Did you enjoy school?
As a shy, nerdy kid I loved learning, but it took a while to develop my social skills and start having fun too.
The one thing I really appreciated at university (Cambridge) was being surrounded by people with whom you could have interesting conversations all day, every day.
What qualifications do you have?
I have an MA in English Literature, a Diploma in Computing, and a second Diploma in group facilitation and counselling.
How I would love do a MSc or a PhD! Over the years I’ve toyed with the idea of studying everything from neuroscience to public health, epistemology and cybersecurity. Choosing just one topic would be impossible; I’d be like a kid in a sweetshop. Perhaps I will make up my mind when I retire.
Has your career path been a smooth transition, a rocky road or a combination of both?
It’s been a fascinating and satisfying trip through a varied landscape, with lots of diversions and no map to speak of.
I come from an entire family of teachers, so after graduation I really had no idea what other jobs existed. I got into the tech industry by accident and since then have been a PR executive (a bad one), industry analyst (my primary job for 15 years), product director, commercial director, strategy consultant, non-executive director, board chair, startup founder and CEO.
And I had a parallel volunteering career for some years, supporting new parents at antenatal classes and drop-ins. A far cry from tech! I’m still involved in civil society, as a charity board advisor and a judge for a women’s health essay prize.
Four years ago I found a home in cybersecurity and haven’t looked back since. I love the cybersecurity community. This is a group of smart, committed people with very high integrity who are, like me, a bit nerdy.
What is the best career advice you can give to others?
Aim as high as you can, but don’t get hung up on crafting the perfect career. Things rarely turn out how you expect. Never stop learning, building new skills and networks, and being open to opportunities. Have fun when you can, and value the humans around you. Life is short.
If you had to pick one mentor, that had the biggest influence on you, who would it be?
I remember five mentors with much gratitude and affection. Three supported me in my early career, and two later in my career when I was new in a senior and particularly demanding role. They all showed me where I needed to get to, coached me in job-specific skills, and gave much-needed encouragement.
From where do you draw inspiration?
I read voraciously, both fiction and non-fiction. Recently I’ve been thinking and reading about historical times of societal transition; the 1832 Great Reform Act (George Eliot’s Middlemarch), Europe before the Great War (Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain) and more recent social unrest in mature democracies (Olivier Roy’s The Crisis of Culture). It’s helpful to take the long view about the role of tech in society.
What is the biggest challenge you have faced to date?
Last year I fell unexpectedly and seriously ill and had to scale back my normal activities for some months. A most sobering experience. I’m well now, thankfully.
What qualities do you feel makes a good leader?
A vision, backed by analytic rigour, with the energy and people skills to make it happen.
From a work viewpoint what has the last 12 months been like?
Once I recovered from illness, super productive!
I’m really excited that my company, Pionen, is shortly to bring our PionenAssure cyber assurance tool out of private beta and into go-live. We’ve had a brilliant response so far. Public bodies are struggling to manage the admin associated with CAF assessments, and PionenAssure takes that problem away.
Cyber governance has been a big focus for me all round. I also co-founded a non-profit network – CxB – which supports non-executive directors to improve board oversight of cyber security. We’ve worked with board members from over a hundred organisations so far.
What would you say are the biggest tech-based challenges we face today?
Decades of tech innovation has given us indigestion. Organisations are struggling to absorb and adapt to new technologies and approaches, which keep coming thick and fast, overshadowing and up-ending what came before. ROI is hard to prove when the investment is a moving target.
Now complexity is coming home to roost in the form of serious and increasing cyber security hazard. Cyber criminals play on the fact that organisations have complex, hard to manage IT estates, and humans have not yet adapted to a low-trust digital world.
To my mind, the biggest barrier to tackling this is a deficit of good internal tech capability. Everyone has skills shortages and an inability to retain good people, and most senior executives and boards are reacting rather than leading. This makes it hard to plan strategically for the long term, and to execute well.
The upshot is: we are all talking about a generative AI revolution while, frankly, most organisations are still struggling with core business systems built on relational databases.
What can be done to encourage more women into the industry?
We can act on the many small things which keep women out of the workforce.
At the start of the talent pipeline, employers should recruit from diverse pathways including apprenticeships and bootcamps. Those who insist on academic computing qualifications are excluding women from their talent pool, since women are dramatically underrepresented on computing degree courses.
Offer opportunities for more experienced staff to upskill so they can move laterally into better roles. There are many older women working in process roles vulnerable to automation; here’s a great opportunity to boost the tech workforce.
Offer more jobs on a flexible basis. In my experience, jobs advertised as suitable for part time, fully remote or job-share working attract many excellent female applicants.
And fix the leaky bucket: go all-out to retain female staff.
Speak to your female colleagues regularly, and act on feedback about working conditions and culture. We’ve heard a lot about toxic workplaces in recent years, and in 2024 I would hope that all employers take their responsibilities seriously. But there are probably many more workplaces which are basically safe but not particularly inspiring for women.
Women stay longer when they see opportunities to be rewarded, so tackle the gender pay gap. Use fair, transparent practices for recruitment, promotions and pay rises to ensure men and women are promoted and compensated equally. There’s a playbook of techniques known to be effective: use it.
Give us a fact about you that most other people wouldn’t know.
I play five musical instruments. I play in a symphony orchestra, a jazz sextet and a folk band; I’ve played and sung in operas and oratorios; baroque ensembles; big bands; trios, octets, the lot.
So when I retire, I shall spend my time making music while trying to decide what subject to write my PhD on.
