure that our personal information is not going out because of her and because her lack of knowledge. So the coaching started there. When I joined cybersecurity, I was an operations manager and always had an operational spend of mine, which is how to get business doing what they do. How can they effortlessly, without any hindrance, manage the business. In my mind, when I joined that role, cybersecurity, more the cybersecurity more the inconvenience. That hasn't changed even today, but I think the head first problem that I solved was how to balance the operational risk with the cybersecurity risk, sometimes we have to do trade offs in order to perhaps let business do what they do while making sure we have mitigating controls in place, even though we need to have something strong preventing them from doing because it could lead to potential consequences. I cannot really talk about the details of the project or the effort, but it often happens, let's talk Illumio right. It often happens that folks would want to move laterally in the environment without any inhibition. They do not want to be told how to control that app to app traffic. But then we all know why that is most necessary. To have this implementation in place, I mean, you know this microsegmentation, restricting this lateral movement, let's say, from one life cycle to another, that was a huge endeavor because it involved readiness. Folks were not willing to learn about the goodness that comes out of it, and the scalability of moving it across the environment, across the enterprise, that is tremendous. And then the issues that come from lack of because, let's say tools behave, Illumio behaves exactly the way we tell it to. But for lack of use cases, for lack of data, during that long period that we have, there is so much growth and the pivoting that we will have to do. So that was a huge project, because overnight, we had to quickly learn on how to manage the tool effectively, how to make sure the enterprise is on board, how to make sure the issues are resolved in time that we are not violating any responses to resolution time. So much had to happen at the same time, and that was tremendous learning. So with great crises come great learning and great success.  

Raghu N  09:16

Amazing. So actually, Emma, I want you to comment on something that Aparna said, right? And I'm, I should have written this down when she said it, because I thought she expressed it great. It was about more security results in more friction, right? And she said that's a constant mentality has existed. It's something that we need to constantly address. So how do you approach addressing that problem in your in your role today? Like, how do you kind of, I don't like this term, like this very cliche, like security as an enabler, but how do you create that story?

Emma  09:47

Yeah, so I think from fairly early in my career in cybersecurity, I had a different take on it, which was, ​​cybersecurity should wrap around the business, so it's not a hindrance to the business, but it sort of puts the business in a bubble. A nice, secure, protective bubble, and then within that bubble, the business can run as as it needs to, as it wants to. But I think to get to that point, there's a lot of relationships need to be built, so reaching out to the business and actually understanding what their requirements are. There's often a miss and a disconnect between security and the business, but most of that can be sold through a conversation, not by the business assuming what security want to do, or security assuming what the business want to do. It needs that collaboration and that constant collaboration to go on the journey to ensuring that you've got that secure way of working.  

Raghu N  10:35

Yeah, absolutely. And do you think that that's become being able to bring people on that journey? Has that become easier?

Emma  10:41

I think in some respects, it has. I think security is becoming a bigger part of day to day life. Things like social media need and 2FA on it, personal email accounts being hacked. I think as people live through these things, they start to realize that the things we've been talking about all these years do actually happen. I think the real world examples bring it home to a lot of people that actually we need to be security aware, we need to be security conscious. And as a result of that, those conversations seem to flow more easily, and the businesses are often more willing to engage with you, to actually say, “We've got this project, we've got these concerns. Can you help us?” I think when the businesses are willing to engage with you directly, rather than having to go out and pull information out of the business, it's always a positive step forward.  

Raghu N  11:27

Yeah,absolutely. And Sumi, right, you've been in security sales now for a while, and I think you've seen that change from it being a very technical sale to it being much more of a business outcome driven sale. So how do you apply that in your role, right? How do you understand the types of problems the likes of Emma, Aparna are trying to solve and provide everything from that perspective.  

Sumi  11:53

Absolutely, great things, Raghu. What I heard from Aparna and Emma, right, is very applicable in my role too. Especially in security and the challenges we deal with cross team collaboration is so important, right? Because you need to build your allies while you're rolling out a security strategy, because it does just does not touch your team and your immediate team. And even when say, Illumio is a vendor for organization like yours, we see the most successful projects where we have the allies in network ops, security ops, right, infrastructure. So you do need to build your allies. And when you're rolling out a security strategy, everybody's buying is required. And that's where I see the most successful projects. Even when you see from a technical sales perspective, that's how we engage too, right? It's not just a one person saying the project will not progress.

Raghu N  12:44

You use the word allies. So I think that that's a great word to sort of use, to sort of move to the next part of the conversation. Is that, as three of you have kind of like been progressing in your careers, how important has it been to establish key allies in order for you to get the opportunities that that you've been given? Has that been a struggle, or has it been something that you've been sort of fortunate to have the right people around to sort of help build your career with little friction? Aparna, I'll go to you first.  

Aparna  13:19

Yeah. So like Sumi said, ​     ​having these allies and actually shift left mentality, like sometimes in security, what we do is we do what's good for security. We bring the products in, and we fail to communicate with our key stakeholders, especially the business, the non-technical folks, who actually are impacted by these regardless of the technical affiliation, and we kind of forget them and give them a seat at the end of the table. So it was very pivotal, early on, learning how important it is to bring them all together for a collaborative decision, doing a proof of concept to establish that trust, even before a grand purchase may happen. Right? So it was very important, and I have been fortunate to have had the chance to, I'm going to use the word “pivot” in the situation where we quickly recognized what we could do better. And gain that allyship and get people together to come up with a very solidified reaction and response to the tools and the technologies what we are bringing in, so that it becomes so once the knowledge is imparted and everybody has their buy in, no matter how many difficulties we have, it becomes rather easy to roll it out. And when issues happen, I'm not standing there with my 24/7 team, but I have everybody from business saying, “Well, how can we do it? How can we help you with shakeouts? How can we help you do this better?” And feedback is a gift, so receiving that, having that cadence to continually get feedback is, I think, one of the most beautiful things of having that allyship within the organization.  

Raghu N  15:03

Absolutely So Emma, taking that same word allies, but applying it around, sort of like professional and personal development. How important has that been for you?  

Emma  15:12

Yeah, I think I've been lucky throughout my career that a lot of my allies have also been my mentors, and they form that dual purpose role in supporting me to be the best I can be, and pushing me, but also teaching me and enhancing my career. From that perspective, I think in every job I've been in, I have had at least two mentors or allies in each role. Now they've not always been from the world of cybersecurity or even the world of technology, invite some of my the best mentors I've had have actually come from the wider business, because they've helped me to understand how that concept of engaging with the business, and how you don't have to go on that journey on your own. And I still, from the start of my career, I still talk to my mentors and my allies from back then, and if I have a moment of self doubt, their there to push me on and drive me forwards and almost then my champions, my cheerleaders when I need them. And I think I wouldn't be where I am today without them.

Raghu N  16:12

That's amazing, and just realized. Thanks, Mindy, exec producer of this podcast, who's just let me know that actually today, the day we're recording for listeners, it's National Women in Tech Day, so complete coincidence, like complete chance. But I think also extending this, the allies thing that we're that we're focusing on Sumi as a woman in tech, like, how essential or important has that been for you to be able to progress your career? Or putting it a different way, is that, do you feel that you've probably needed allyship more than your male peers in order to be successful?  

Sumi  16:50

I’ve not thought about it that way. Raghu and I think all of us the way we are, we make friends. We make friends with our coworkers, and some people are very encouraging. We kind of do that without making it a formal mentorship. But having a mentor, whether directly in your domain or outside, whether it is a female or a male mentor, is very important, because when they give you that positive feedback, your confidence goes up so much. And also when they give you feedback, critical feedback, you do grow from it. Receiving it from a person is very important, and if you are not open to it, you do have feedback. How much we grow from it may be limited, right? Having mentors. And actually, I've mentored some women, and I think I grew from that experience more than them. And it's a very positive, healthy thing to do, and like Emma was saying, a lot of my mentors became my sponsors, and they're my allies, right? So when I do go into a meeting, people do laugh, I get it done faster. It's because you already know the teams, and you communicate with them. And if it is a challenging or a difficult conversation, you kind of explain why, and they get you because they already know you your personality and how you're thinking. So it's very important, especially for me, to get my job done. I think I've been here long enough, but I did make my allies. It's very, very important makes work pleasant.  

​​​Raghu N  18:15

Yeah, absolutely. So you talked about sort of getting feedback, right? And there's data points around, sort of the nature of feedback that women get versus what men get, right, and particular terms that are used around sort of too passive, too aggressive, too pushy, etc. That that are very, sort of often seen as, like stereotypical feedback that women gets, because just we're talking about that feedback. Have any of you sort of experienced that type of feedback, which is very kind of like, can be seen as sexist and and how do you kind of take that and turn it into a strength to ensure that that also doesn't happen again, like there's no room for that type of feedback again?

Emma  18:59

Yeah, I guess I'm not directly being labeled as too pushy or too loud or anything like that, but I think I've probably been on the periphery of it more than being directly labeled. But for me, when someone puts a blocker in my way or something, it's a challenge to me to learn, to grow, to take on board what they've said, but not take on board exactly what they've said. Sort of try and twist it into something positive and then understand how I can redirect that and use it to build my work persona and how I interact with other individuals. I think the one negative is it often makes you more cautious then of that person that gave you that feedback. You're not quite sure how to react around them. But that's when I fall back on my allies and my mentors. That's when I go back to them and say, “this has happened,” and then sort of walk it through, discuss it through, and plan out that that next stage of action. I think that's why having that supportive network around you is so important to help you grow and develop your career and also as a person then.

Raghu N  20:01

Yeah, absolutely. I think that's really how do you ensure that that type of feedback, which is often comes from a very uninformed and biased, sort of driven place. How do you ensure that it doesn't affect the authentic you, right? And that so that you're not held back in your in your ability to progress up burnout thoughts?  

Aparna  20:20

Yeah, so like I said, feedback is a gift, but not all feedback, like Emma said, is tangible. So early on when I was taking feedback, because it was very critical for my growth, I took on everything. And I realized pretty much after 10 or 12 years of receiving continual feedback, some is unintentional feedback, or what you call benign feedback, that you cannot turn into anything tangible. It is said for the sake of saying. So, I learned to parse out that benign feedback and take only that I'm able to convert into something tangible. And folks will give you feedback. They are excited. They want to help, and you cannot prevent them from giving that feedback. I know this is a professional podcast, but sometimes you know husbands, spouses, they want to provide feedback on how you dress, but it's not really tangible. So my husband goes, “Do you have to wear that?” So if you listen to that, there's nothing tangible about it. So things like that, we will need to learn to parse out and take something that works for us.  

Raghu N  21:31

It makes me think about, sort of whenever my wife asks me for feedback about anything, about how I've very carefully choose the words that I use. Sumi, thoughts.  

Sumi  21:41

Now, some great conversations flowing here. When you asked about labels, I was just thinking about this funny story. First of all, I don't know how I'm labeled, to be honest, because there's a perspective of how I see myself. I think I'm very approachable and very sweet, like that's how I always thought about myself. And then I was sitting with a coworker in Sunnyvale, and we were having coffee, and we finally caught up, and we had a lot in common. And like, “Oh my god, you're so cool. I thought you were such a…” I'm like, “Really, did I ever come across like that?” And we laughed about it, and I came back, and one of my favorite coworkers and friend, I was telling her the story, and I’m like, “Didn't you know that that's how they thought about her?” She's like, “Yeah, you're kind of intense at work.” No. And I'm like, “I didn't know they think of me that way.” It's not necessarily a bad thing or not, but it's good to kind of know, and you'll only know when you ask. So that was always for me, right? Like I need to go ask them. Doesn't mean you have to change anything about it, but if you do want to moderate it, or do you care about somebody's opinion, if it helps you in a certain way, as you advance your career or something, pay attention to it, right? So feedback is important. I don't really care about labels. You know, they laugh about it. If you do the same thing, they say this. If the other person does the same thing, it's a different thing. So there are gender biases, but approach with grace, with empathy, still being a very strong leader,

Raghu N  23:05

That's fantastic, actually, you use the term gender biases, right? And one of the many reasons that women are put off a career in tech and in cyber because of that strong perception of gender bias, right, still persisting within the industry. But also on the flip side that women who do come and take up a career in cyber end up then getting labeled right as sort of, oh, right, that kind of, what a geek, nerd, etc., right? And it's sort of this sort of very like, I guess, like corner of society. And I think it comes back Emma to the conversation right at the beginning is, is that, how do we dispel these biases? Right, to ensure that this becomes an exciting option, right? I mean, the work is exciting. We all know that, but it's also it needs to be exciting from a personal perspective, right? Because otherwise, it's there's no fun in it at all. So how do we get rid of those biases? What needs to happen, Emma?  

Emma  24:11

So, I guess I started to try and make my own middle inroads into it. So I've been lucky enough to go back to my old secondary school and talk to girls that are at least 13 to 15 about cybersecurity. And you find when you start talking to them, they all glaze over. They start talking to their friends. They've got their interest. Why are we sat here type thing. But then I start bringing in the real-world examples around who enjoys art, or who enjoys that, doing maths, who can get their homework in on time, type of thing. And when you realize that actually those things that they enjoy doing and they can do well translate into a career opportunity, you sort of see this light bulb go on where, oh, okay, if I enjoy art, there's a graphic designer for me, or if I can stick to my deadlines and get all my homework in, it could be a project manager. And it's opening these doors that they don't necessarily realize are there. And I think also by doing that, you make yourself visible as a as a female in time, as a female in tech, giving them something that that looks like them, someone that looks like them that is often quite missing from a lot of the dramas you see on TV and stories you read in the news. There's that missing element and that missing link that actually lets them realize they can be there too. They can do it. I think it's just a lot of it is visibility and that conversation that you need to have with them, to encourage and promote that opportunity. And you say, try and get across the excitement that comes with the career.

Raghu N  25:46

Yeah, absolutely, the excitement. And also, I think it's an important point you made about the portrayal of, let's say, women in tech, women in cyber, in media and entertainment, right? It's always kind of, oh, like the geek, right? That sort of, like, it's almost kind of, and I definitely not sort of stereotyping, but clearly I'm about to, it's the kind of when you go to when you imagine DEF CON, but the original DEF CON, and sort of those who attended that, now it's a corporate event, but hey. Aparna, following on from that, how do we dispel these biases, these stereotypes? Because that's such a big hurdle. Like the hurdle is we have a hurdle of getting people in, and then we have the hurdle of how we treat and develop them, right? And those are both massive reasons why people say, “I don't want to do this.”

Aparna  26:39

Yep. So first of all, we have the rare privilege of being the point 3% I believe there is metric to support that too, but also not everything is translated into a bias, if you have to see how extroversion into version placing to effect here. Folks like me, who are extroverted, outgoing, have no filters, often are not bias centric, right? But we are something called personality penalty, and I definitely wanted to broach that topic here. So let's say if my counterparts are aggressive, they're aggressive for a good cause. But if I am aggressive, it becomes, I'm penalized with that personality trait. And said she's arrogant. I think some of you broached on that topic, when someone assumed how you were, and they quickly changed that after they met you. So when we coach talent, when we bring in the talent, the first thing is to help them understand on the perception, on how perceptions become reality, and how to navigate through those perceptions. And especially, all we have to realize is that you need that one person who believes you can do the next the job at the next level. You don't need an army. You need a strong support. But all it takes is that one person, but also all it takes is that one person to give out that negative perception about who you are and saying, “oh my gosh, she's so hot to work with” that itself will have a massive impact on women leaders or women tacticians than other people. So our goal is to not point blank, take the biases, take the stereotypes and put everybody in those buckets. That is not how we do it now, especially with changing times. We will have to develop a customized approach on how to navigate based on each person's ability to perform things and deliver. And that itself is a study, or maybe in the future, will become an art. But I think we have graduated and progressed both positively and negatively, and we have to take control on things that we previously were unable to. So that is how I would build this talent pipeline, how I would help them with what I call the power skills, previously known as soft skills, but no more. So how to develop those power skills?  

Raghu N  29:04

Awesome, so assuming I want to connect to something that said around allies, right? So how do you choose the right allies? Like, ​​how do you identify those?

Sumi  29:18

You cannot pick and choose one person and say, I'll build an ally with them, right? It has to be a personality match. Usually be open to talk more and build a relationship with everybody. It does not work with everybody. You have to be opportunistic with few people you click. And then invest time. Anything is we have to invest time and invest in active collaboration and communication. Right seek feedback, give feedback, spend quality time, and over time, you build your allies. But it has to be an investment, whether they're directly in your teams or other teams. Did I answer the question?  

Raghu N  29:57

Yeah, absolutely. It's not an outset, it's a contribution. Into the into the conversation. So, yeah, absolutely.

Sumi  30:01

And sometimes, if you kind of become their sponsor, when you know them, and you kind of bring them into projects, otherwise they wouldn't be part of right? And those are growth opportunities. Some are challenges that you're inviting them to be a part of. And that's how you can, you know, rising tide lifts our boats, right? It's not just you and your personal growth, but you build a network in your village, and everybody learns and grows.

Raghu N  30:26

Agreed, so question, and I'd like to ask this question, and it, I don't know if it's sort of inappropriate or or controversial. But as a woman in cyber and I'll come to each of you, because I'd like each of your opinion on this, and we're talking about allies, is it possible to be successful as a woman in cyber without your strongest ally being a male colleague? So Emma, I'll go to you first.  

Emma  30:51

I think it is, and I say that is, I have got a couple of very strong female allies. However, I think a lot of my success is down to their strengths. Now they are both very strong women who are further ahead in their career than I am, and they have been through a lot of what I'm going through, that they've lived through it and worked through it. And I think for that reason, it is possible. But I think whoever it is you have as an ally, they need to be strong and determined and there to support whenever. That being said, I do also have some very strong male allies in my network. But also then now, as I get further through my career, they're not necessarily the first people I turn to. It's more the female network that I reach out to, and those allies that I have that I rely on.  

Raghu N  31:38

amazing Ebola.

Aparna  31:40

Sorry, I agree with Emma, but I do not have a real life example where I've had a strong women sponsor or an ally all my life. It has been a male mentor, a male sponsor and male allies. Very few women, probably because of where I am located and how many folks are in the same industry as I am, or in the same function as I am. So I would love to have a female, a woman ally and a sponsor, and I hope I am one, because I didn't have one. But it has been an amazing blessing to have male sponsors. Male sponsors, in powerful roles, in impactful roles. But again, even though my mom is not a cybersecurity expert, and it might sound cliche to say that she inspires and she supports, she has been one of my biggest sponsors. Someone who taught me how to market yourself, someone who taught me how to golf and going to places where there's very little women presence. And I think that is very important, right? Once you eliminate who it is, I think we capitalize on the what and how it is coming to you.  

Raghu N  32:56

Yeah, absolutely. Sumi?

Sumi  32:58

That's great. I've been the only SE on my team for 20 years now, multiple companies, but we hired SEs. You know, SEs been solo SE leader, so I cannot say I have that many women allies. I do like mentors, not in a formal way, but I was blessed to have some really strong allies and mentors my whole career. And it does matter, right? So if you look at the exec level, who need to sponsor you for your career advancements or projects, it doesn't always have to be a promotion or title, but you do need them. And you do need to build your allies. And it happens to be, it is a very what is it? We are 3% of the population, so we do need that strong male allies and support. But you know what I'll tell upcoming the young, budding cyber professionals is surround yourself with a very strong woman network like I have, my mentors, my best friends. They call themselves the guest thieves, strong women, be it anything, whether it is cyber, how we raise work life balance, how we raise our kids, be surrounded with strong women. And it changes everything about how you live and how you drive yourself.  

Raghu N  34:11

Yeah, I think that's a really important point. And I think that that absolutely applies with sort of, obviously, women in cyber, women in tech, women in careers. But also just generally, when about sort of, how do we improve that DEI balance, right? And the need that, the importance of giving back into that community that we have, that we've essentially taken, taken from, right? Because that's, that's the only way, otherwise, it's a case of, oh, yeah, I wanted to benefit from all that. But now I'm not giving back into it. So I'm really kind of part of part of the problem. So I think that's a really important point you raised there. So me, So Emma, coming back to you, is that, for those who are in so women in cyber, right, what would be your advice to them?

Emma  34:54

I think it goes back to what we've been saying just now, is to reach out and build. Build that network. We're fortunate now that there are organizations and groups out there that actually offer that support network. It's almost a pre-built support network, women in cybersecurity, that's now an international group. That gives you that, that bedrock of strong women in cyber that are willing to champion and mentor you. And it's then looking wider than that, to build your business network as well. So within the organization you work, I guess the underlying message is really to network and build a strong network.

Raghu N  35:32

Yeah, absolutely. Aparna?

Aparna  35:35

So, I agree with everything that Emma said, and I would like to add this, right? We will need to create an edge for ourselves and do things that the normal population wouldn't do, like take on jobs that are less sought after. Like, for example, nobody wants to do my operations job. Nobody wants to lead a 24/7 team, because they would like to have a nine to five. And so create that edge in doing things that others don't want to do. Sounds very conniving, but I think that's what I would always tell people as to in order to be noticed, you have to be different. So however you create that difference in a very positive and trying to build your brand that is progressive and helps you move forward, failing forward. Never. If you have to fall on your face, you fall right on your face in forward, just start backwards. So no matter how hard it is, take the time to recalibrate and up your game, get those new certifications, whatever it is, because all we have to do is to keep moving, and that is the strength that we can derive only from ourselves. People like us, as mentors, can say whatever we can say, and there's nothing new, probably at this time, that we could offer, but that validation is very important. And I think that's where we provide the difference if we are helping out someone, because we are not here all by ourselves, someone helped us to get here. And paying it forward means we tell people how not to fail based on our own failures, telling them how not to repeat the same mistakes that we made. See how it applies to their own and create that success criteria for themselves.

​​​​​Raghu N  37:20

So I kind of want to, like, as we, as we get to the end, right? I want to go around to each of you and ask you two questions. The first question is, is that if you were to make that call out to everyone, to the to the audience, to the world, please stop doing this one thing, it will have a big benefit to how to this being a much more appealing career for women, what would that be? That's A. The second thing would be to end on like a positive note, is, what is the ask? What is the hope? Right? What, what really inspires you and excites you about the role of women in cyber as we go forward? Right? Right? So, so we're going to do sort of that. The Hey, please stop this, because it's right. It's really making it hard, right? What? Like, however you want to phrase it. And then we'll go around and say, This is why I'm excited. Make sense? Yes, all right, so Sumi, we'll go with you first.

Sumi  38:17

Stop holding yourself back. That's what I would say, lean in. Whether it's a difficult conversation challenge, lean in. You may not do a fantastic job in, like, get go, but you will be more confident and you'll be more efficient, and it becomes a habit. And that's what puts you aside, and you will move forward right? Again. The basics of how you want to build a successful career is, you know, knowledge and expertise, nothing can outpace that. But, build your network, right? And be a self advocate. You have to advocate for yourself. That's when you advocate for your teams and evangelize their success, and you build a culture of that, right? And that's how we move forward. So lean in. Don't hold yourself back. Trust yourself.  

Raghu N  39:08

Yeah, we'll come back to that. So don't hold yourself back. That's the bit like, please don't hold yourself back, right? Aparna, over to you. Like, what's the thing that you want everyone to stop doing?

Aparna  39:18

​​          ​The one thing that I want everyone to stop doing, especially women, is to stop apologizing for doing the right thing. Stop saying “sorry” for saying the right thing. Oh, sorry, I'm late. Yeah. So what? Everybody is late sales. Stop saying sorry. “Oh, I apologize. Can I please have that? Can you please repeat that?” Just say, “Can you please repeat that?” So I think even though I've talked about minutia just now with examples, I think the in the larger scheme of things, women like Sumi said stop. They hold back, but also they are often very apologetic of who they are. So own yourself. Be brave and do the right thing.  

Emma  40:03

I think for me, it's about don't expect perfection, and that comes from both sides. So don't look at a job and expect to be able to take every single requirement on that list. Don't expect to succeed at every project. As a partner said, fail forwards. Don't see it as a setback. But also from the businesses. Don't expect those candidates to fit every single box. Look at the bigger picture. Are they a good fit for your team? Do they fit like missing element, and will they take a different approach to your wider business to give you that fully rounded perspective that you need to succeed.

Raghu N  40:42

Yeah, absolutely. So with that, what are we what are we all excited about? Emma, I'll start with you, right? What are you excited about? You look at the future, future of for women in cyber, women in tech, right, what excites you?

Emma  40:54

​​​So I want to draw a parallel, and that's a parallel between women in tech and women's rugby. If you look back at women's rugby 20 years ago, it was unseen. It was played behind closed doors. There was no audience. You look at the the Women's World Cup this year, we're breaking records with that game. There's going to be the biggest audience ever at the final later this year. And I think women in tech are on that same journey. We're not behind closed doors anymore, we're not shut away, but we need to carry on and keep driving till we are on that world stage.

Raghu N  41:31

I love that, right? I think just, I just women's sport, women's team sport, in particular, over the last decade, every sport is just like the excitement and the interest has just gone through the roof. And no doubt, right as a result, and I think this holds for tech, is that that draws the investment to then improve the skill, excite more people like that sort of the pipeline increases. And suddenly you don't, you're not looking over saying, “Oh my God, is anyone interested?” It's more like we've got too many people interested, right? That's I love, I love that. I love that. Aparna?

Aparna  42:08

I'm going to be a little poetic, right? ​​As a woman in cyber, I'm not just securing systems, I'm shattering the ceilings. I'm not just fighting threats. I'm redefining power with every firewall I build. I'm breaking stereotypes, and I'm not just protecting data, I'm rewriting the narrative. And when I walk into rooms where there are few women, I own the code and I own the room.  

Raghu N  42:32

I think we might steal that and just you might see it on our website soon. So we, Emma and Aparna, have really kind of sort of set their standard of their analogies. So we're expecting something truly exceptional from you now here. What are you excited about?  

Sumi  42:46

Seeing women like this, Raghu! Yesterday, my daughter was like, “I don't want to be a doctor, I want to be cybersecurity.” She's little, right? And I'm like, “Go for it, girl, we need people like you.” She's fierce.

Raghu N  43:00

Can your daughter talk to my daughter? Because she just says, “Dad, you just put people to sleep.”

Sumi  43:07

Looking forward to working with more strong women leaders like you in cyber there's a lot of opportunity. There's not as much awareness. Still, people think cybersecurity is like a hacker sitting in a room. A lot of people don't understand what I do, right? We still have all kinds of roles and personalities required in this whole cyber warfare.  

Raghu N  43:28

Awesome. Well, I can't think of a better way than to sort of just wrap this up than by ending on those three fantastic, exciting sort of ideas about why we should all be so looking forward to the increased role of women in cyber and women in tech. So with that, Emma Aparna, Sumi, thank you so much. I'm so grateful for you all to be accepting this invitation to be on the podcast and truly appreciate everything that that you do in this in this field. Thank you.  

Sumi  44:04

Emma, Aparna, thank you. I learned a lot. So it's fantastic talking to both of you. The honor is all mine.

Emma 44:13

I think we found two new allies each.

Raghu N  44:18

Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of the segment for even more information and zero trust resources. Check out our website at illumio.com. You can also connect with us on LinkedIn and Twitter at Illumio, and if you like today's conversation, you can find our other episodes wherever you get your podcasts. I'm your host, Raghu Nandakumara, and we'll be back soon.

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