Meetings of the mind: Women at the Podium

Gazing up at the dais at virtually any security conference – save Hack in the Box – a newcomer just might assume there are no women in the security industry. That's very nearly true – women make up only 11 percent of the personnel in this exploding field. But their numbers dwindle even lower at the podium.

“Statistics don't lie,” says Pam Kostka, vice president of marketing at Bluebox Security. “Whether you agree with all of [Facebook chief operating officer] Sheryl Sandberg's philosophies espoused in her best-selling book Lean In or not, women are still statistically under-represented in management across all industry sectors, including security. The climb has stalled out despite more women graduating with undergraduate degrees, especially engineering degrees.”

To kickstart the ascent, individual women and some mainstream organizations have set out to address the challenges, in part by developing venues that are more clearly defined as friendly toward and supportive of women. “Last fall, I attended what is, as far as I know, the only women-only security conference: the Executive Women's Forum, in Arizona,” says Leigh Honeywell (left), a security engineer based in San Francisco. “It was a powerful experience for me as I've been involved in the security community for 10 years – but few of the events I've attended in that time have had more than 10 percent women.”