"If you snooze you lose on some of the best security talent"

Employees from Sekuro, CSO Group, CyberCX, Baidam Solutions, Paraflare, StickmanCyber, Slalom, Kinetic IT, Orro Group, KPMG and other IT services providers have been nominated for the 2022 Australian Women in Security Awards. 

One of the Australian security industry’s biggest growing pains is its lack of diversity. Australia requires an additional 7000 security practitioners by 2024, and women comprise between 11 to 24 percent of the workforce, according to research by AustCyber. 

The 2022 Australian Women in Security Awards organiser Source2Create aims to inspire young women to consider a security career by honouring the accomplishments of women in the industry.

Source2Create chief executive officer Abigail Swabey told CRN that despite the gender imbalance she was excited to see more companies hire young women for security roles than ever before. 

“Our voices have been heard, we aren't just beating the drum and no one is listening,” Swabey said. 

“The push now should be, if we are wanting to deliver a more gender-diverse workforce then we need to take risks, bring in those grads and entry-level applicants...I’m telling you now three to ten years experience will be a thing of the past soon, and if you snooze you lose on some of the best talent security has seen for a long time.”

Swabey said that investing in upskilling female employees’ security skills was essential for retaining talent, including, “dedicated time and budget for further learning and  preparing new hires or internal staff to apply their talents in the digitised and automated post-pandemic future.” 

Swabey also said that “unconscious bias” affecting employers’ appointment decisions was still a serious roadblock to increasing diversity in the sector and that one only needed to look at “media stereotypes, such as male hackers in a hoodie” to see how ubiquitously they have been reinforced.

“We can start by looking at things like the language we use: using language full of male connotations shows implicit bias, and is one of the biggest reasons for the presence of this huge gender gap in the industry.”

“It’s little wonder that the proportion of women in the corporate sector declines dramatically from 47 percent in entry-level positions to 21 percent in the C-Suite level,” Swabey said, citing McKinsey & Company and LeanIn.org’s women in the workplace report. 

The annual conference, to be held at Crown Towers Sydney on 12 October 2022, will award winners across a range of categories including best security mentor, unsung hero, most innovative educator in cyber security, the one to watch in IT security, male champion of change, best place for women to work in security and Australia's most outstanding woman in security.

Some of the companies with employees nominated for the 2022 Australian Women in Security Awards include:

CSO Group

• CSO Group financial controller Stephanie Hagenbrok (pictured): one to watch in IT Security.
• CSO group GRC practice lead Nazia Mastali: IT security champion.

Sekuro 

• Sekuro chief growth officer Shamane Tan: Australia's Most Outstanding Woman in IT Security.
• Sekuro senior consultant Amelia Elcic: best security mentor.
• Sekuro managing consultant Sita Bhat: the one to watch in IT Security.
• Sekuro associate analyst Mia Symonds (pictured): best security student.

Paraflare

Paraflare director of digital forensics and incident response Bex Nitert: unsung hero. 

RSM

• RSM cyber security and privacy services Ashwin Pal: male champion of change. 
• RSM Sophie Harding (pictured): the one to watch in IT security.

Baidam Solutions

• Baidam Solutions southern sales director Caity Randall (pictured): the one to watch in IT security.
• Baidam Solutions security services manager Craig Ford: male champion for change.

DXC Technology

DXC Technology practice partner technical Divya Saxena: best secure coder.

Orro Group

• Orro cyber security control assurance analyst Farhana Dawood (pictured): best security mentor
• Orro junior SOC analyst Nikola Jimenez: the one to watch in IT security
• Orro Group: the best place to work for women in security
• Orro cyber security consultant Fasial Massuad: male champion for change 

StickmanCyber

StickmanCyber founder and chief executive officer Ajay Unni: male champion of change 

Slalom 

Slalom senior consultant Vivienne Mutembwa: the one to watch in IT security

Australian Cyber Collaboration Centre (A3C)

A3C interim chief executive officer Paula Oliver: unsung hero

Kinetic IT

Kinetic IT director of security services Vanessa Van Beek: the one to watch in protective security. 

CyberCX

• CyberCX associate security engineer Claudia Squire (pictured): best security student. 
• CyberCX senior consultant Anjani Sankar: best female security coder.
• CyberCX managing consultant Dipti Mulugund: best security mentor.
• CyberCX governance risk and compliance associate  Alana Balaccog: the one to watch IT security.
• CyberCX senior consultant Rashmi Gopinath: best female secure coder. 
• CyberCX-owned phriendly phishing’s eLearning content developer Kate Ellis: the one to watch for IT security.
• CyberCX-owned phriendly phising learning experience and design manager Serena Pillay: most innovative educator in cyber security.
• CyberCX company phriendly phishing customer experience manager Shannon Pinney: unsung hero. 
• CyberCX Rutvanben Putal: IT security champion.
• CyberCX Caroline Faulder: Australia's most outstanding woman in security.
• CyberCX associate consultant Karen Hobson: the one to watch in IT security.
• CyberCX Maddy Badarinath the one to watch in IT security
• CyberCX SOC analyst Nancy Elrifi: the one to watch in IT security. 
• CyberCX application security associate consultant Fadzayi Chiwandire: best security student.
• CyberCX senior consultant Elena Scifleet: unsung hero. 
• CyberCX senior cyber security solution architect Fraser Metcalf:  best security mentor.
• CyberCX managing consultant Celia Yap: IT security champion. 
• CyberCX junior consultant Julia Wulf-Rhodes: the one to watch in IT security
• CyberCX senior account manager Tory Lane: best security mentor.
• CyberCX solutions architect Raman Gill: IT security champion.
• CyberCX director cyber intelligence and public policy Katherine Mansted: Australia’s most outstanding woman in IT security. 

KPMG

• KPMG cyber partner Mitra Minai (pictured): Australia's most outstanding woman in IT security.
• KPMG cyber strategy and diversity director Dominka Zerbe: IT security champion.
• KPMG partner Gordon Archibald: male champion for change.
• KPMG associate director - cyber security alliance Mina Zaki: unsung hero.
• KPMG SAP HR consultant Swapnali Kesark best female secure coder. 
• KPMG senior consultant Kellie Stockham Vasey: the one to watch.
• KPMG national lead for identity and access management Dany Flint: best male champion for change.
• KPMG senior consultant Vidhu Bhardwaj: IT security champion. 
• KPMG partner, national leader – management consulting, enterprise Brad Miller: male champion of change. 
• KPMG chief information security officer Shannon Lorimer: IT security champion.
• KPMG best place for women to work in IT security. 
• In addition to many other KPMG nominees.