Aarti Gadhia: Building Your Brand in Information Security

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[Music] happy thursday jambo namaste konichiwa bonjou and greetings to everyone so thank you for hanging in with me while we were trying to figure out technical difficulties here i can't share my slides but i will do it the old-fashioned way my name is rit gadia and today i'm going to cover an important topic on building your personal brand and information secure in information security over the next 40 minutes after i introduce myself further i'll share challenges individuals experience when building your brand there'll be some audience participation as i chatted earlier on and i shared a link for google forums please as we're going along please fill that form i'll then leverage the concept of the

golden circle which is why how and what and if you're not familiar with this concept there's a great ted talk as simon sinek explains it well this is all about starting with why building your brand is important i'll then share examples of how the site of cyber security professionals and how they've been building their brand and then i'll end it with five simple tips so a little bit about my safari this is where it goes into the next slide that's what the slide's supposed to look like right i don't know if it's mirroring it or not but if it isn't we'll figure it out um my network knows me as a change agent and my purpose is to be a voice and i've

dedicated my entire career to breaking down barriers and boundaries for underrepresented groups in stem and in leadership my passion is to create opportunities and change and how i've done this is through stand up to lead she's sharing her empowerment and we sis western canada newly formed affiliate here the impact has been phenomenal 30 women have already begun their board journey and i've seen a 50 percent in recruitment just within my own organization at buck crowd and i was honored for my contribution in the cyber security industry by being named as one of the top 20 women in canada and this inspired me to share my journey with a few tips in the book the rise of the cyber women volume 2.

i'm on the os board here in vancouver and i'm a board advisor at observe id and i'm proud to share that both boards have a fifty percent gender representing representation on the boards outside of fork i enjoy cooking and if you saw this picture me and my motorcycle there you can see the helmet i enjoy riding although the past couple of weeks my bike has been at the mechanic getting fixed so i haven't been able to ride the past two three weeks okay so my next slide is this i don't know if you can see it but anyways i'll hold it so we can get it a little bit closer there we go hopefully you can see it um it's going

gonna be the opposite maybe i don't know let's it's working good thanks adam for your encouragement so here we are let's try and understand the challenges and the obstacles why isn't everyone building their brand most individuals say they know the value but what's stopping you or what's stopping them right i ask my friends family work colleagues what their challenges and obstacles have been when building their brand and i received comments that i'll categorize it into six categories first is not enough time i don't i haven't thought about it i'm not sure of the value fear of negative criticism i don't know how to build one an impostor syndrome in the survey i don't see anyone select fear of

negative criticism however i did speak to a founder a few months ago just someone a reseller local to calgary actually him and i had a great conversation on this and he said for him it was fear of how a negative brand could affect his business which is his obstacle to building his brand and i can understand and i can relate to that statement another interesting point is that according to research it takes seven seconds to form first impression so of course me being me i decided to experiment this with my eight-year-old niece and i did an act of three different personas and in seven seconds she could tell me which individual she liked the best

so if you think about it in a job interview if the interviewer doesn't know you the first impression is critical you may not be aware but with every interaction you have with your network whether this is through a conversation or through social media or through project work you are building your personal brand in the interview phase if they knew your brand positive or negative that could influence how your interview goes and this is another reason on how fear can be an obstacle and as you'll see here from the survey i'll just read it out right 31 said in pasta syndrome and 37.5 said there wasn't enough time so those are the top two and 75 of those two categories

and the biggest tip that i'd like to share to you all is to recognize your obstacle and to overcome it i hear the time constraint as a challenge from so many individuals i used it many times and i realized i'm missing out on an opportunity and that's when i it got me to reflect and i'd like to highlight the importance of investing in yourself and i'll cover more details in this talk as one of the negative consequences and not investing time in building your brand could be a missed opportunity in my journey other things would always come in the way i actually started journaling and through that i realized how much time i spent on things that were not important

just writing things down and then realizing what's important and how much time is being wasted on that now i know getting started is probably the hardest part which is why i'm going to help you and that's why i've created a virtual exercise that will go through and that's why i love your participation all of you have been awesome at supporting me in the beginning has been trying to figure out how techno this this works right here we are on the talk but i'll repost the forum thanks josh see your notes so i'll repost this forum if you can all open it up right in the first question as you open up the forum the first question is to write

down your why think of it as your purpose so as i'm going through this exercise i'll walk you through and it's okay if you haven't thought about your purpose for me my safari of experiences led me to understand my purpose as i didn't want anyone else to experience the same roadblocks so my purpose is to be a voice and it became clearer over the years so connect your purpose to how it will better the world for example my purpose is connected to equality equity and inclusive workplaces and making this a better environment and then next i'd like you to write what you're passionate about think about when think about how you can achieve your purpose using your passion

as you start writing you may notice things that you didn't think about and then the third question in the google form is to write three adjectives that describe you for example tenacious ambitious focused determined open-minded inspiring reliable these are all just examples think about your three adjectives i went for a leadership conference a few years ago and that exercise they got us to do it beforehand and i reached out to 10 people in my network to share what they thought of me interestingly enough and i also sent it to family members i thought you know they would say different things but it was really interesting just with this exercise how family my network um and work colleagues

came up with similar adjectives that described me and many of us who struggle with imposter syndrome this is a great exercise and may help you see what you didn't see in yourself last part of the exercise is think about what you'd like to be known for and connect it back to your purpose so to help you with this exercise i'm going to share two examples just events and just any adjectives to start writing them down right so two examples this is where i'm going to go to the next slide

here we go this this is my next slide by the way i don't know if you can recognize who they are but you'll see um the with what's happening today so that's my first example with what's happening here these two are scientists ahead and tourism hopefully it's clear um they're known for the brains behind the world's first effective coronavirus vaccine pfizer reached out to them that is their brand if you read their story you'll understand that they're they were not focused on how to be famous or how to make money they wanted to provide something for society and that was their purpose for many years and they share the passion for cancer research it's interesting i read quite a

bit about them the second one let me get to the next slide oh there we go i probably can guess who they are right so everyone knows who they are anonymous group and i read an article that shared that the media is at a loss at how to describe them and one thing for sure that is clear is that their purpose is promoting freedom of speech in a way that they won't be able to do it anonymously they are a leaderless group and how they go about their message is anonymously in a coordinated manner where whenever you see that mask you know who they are so go back so you can see it again my slide there we go

and back to the golden circle let's try and understand the value here we go let's try and understand the value of and the importance of building your brand i love storytelling and i'll explain this through interviews with women in our industry and here you go here's my next slide so we'll let's start off hopefully you can still see it right so in the picture is alyssa miller many of you probably already know her she's currently the biso business information security officer for s p global ratings as i was interviewing alyssa she shared a story that made her realize the importance of building her brand and the impact it had to her safari a few years ago she applied for a

leadership position she knew she had all the qualifications for that leadership position unfortunately she didn't get that position and i know many of us can relate to that story through this experience she knew that she had to find a way to turn a no into an opportunity now alyssa was invited to speak at a conference where she was speaking right after karen elizari so the other picture there is karen and this was i actually remember speaking to or meeting karen back in 2018 i don't know if any of you attended the western canada information security conference in winnipeg that was the time when conferences were still you know like um you'd go there and meet everybody it was it in person

so um i got to meet her there and when she got on stage she introduced herself as a friendly hacker that was her first line in in her talk and karen if someone elsa has always looked up to and during the interview alyssa shared with me that she when that she saw that karen was not afraid of introducing herself as a hacker karen's ted talk inspired her audience why the world needs hackers to quote from an article she shared hackers and hacktivists helped create a better world by exposing vulnerabilities that pushed the internet to become stronger and healthier this inspired eliza to embrace her strength as a hacker alyssa's purpose is to improve all aspects of the security community

how she built her brand is through speaking engagements as she focused on her why she began to notice that her brand was opening up opportunities for her one speaking engagement led to another and her career progressed and when you hear alyssa miller or karen ilizarri's name it's not about what their title is it's not about whether they're an introvert extrovert it's not about what degree they have what you see is their brand which is built around their purpose and their passion so let's take a deeper look at the impact a brand can have for companies with a strong brand it means revenue growth innovation competition but what does it mean and what is the impact on people

okay so my next slide

there we go this is my next slide going to try and hold it up there so you can kind of see if you can see it hopefully it's not the opposite side but anyways um the first one is you're inspiring your audience even if one person gets inspired this will help you with your overall mission and ultimately making this a better world full of equal opportunities think about it karen inspired her audience on why the world needs good hackers there has been a lot of education awareness over the last few years and today movies have evolved they show how hackers are leveraged for good purposes you know years back it was hackers are bad but there was a lot of education

there and hackers are and now you know you see the good hackers and the bad hackers right second is it opens up opportunities for alyssa as you mentioned it opened up speaking engagements as she's been a key note speaker at many conferences and as you reflect on your brand on why your brand is important and you begin to build your brand it will open up opportunities for you and as you start seeing these opportunity one thing i'd like to share is keep remembering your why your what's your purpose as opportunities arise don't forget your purpose and keep it connected to that bigger cause and third at the same time speak up don't be afraid of the outcome

life is like a safari it will be a bumpy ride there will be many obstacles i don't know where this is going to take me but one thing for sure is that i can i hope to inspire you to find your purpose and fulfill your mission but do it in a way where you're not changing your values be you and be yourself stay authentic i think we were talking about that earlier on just in the networking session um adam you mentioned about the authentic side of what covet has brought us so this will help you be a voice for your audience and be the change it wasn't easy for alyssa and she faced many obstacles

it hasn't been easy for me either i know i could have decided to move to another industry but i didn't and as you take this opportunity to build your brand think about the positive impact they will have lastly to highlight the quote from jeff bezos which is on this slide your brand is what people so your brand is what people say about you when you're not in the room none of these women are in the room yet we all agree one thing which is their brand and their contribution to this industry to make it a better place okay so now i've explained why and highlighted the impact i'll explain how and i'll share an example

so here you'll be able to see you can probably recognize who these two women are right can you still see it by the way my screen well my phone screen yes thank you awesome so let's take a look at these two women hillary clinton and michelle obama both the first ladies serve at the white house and have taken different approaches to building their brand and how they built their brand is they're connecting to their audiences in a very unique way as part of hillary's campaign she used her first name just like you would call a friend that's how she connected to her audience michelle obama she used social media to reinvent the role of first lady and

appeal to a young audience you see her rapping on carpool karaoke she's dancing on the ellen show she's showing she is a mom right both of them didn't change who they are they didn't change their values and you don't need to have a corporate look you don't need to be the one that presents on stage and be to be visible you can build your brand through various different channels if you're passionate about research maybe a blog if you enjoy public speaking why not submit cfps like here at this conference b-sides if you enjoy video editing social media at work it can also be through your project work or a task like the two scientists right everyone knows who they

are think of ways of how you can share your passion and accomplish your purpose through various channels so let me give you three examples of three women in our industry who i've been watching over the last 12 months one of them is local here in canada too they're not famous and you may not know them but they have been building their brand and they're making an impact and bringing a positive change so first one here we go and there we go first one is if you can see her picture you'll be able to read the signing but i'll start reading out for you is confidence so through linkedin confidence and i connected and that's where i saw her

purpose which is to help the most vulnerable people and businesses in cyber be cyber aware and stay secure confidence share that her passion that her passion is educating her audience and she does this in a fun and jargon-free way by regularly creating content through music videos if you see her on linkedin and see her videos you'll probably understand where where i'm coming from and this has had a huge impact on her personal brand and created top of mind awareness in the minds of her target audiences and through this she has had multiple paid engagements it's made partnerships easier to secure but more importantly her followers are increasingly becoming more cyber security conscious it wasn't easy and a major challenge for

confidence was embracing her personality difference during her safari of experiences she stayed true to herself it took sitting in full awareness of self and relating her unconventional approach to things and realized this was a positive differentiator to connect with her audience to get the most impact so back to her video if you youtube her video like go to youtube and google her video no go fall maga you'll see that music video and so it's rapping in the music video is actually educating her audience about cyber hygiene and when i asked her how would you like to be known as when you're when you're not in the room and her answer was the woman who used all the tools in her arsenal to

help especially the most vulnerable people protect themselves from cyber attacks and her advice to building your brand is to learn to speak social media fluently and think of it as an enabling platform to attain your goals share about the work you're doing frequently network with like minds and genuinely seek to add value to yourself and the world discover who you are your cheat sheet could be feedback and leverage your strengths next i'd like to highlight is pharah here we go there we go so farah studied communication media studies however cyber security and hacking was really intriguing and therefore she joined our industry and due to her degree in media her passion was creating valuable content

for others the youtube videos and since she came from a non-technical background she found it really difficult initially to understand super technical blogs or write-ups about hacking as they were full of technical jargon she also knew that she was not the only person she was not the only person facing this problem so she decided to create a youtube channel where she would try to simplify the most technical bugs and make it digestible for everyone that itself became her brand and her purpose is to help her audience to turn to her channel so they don't have to spend hours trying to understand a complex bug pharah shared that it takes a lot to put yourself out there and to be able to

entertain or educate people i also do videos as well and i can totally relate to that and when she began it took her a while to figure out what direction to take and had to make some conscious decisions to give up certain content ideas which would not fit her vibe and through her brand she was offered a position as an application security engineer and i've seen so many individuals who don't have a technical background unable to get a job in this industry so she broke that barrier through her brand by leveraging her brand that was not even a barrier for her as she interviewed pharah's advice is to identify a struggle or a pain point that you have faced in the

industry you may not realize it but a lot of people are most likely facing the same issue try to fill that gap by bridging but sorry by bringing and creating value to solve that problem when i asked her the same question of how she would like her audience to remember her as she would like everyone to know her as a hacker who tries to make super technical hacking techniques much more accessible through her youtube channel and you'll see in here even if you google her she's got like over 30 000 people subscribed to her channel next someone we all probably know local here hopefully you can see that is selena and like pharah selena also had a

non-technical background she actually moved from hr to cyber security where she was part of a sock team her advice is to find a mentor or role models that you look up to she dedicated time with mentor and that helped her build her brand internally her purpose is to bring in more diversity into the field by sharing her story to kids through volunteering opportunities with isaka vancouver she leads tech she's passionate about teaching others to understand the importance of cyber security and what they are potentially exposing themselves to from both a work and personal perspective not coming from an i.t background she always felt as if she were an imposter and was never good enough i know lately

during the pandemic imposter syndrome has become a topic that many people or individuals are starting to talk more about now selena thought that others would see right through her and gender also played a role in that people would tend to question her thoughts and advice more than her counterparts and over time she's built up knowledge and confidence to battle these two hurdles she wants her followers to remember her as someone who is genuine easy to talk to and willing to help both celine and farah will be speaking with me tomorrow so please do join our session um tomorrow afternoon as we talk about how to land your first cyber security job now as you'll see from these several

different examples there are many different ways on how you can build your brand just a quick friendly reminder is to continue writing uh or filling in the google form and hit submit because i forgot to mention earlier on is at the end i'm gonna pick a random person um and you'll receive um some swag for me so the last section of my talk is the what what you can do to build your brand through five simple tips there's several different tips there's a lot more but i've just condensed it into five

here we go tip number one ah can you see this hopefully you can in the exercise i started like in the exercise i started off with think about your why connect with your audience through your passion but focus on your purpose your purpose should not be about getting that promotion so back to focus tip number one is focus on your purpose you can't see my my screen right your purpose should not be about getting that promotion focus on how you can solve a problem inspire your audience to make an impact that will make this a better place the opportunities will follow you tip number two is there we go promote your brand and also help promote

others today i'm promoting other brands because we're all contributing to make this a better industry as i shared earlier you don't need to be a public speaker or you don't need to be that extrovert to be able to promote your brand there are many platforms such as blogs books videos research social media project work volunteering many individuals fear bragging or self-promotion because of impostor syndrome and thanks to joel as you mentioned there josh that you mentioned there it is real um or the you know uh self from you know they find it difficult to self-promote because of humility and for me what helped me with imposter syndrome is to always remember my why and think about the change you will

bring to make this a better place and a great quote from rbg that i'd like to quote is fight for the things you care about but do it in a way that will matter and similarly when you think about self-promoting or bragging do it in a way that it will matter don't be afraid the first time it will feel weird but as you continue you'll notice that it isn't viewed as bragging people will start knowing you for your contribution tip number three i'm not going to share this i'm just going to read it out now is be authentic don't change who you are keep your values stay true to who you are your uniqueness is your strength

a great comment that alyssa shared is find your weird find what makes you unique and be yourself i think in the networking session i said sometimes i don't have time to put my hair up properly this is who i am and this is me so don't feel that you have to look and be like someone else in order to build your brand tip number four dedicate time to invest in yourself don't let time constraints get in the way of investing in yourself you saw earlier on how many people use time as an excuse you'll be surprised at how much you can accomplish when you just dedicate 10 or 15 minutes a week dedicate time to build your network so

that you can inspire your audience you've seen how each one of us are leveraging different channels to reach our audience from speaking engagements to writing a book being an author to creative educational songs on youtube to different channels i mean sharing content on youtube channels building your network doesn't have to be networking after hours at a bar or with small talk i know i struggled a little bit with small talk i'm in sales so that should come naturally in me but the pandemic has helped us think creatively on how to network and connect it could be through creating a slack group within and within the organization like a fun element like a scavenger hunt or something you like for example pets

i've got my dog simba so pets is an example i created a slack channel we're all sharing our pet it could be scheduling a 15 minute virtual meetup with someone you have been watching through linkedin and maybe you like their posts and you can reach out to them i just did that last week i really enjoyed somebody's post and i sent them a note to say thank you another great way to build your network is through volunteering opportunities for example we see western canada is looking for volunteers and that's another great way of how you can build your network you never know who you're going to meet while you're while you're volunteering get involved at local cyber security

groups you know great that you're all joining here at b-sides and if there isn't a local security group create one and tip number five is find a mentor and a sponsor and dedicate that time with them a sponsor is someone who is talking about you when you're not in the room i conducted a survey as i was curious why everyone doesn't have a mentor and 25 percent of respondents said they do not have enough time in the day 25 said they weren't sure how to approach someone there are many secure security chapters locally like isaka or you know we see western canada or the main body or your own organization will offer a mentoring program

last year i was submitting many cfps and some were actually and some were getting accepted and others were not i was actually looking for a mentor who could guide me in speaking engagements it was perfect timing as one of the conferences offered a mentorship program for speakers i took advantage of them for me it wasn't about my talk getting accepted it was a lot more because what i learned was how to write abstracts and that's something i didn't realize the importance of how to have a clear abstract and i learned that from my mentor and i can tell you those sessions with my mentor and this mentor was in australia the other mentor was out in um

in dc it was phenomenal i also share like finding you spell your sponsor sometimes can be difficult but in my case for example how i found my sponsor was i was once speaking at town hall within the organization to educate and raise awareness of the importance of uh dei in the workplace one of the executives asked me if i would be willing to be a mentor for him in this process is called reverse mentoring i was his mentor but in the end he ended up becoming my sponsor secondly i was asked to present at a board and that's where i found my second sponsor i didn't know i'd never been in formally introduced but i found out through hr that he was

championing my initiative to his network so i reached out to him and now i'm dedicating time with my sponsor as we meet for an hour every two months what you put in in it in this is what you're going to get out of it right a sponsor is going to help promote your brand and the sponsor will be helping you out without you making the ask a mentor won't tell you what to do but they'll help you see things differently so at the start of this talk i asked for your participation and added an incentive so if you haven't already submitted the google form please do so now so that i can select a winner

i'm going to refresh my screen so i can see how many people have submitted it thank you josh oh awesome i'm seeing some great responses i got 26 responses there we go so i am going to pick i'm going to pick a lucky winner i am going to pick dave winter you will receive if you put your details and your email address you will receive further information from me to conclude this talk my hope is to inspire everyone to stay authentic focus on your purpose through your passion and when you do that opportunities will arise as a result of building your brand as i bring this back to my purpose which is to be a

change and make an impact to close the gap for underrepresented groups in stem and leadership i'd like to share my quote on diversity which is gender diversity should not be a woman's problem to solve or an hr issue to handle nor a legislation to be implemented or a movement to occur it should be everybody's problem to solve so i'd like to thank alyssa karen confidence farah selena for sharing the journey lastly a big shout out to the amazing organizers volunteers speakers at this conference and of course all of you for hanging in with me in the beginning when i was trying to figure out how to make this work uh we made it happen so thanks for giving me

that confidence shukria asante sana merci because gozaimasu and thank you questions

any questions from the audience you see great comments i'm gonna scroll to see if there's anything else i missed

yeah thanks um great comments here

okay so often i hear people feel that blog to display and confidence is fear fear of public speaking writing feeling how do you advise folks on that i mean yes you're right speaking here in public there was a lot of fear in back to when i started aligning it back to my purpose how i'm bettering the world because that's what i'm passionate about for some reason it just it wasn't there when i aligned it back to what i wanted to do that fear slowly started going away and you can also start small right start small with like like a small block and put it on uh linkedin and start sharing it start start slowly i like using the crawl walk run approach

start with crawling that will start get giving you some confidence i know i started when i started presenting i started um in this industry on a small scale before this industry i was already public speaking right but i started on small scale and back actually in 2019 when i started doing speak there wasn't this video concept it was great because in 2019 people it wasn't common for people to enable your video as part of um doing a webinar for example you just saw the slides so it was great for me because i had the slides and on the other side i had my speaking notes that i could just read out it was great and after that it just

boosted me josh that's too funny i love that okay question number two how can i approach possible mentors also can you give tips on how to not to be awkward when asking for mentorship is there a specific goal that you told your mentor for mentorship how did you okay great question right you know the key thing is there's so many individuals out there who want to give their time and pay it forward simple is you ask you know someone that you've been watching or someone that you feel you've connected to just make sure there's something that you feel you have a connection with that person right something you feel that you know whether you've been reading

their blogs or whatever the case may be reach out make the ask it might feel awkward and i'll tell you it may feel awkward but just reach out because you know what what's the worst they're gonna say no that's okay there's plenty of other as they say plenty of other fish in the sea there's plenty of other mentors in the sea

so yeah just feel free to just reach out and ask somebody usually those those individuals um who you've been following or you've connected with a lot of mentors will say hey you know what i'm capped out but i can introduce you to somebody else or i can introduce you to like isaka has their mentorship program right there's so many different mentorship programs even if you just google there's some that are already there but you know just asking that what's the worst they're gonna say right they say no it's okay there's somebody else out there um what else what was the other question is there a specific goal that you told your mentor for mentorship you know i actually with my mentor i

actually started off with you know trying to understand just initially for me it started off whereby i was rejected by enough for an opportunity in leadership and i tried several different times and so the individual who rejected me i reached out to him and i said hey look okay you know what i'm struggling with this and i'm trying to figure out what it is i'm not asking you for a promotion because i know this position has been given to somebody else but can you mentor me right and so that's how i started off i want to understand what it what i need to do on my leadership skills and it wasn't about my mentor telling me what to do he just

made me realize what i didn't know about myself and eventually i started working on it i started working on different things i started learning to not just network within my own network i started learning to network outside of my network and that was one of the things that i wasn't doing so people didn't know who i was so just reach out

i'm reading out the i'm reading up the notes um okay so i hope that answered uh cj i hope that answered the question on the awkwardness and what you asked your mentor you know if you reach out to a mentor i want a job right i get a lot of people who reach out to me i want a job i can't help you with that what i can do is i can help you with tips with interviews or things like that right so think about a topic or an agenda stick to your cadence if the per individual has um committed to meeting you once a month i mean ask them what their timeline commitments are and if it is once a

month for half an hour make sure you're sticking to that commitment and communicate to your mentor one thing that you may not realize is that i know i'm a mentor there's so much that i'm learning as a mentoring it's it's a two-way thing it's not like hey you're learning from me there's so much that i'm learning back in return awesome things thanks josh for sharing that there's yes there's lots of programs and one thing also within your own organization i'll tell you within my own organization background there wasn't a mentorship program and what i did was i created it i created a slack channel and i call it mentor match and i got this very simple basic template

for everyone to fill out which is your name what are you passionate about what would you like to mentor on um and are you open to mentoring and so uh leaders even individuals were all filling that form and if you join that slide group and you open that powerpoint to see which mentors are available then you can read what their passion is and see who you can connect with and then reach out to that individual so you can also create it within your own organization because i know sometimes some of the industry programs can get filled very quickly the mentorship programs can get filled very quickly feel free to start one up within your own organization if

you're in school or college do that as well awesome any other questions just going to scroll up adam did i answer your question on the on the fear

one part that you did mention there about failing right failing is a very strong word and and i can relate to that because many times that fear of failing always comes into your head right again you define what failure is right if and a lot of individuals look at it like for me i look at it whether it's success or failure right those are two definitions that i just don't use often right because for me it's all about learning and for me it's all about you know trying something out it might take a while i might still be on the crawl phase for several years but it's okay to start trying a few things it doesn't have to be in large scale but

stick to your purpose and stick stick to your passion and when you do that the fear will come out that idea of failure won't be yeah in your mind

over my time in the industry have you seen a lot of change in the diversification of infosec staff um i think change is taking place um hopefully if i've understood your question correctly is changes taking place right um in just just looking at it there's i think there's a lot of talks about um and i'm hoping i've understood your question are you talking about the diversity of people joining our industry

if it is from what i'm understanding the question yes okay um is changes starting to take place it it took a long time but it's still very slow and back to what i mentioned is it needs every one of us to make this change happen and when i say every one of us including incl including myself including um you know hiring managers including um organizations we all need to be invested in this change like you know many job descriptions i see is that must have all these skills must have all these qualifications um just recently there's somebody that was um i i thought she was doing a phenomenal job in investing in herself and she was working towards all these

certifications but a lot of positions required several different um you know five years of experience so she had the certifications but she didn't have five years of experience and i challenged the hiring um team um beca to look beyond just uh five years of experience let's look at individuals let's look at the next generation if we don't give them an opportunity how will we how are they going to get those five years of experience you're looking for so look beyond that you know to me back to that failure piece you know that question of failure when i continue doing it based on what my purpose is and i see success like that that individual got a job

right uh when several people were rejecting her like several and seeing that success and that change to me that one success is i mean that one changes success it's a i've made a positive change in this industry