Women’s History Month at RiskLens: More Voices
For Women’s History Month, we are asking RiskLens staff members for their thoughts on the current status and outlook for women in the cybersecurity field and technology generally.
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Dipa Dey, SQL Database Administrator
What is the best lesson you’ve learned as a woman in cybersecurity/cyber risk?
I do believe from my heart that women are fully capable to lead the tech industries equally to men. To achieve this goal, I think family, education and support could play a vital role to build more confident women in tech companies. We need to ensure our young women get equal opportunity, love, and encouragement for learning to code, and providing resources at a young age. Families needs promote gender equality for young girls, starting early. Then girls will feel more empowered to explore and pursue careers in STEM.
What is the best advice you would like to share with other women in the industry?
I strongly recommend the tech industry hire more women and give them additional training, ensuring psychological safety and options for remote work opportunities. I have learned throughout my career that we must create a more equitable workplace by recruiting and retaining more women at different levels including leadership positions. This also always gives positive learning experiences to educate and encourage women to think of themselves as the next-generations of leaders in the tech industry, ready to solve the most fundamental issues in the future and enhance creativity.
Also, we need to conduct more workshops periodically to discuss the advancements in tech companies to promote gender equality. I am so proud to be a part of RiskLens because its culture embraces women’s voices and leadership which encourages me to achieve and contribute to society.
What are you doing to help “Embrace Equity” and further gender equality?
I encourage my community to be self-confident and emphasize that diversity can enhance problem-solving strategies and bring ideas and innovation to our society. I encourage women to improve digital literacy daily and be vigilant and effective in ways to raise voices. Finally, I believe that businesses grow faster when we involve more women of color in leadership positions.
Chad Weinman, Vice President, Customer Success
How would you assess the status of women in the tech field today? What are the main challenges or opportunities?
The tech industry would benefit from having more women. The field is still male-dominated and it’s rare to find a team that is female-majority. A challenge is when jobs are posted, the number of applicants still seem to be weighted towards men.
What needs to happen to truly advance women’s careers (and well-being and satisfaction) in the tech field moving on from here?
Progress can and will happen for those who are proactive and intentional when it comes to hiring and team-building. Diversity makes teams stronger and perform better. I hope organizations not only take this proactive approach in building teams but also supporting them. Women absolutely should be on equal footing when it comes to compensation and programs/efforts should be established to provide mentorship and advance them into leadership positions.
*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from RiskLens Resources authored by RiskLens Staff. Read the original post at: https://www.risklens.com/resource-center/womens-history-month-risklens
