At SafeGuard Cyber our mission is to safeguard human connections. The platform we have built empowers innovative companies to use digital communication tools in a secure and compliant way to get to the top or remain at the top of their industries.
We also believe that there is a need to increase the representation of women holding key cybersecurity roles. As a result, we have to have hard conversations and provide the support that will empower more women to contribute to the industry.
After all, there should be no place for gender-specific jobs in 2021. It is a fact that gender-diverse teams make better decisions than their all-male counterparts. On top of that, women-led teams achieve 12% higher revenue than male-led ones.
With that focus, I am excited to share that my peers at SafeGuard Cyber and I are launching the Vision & Voice: Women in Cybersecurity community. Our goal is to support the vision of leveling the playing field for women who would like to ascend in the cybersecurity industry. We will be focused on sharing stories, best practices, and tools that successful men and women use to communicate, learn, and advance. Our Voice is a tool, and how we use it is critically important.
"You need to not only anticipate change but assume that it is going to happen far faster than you could ever imagine," writes author and thought leader Paul B. Brown, a prominent critic of disproportionate deliberating. "And you also need to assume your competition is going to be moving far faster than you expect them to."
What does this mean? The answer is short and straightforward: there's no room at the top for those unwilling to bridge the gender gap in cybersecurity.
A report by (ISC)2 study states that women make up just 24 percent of the cybersecurity workforce. Even though the percentage of women in cybersecurity has increased since 2013 — when women represented just 11 percent of the industry workforce — there is clearly still much room for far greater representation of women.
Vision & Voice is a forum powered by SafeGuard Cyber that will acknowledge our successes, tell important stories about women in cybersecurity, and highlight the positive impact women are having. We will provide mentorship to those interested in the industry and, most importantly, share information, tools, and insights that we can use to move forward and realize our vision.
Our inaugural thought leadership event will be happening soon. In the meantime, we have launched the Vision & Voice LinkedIn Community, and hope that you will not only join, but also invite your contacts and take part in the important conversations that lie ahead.
This is intended to be an interactive community that will feature conversations with some of the most successful cybersecurity women, and I’d be thrilled if you are a part of it.
Podcast: Listen to the full podcast
on Vision & Voice: Women in Cybersecurity