I sort of fell into the security awareness space. My first position out of college was in the technology organization of an energy company. I worked closely with the information security team there, and when a position opened up in their group, they offered it to me.

After gaining some experience in information security working at an energy company, I transitioned into the financial sector. Security programs within the financial sector tend to be very robust, and I had the opportunity to join a sizable team and help build out a very large program. I knew that I eventually wanted to work for a technology company in San Francisco, so when I came across an opportunity at eBay, I jumped at it. I now work at Salesforce on the Security Awareness team, where I help to identify human-based security risk across the organization and develop solutions to mitigate such risk.

I’ve had the opportunity to build out programs from the ground up, which has been pretty exciting! Measuring the culture change driven by a successful security awareness program has been particularly rewarding.

In my opinion, possessing strong communication skills is vital to finding success in this role. More specifically, I think being able to understand at a high level how technology works and communicate about it in a way that is understandable to both technical and non-technical individuals is essential.

I think a lot of people have the perception that in order to pursue a career in information security, you have to possess a deep technical skillset. The information security space has so many facets to it, not all of which are extremely technical. I encourage individuals starting out in their careers to explore the various tracks within the space, and find the one that best suits their interests and skill sets.