Tell us about your journey as a Woman in tech. How did you get started, and what motivated you to pursue a career in tech?
When I finished at the University of Portsmouth back in 2014 with my English and Creative Writing degree, I wasn’t sure what to do next or where to turn. I was working in White Goods Insurance when I was headhunted for a Personal Assistant role at Secureworks.
On joining Secureworks I instantly saw the depth and breadth of opportunity for me in cyber. My initial role was focussed on supporting the EMEA Managing Director, helping him keep on top of his diary, organising travel and meeting rooms. But through this I was exposed to so many areas of the business, so many thought leaders and role varieties, but all held by people from different backgrounds with different skillsets. This inspired me and helped me see that I too could have a role in cybersecurity, but that had to be driven by me and my aspirations. So I began to study cyber topics that inspired me, explored what really made me tick, got myself a mentor and held on for the ride!
I moved from the Personal Assistant role, into Change Management and Coordination. This role was focussed around business process and the project management of adversarial and Incident Response efforts. From here I moved into Incident Command as their first Knowledge Manager. This role was a real thrill but was not for the faint-hearted! I worked across 50 major customer incidents in 18 months, from ransomware to denial-of-service attacks. The hours were long, the knowledge gathered was interesting and at times overwhelming, but it was a role where I truly evolved and was able to make significant organisational changes and improvements to our data collect, processes and procedures. This was also where the importance of inclusion really started to glare into my role – The fact I was working with such a diverse group of individuals across the world on what was often their worst day, all with their own styles, backgrounds, belief systems, neurodiversity and potential adjustments. It was more important than ever that everyone was able to bring their full selves to ‘the fight’ and so I was really able to embrace accommodations and normalising the ‘diversity chat’ into my role.
I then was offered the chance of a lifetime, to join the Secureworks Counter Threat Unit™ (CTU). Since I began in the organisation, the CTU had always been a pipe dream, a ‘I could never do that’. But I can honestly say my tenacity, openness to learn and talk to anyone, and willingness to help, got me there more than any technical qualification or IT skillset. I leapt at the chance and so now have been Secureworks first Threat Intelligence Knowledge Manager for 18 months.
My role is ‘all things knowledge’- You can think about that from a threat intelligence perspective as anything that pertains to our intelligence gathering and understanding of ‘the threat’. I ensure we are ingesting, standardising, verifying and publishing critical indicators and intelligence. I am focussed heavily on ensuring our intelligence as well as supporting processes and procedures are searchable and accessible to the varying teams, tools and community members who require such important information. It is a role which brings me a lot of joy, allows me to learn consistently, but changes every single day – I am always on my toes. It is also the first role where I think I have been able to bring my entire authentic self to. My leader lets me do my thing, inspires me to work hard, but completely appreciates I am a female, a Mother and Wife, so the juggle for me is very real.
Share a pivotal moment or project that contributed to your success in the tech industry?
I would suggest I’ve appeared relatively successful for most of my career as I have always accomplished what I needed to, always had good ‘end-of-year’ reviews, progressed in roles well and done what my Leader expected and wanted of me. From an organisational perspective I appear to be successful.
The moment when I truly felt ‘successful’ happened in October 2023. I have always worked incredibly hard, I have always judged myself and pushed myself maybe harder than others to do well in my role and to make others feel empowered and happy. Moving into the CTU I felt I had reached the peak of my ‘cybersecurity mountain’ – As I said it had always been the ultimate dream. On seizing the opportunity I also decided to seize my moment to explore other parts of my capability that I had wanted to develop but never felt brave enough. This included mentorship, writing on diversity and inclusion topics, podcasts and public speaking.
I am so glad I seized that moment. I have met so many new incredible people, enjoyed all the public speaking opportunities, have enhanced my own personal brand. In October 2023, pushing myself in such a way saw me acknowledged in industry. I won my first ever award – The Unsung Heroes Award – Diversity Champion. This was my pivotal moment when everything just finally felt right.
Have you had any mentors who significantly influenced your career? How did they support your growth?
Get yourself a mentor! Mentors are sounding boards, perspective providers, connectors of dots and networking advocates. There are many charities and organisations out there that offer industry mentoring, which can be invaluable if you are considering a role or a pathway.
I have always had mentors, both internal and external to my organisation, and I would have been entirely lost without them. Every mentor has played a part in my life and choices at the particular time I have connected with them. Mentors for me have been very ‘Nanny McPhee’ with her quote resonating –
Mentor relationships can start a bit slow as you build up the relationship and open yourself to the guidance and support. You may not have often thought of the concepts or ideas your mentor stirs in you, you may hear things that make you question yourself or take different unexpected pathways. In time that trust grows, you become more and more comfortable and you may even reach that development milestone or role you were hoping for… your mentor supported you in getting there! That’s when the mentor relationship is morphing into a friendship and more often than not that’s also where you may not actually need that individual as a mentor anymore. Mentorship is an evolving, purpose-built relationship and it can be absolute magic!
Everyone I speak to I encourage to get a mentor. Hand on heart, it is worth putting yourself out there and establishing that relationship.
What have been some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced as a woman in tech, and how did you overcome them?
Still to this day, I struggle regularly with self-doubt. I have always been someone who wants to jump in and support, but always questioned ‘Am I the right person?’ and ‘Can I do this?’. I’m not sure where it comes from but I do know I am someone who needs reassurance and affirmation to know I am pleasing my leaders and organisation. As I said, this is still something I feel to this day, but I am embracing it and have spun the self-doubt to actually be that I care deeply for what I am doing, that the concerns and nervousness is just because I simply care that much. That helps me feel more at ease with it all.
The second challenge has really been more focused around my personal identity. I started in industry as a 24 year old single woman who was just living for the moment. Since then I found my husband, got married, had two children, all of which have affected my identity and what I want from my life. This really hit home for me after having my daughter, as I left as one person, and came back 6 months later as an entirely different human being. I had new expectations, new worries, new traumas, had to figure out what my life looked like now as a working Mum and someone accountable for a teeny weeny person’s survival! The only way I found to find peace was just to be totally honest with people I trusted. I spoke to my Leader, I talked things through with my mentor, I even got myself a Counsellor. If my support network didn’t know what was going through my mind and that I was struggling, how could I expect them to be having my back and helping me? Although it can be hard to lay it all out there, ‘a shared problem, is a problem halved’
“Fostering an open, clear, honest relationship with your leadership so they fundamentally know what matters to you and what you want is the best way to harness your personal development.”
Who are some other women in tech that you admire or have inspired you, and why?
I have been incredibly fortunate to meet lots of very inspiring individuals in technology so this is a challenging one!
The first person I want to call out is my friend and superwoman in cyber Emma Jones. Emma worked at Secureworks in Incident Response and was the first person to really make me feel brave enough to advocate for DE&I change. She would give anyone the time and space to talk, she challenged the status quo, she was a subject matter expert in Incident Response, she was making waves in industry to advocate for all underrepresented groups to have voices and platforms. She now works for CrowdStrike as a Principal Consultant in their Cyber Incident Response and Readiness team and my goodness are they lucky! She is just fabulous in every possible way.
My other aspirational role model is my CEO Wendy Thomas. Wendy is a gamechanger and gives me hope. Wendy leads our organisation, has worked incredibly hard to get to where she is, has had lots of experiences across the industry, and has done all this as a Mother and a Wife. She is also very normal (which might seem like an unusual thing to say), but she is always open to a catch up, cares about our families and has actually on several occasions advocated for me (which has also blown my mind!). I see myself in her, and I see that if I keep trying my best I can be a successful women in cyber too. The day she became CEO I cried, because it meant change had happened and that she was not only a positive role model for me, but for women everywhere.
How can companies and leaders foster a more inclusive and supportive environment for women in tech?
I have been asked this many times before and I think at the core is understanding what women ACTUALLY want. Organisations may attempt to sit down and create what they deem to be inclusive and supportive policies and procedures, they may think they have a wonderful culture and supportive leadership team. The question is have they actually created a space where they ask the females what inclusion and support looks like to them, and even more importantly a safe space where females can actually share and feed back on what they actually want!!
I typically break down inclusion and support mechanisms, particularly for under-represented groups into hiring, development and retainment. If we consider hiring as an organisation we need to simply think about the messaging we are putting out there. Are we giving back to the STEM community, do we demonstrate the right values, are we producing content right down to our job advertisements that appeal to the under-represented groups we so desperately want to hire?
When we consider development do we offer mentorship, do we offer equal opportunities, do we have supporting policies, procedures, technologies, structures for everyone to thrive! And finally retainment I really do think is where understanding what folks actually wants matters the most! For females in particular this can be a plethora of things ranging from healthcare and fertility support, through to flexible working, through to reasonable adjustments, through to cleaner, functional facilities. It really can be anything! Which is why organisations need to be having those conversations!
If we get to the route of ‘what women want’ in our own organisations and practices, we will find building inclusive and supportive environments an awful lot easier!
What strategies have you used to set clear career goals and create a roadmap for your professional development?
The best strategy I can offer is to be transparent. Fostering an open, clear, honest relationship with your leadership so they fundamentally know what matters to you and what you want is the best way to harness your personal development. Your Leader will know what you’re open to, what matters to you, what your boundaries are and could even keep a look out for new development opportunities for you!
Make sure with this in mind you get things written down and shared, that you keep both you and your Leader accountable to your development.
What are your top 3 pieces of advice for women striving to succeed in the tech industry?
You can do it! There is a space for you. It can be hard when you look at a technology organisation but cannot see anyone like you and so therefore aren’t sure to apply. But the fact is in industry we are there and we see you and we want you!
Dont get hung up on the need to be technical. Yes there are roles which require technical skillsets, but technology isn’t all coding and motherboards. As long as you are keen to learn and passionate, then there can be a place for you in Technology.
Get yourself a mentor! Find someone who inspires you, or leverage a free mentorship program such as that offered by Reed, and get that feedback and guidance which could be pivotal in your next career move.
