MAKING THE WORLD
SAFER AND MORE SECURE EACH DAY THAN THE ONE BEFORE Elite Cyber Women At Palo Alto Networks
Silicon Valley tech companies in recent years pledged to propel their diverse workforces. Global cybersecurity giant Palo Alto Networks has led the charge with its advancement initiatives, Cybersecurity Academy, Girl Scouts Cybersecurity badges, and sponsorship of the National Center of Women Technology Summit. In the area of gender parity, the firm raised its female representation to 36%. Its executive leadership team is at 40% women and its diverse board is now 33% women. Palo Alto Networks chief marketing officer Zeynep Inanoglu Ozdemir, Ph.D., notes comparatively that industry data shows women occupy 25% of all cyber roles globally.
Setting Ozdemir apart from typical corporate marketing executives is that she spent the first half of her career as a software engineer and research scientist. Before becoming CMO in 2021, she worked on Palo Alto Networks XDR security threat detection and incident response tool. In her current role, she bears responsibility for informing and educating the industry on critical developments in cyber threats and the technologies used to combat them.
In an effort to raise public awareness of everyday cyber risks, the company recently launched its Zero Trust ad campaign, demonstrating how it is making each day safer than the one before so that in today’s digital world, people can work and live without the fear of cyber attacks. “Back in the day, we would all go into one office. That office perimeter was well protected,” says Ozdemir. “With more people working remotely (in the wake of the pandemic) and many of the SaaS applications people rely on today on a public cloud, we are more vulnerable to cyber attacks than ever, leading to a proliferation of threat vectors from ransomware to supply chain attacks.”
Leading A Top Notch Squad To Fight Cyberthreats
As a teen, Wendi Whitmore wanted to be a fighter pilot. She was in the Air Force ROTC at the University of San Diego when she saw “the woman in black”—a special agent—at an alumni career day. That encounter led to Whitmore’s career as a Special Agent conducting computer crime investigations with the U.S. Air Force Office of Special
Investigations. Today, Whitmore heads a unique team that blends intelligence and incident response to help organizations tackle complex cyberthreats from ransomware to espionage.
“Most of the problems we’re trying to solve are related to national security issues,” explains the senior vice president of Unit 42 (taking its name from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy). “We’re bringing in threat detection and response technology that’s going to answer our clients’ questions as quickly as possible, and moving forward, to prevent future attacks,” adds Whitmore, who is a member of the employee resource group Woman in Technology and organizations like WiCyS (Women in Cyber Security), and represents Palo Alto Networks on the DHS Cyber Safety Review Board.
Charting A Career Path To Success In Tech
Palo Alto Networks’ chief information officer Meerah Rajavel believes the tech landscape is getting better for women. “When I look at CIOs, we were 7% over a period of five years. Now, about 21% of CIOs are women.” Also, women hold 17% of chief information security officers roles at the nation’s top corporations.
Rajavel started out as a software engineer, spending over a decade in R&D departments building products. She was introduced to computers as a teen growing up in a small town in the southern part of India. When her high school couldn’t find faculty to teach computer science as part of the curriculum, the self-starter taught herself and others. She fell in love with coding.
In charting their career path, Rajavel, suggests women follow three guideposts: “one, don’t get intimidated. Go for your goals and just make sure that whatever you do, your heart is in it. Two, get your support system right (mentors, sponsors, and trade organizations). Three, be a continuous learner to stay on top of your game.”