ASIS NZ Chapter’s Women in Security 2021

In its fourth year, the ASIS NZ Chapter’s Women in Security annual event presented a challenging planning exercise, writes Chapter Chair Ngaire Kelaher, with the result a resounding success.

In celebration of International Women’s Day, ASIS New Zealand hosts an annual ASIS NZ Women in Security Special event. This event is to celebrate the women in our industry as well as an opportunity to engage with subject matter experts of their field, to network, and to inspire and motivate!

Although this annual fixture highlights female trailblazers within the industry, often from a variety of industry backgrounds, the actual event is for EVERYONE within industry!

The event has now run for four years taking place mainly in Auckland (and once in Wellington). Ideally, we would like the event to take place each year in alternating cities, however this isn’t always possible as we rely heavily on people donating and volunteering their time as well as sponsorship.

This is important, as we offer the event to all free of charge so that there are no barriers when it comes to attendance. We also live streamed the event (via the ASIS NZ Facebook page) this year in order to make it as accessible as possible.

This year proved to be very interesting one to say the least with planning taking place amid COVID alert level changes and uncertainty in the weeks leading up to the event (which included lots of internal venting!)

This resulted in the contact tracking of ticket ‘sales’ to ensure it stayed under one hundred during the level 2 COVID phase), and ensuring tables were in place to control safe social distancing and changing the catering arrangements to prepackaged individual packs – to name a few of the tweaks we made.

Then, the return to Level 1 in Auckland just a few hours before the event meant we could socialise a bit more freely during the evening (a great bonus), but it also resulted in a few ‘no shows’ as we were also competing with the America’s Cup. Yes, that’s right, once the level 1 change came into force for Auckland just in time on a Friday night… well, you get the picture.

Despite the alert level challenges and everything else – and despite competing with Auckland peak hour traffic – we nevertheless recorded a great turn out. The traffic could not stop our audience, and for that we are eternally grateful.

Inspiring speakers But what made the night an absolute success were our fantastic speakers – women that may have security in common but who approach security from extremely different backgrounds. They delivered amazing stories and key messages that both informed and inspired the audience. This is what made the night a success!

Our first speaker was Darya Kokovikhina, a Software Engineer experienced in cyber security and software application architecture. She’s worked in multinational organisations in countries as diverse as New Zealand, Sweden, Malaysia and Central Asia.

Darya believes that support, encouragement and the sharing of experience and knowledge can inspire women in tech and cybersecurity. She gave a fantastic presentation titled ‘Women in Tech and Cyber Security: My Journey’.

Second speaker Jane McCarroll, Head of Industry and Client Partnerships for the Skills Consulting Group, spoke on ‘Managing the Generational Gap’. It was, basically, an extremely humorous and insightful history of today’s working-age generations from baby boomers through to the school leavers now joining the workforce.

Jane described the key traits behind the different generations, and gave extremely helpful tips to communicate effectively across them and to bring out the best in each other.

Third speaker Melonie Cole is the Owner of Mindshift, a Kiwi business focused on the people part of cyber security. Melonie drew on her experience in organisational change, compliance, communications, to talk candidly about what triggered her to leave three decades of corporate life behind to start her own cyber security awareness business!

The evening’s final speaker, Vanessa Leite, talked ‘Managing

Cybersecurity threats with Security By Design’. A Senior Manager Cybersecurity with over 10 years of experience in leading security initiatives across different sectors, most of Vanessa’s career has been in technical security positions.

In what was a common theme of the evening, Vanessa talked about the importance of sharing experience. Knowledge and experience sharing, she believes, is critical for building cybersecurity awareness and for working on making organisations’ security practices more mature.

ASIS New Zealand would like to thank our amazing speakers for 2021 – the wonderful Darya Kokovikhina, Jane McCarroll, Melonie Cole, and Vanessa Leite. Their enthusiasm, time, passion for their field engaged the audience and made it a fantastic night for all.

Thank you to our sponsors, and especially to Gary Morrison of the NZSA who again made this event possible, and to Dean Kidd of Auckland Unlimited who started the initiative four years ago and continues to host the Auckland events. Thank you also to our MC Bruce Couper who did an amazing job again this year, and a huge thank you to all attendees.

Stay tuned! We’ve had a lot of positive feedback circulating on linkedIn, and next year’s line-up is already being planned – we’ve already confirmed two speakers! Please follow ASIS New Zealand on LinkedIn, Facebook and email chairpersonasisnz@gail.com to be added to the member list.

Also, look out for ASIS New Zealand’s monthly Chapter meetings, which feature guest speakers from across industry; monthly Young Professional Meetings; and monthly study group updates for those undertaking ASIS International Board Certifications. We’re also continuing the popular ‘Across the Globe’ series we started last year in which International Guest Speakers Zoom in to present in their area of expertise.

And, last but not least, we’re also reviving the Annual ASIS NZ Certification Dinner, which is taking place on 26 March as a formal event. Lot’s to look forward to in coming weeks and months with ASIS International’s New Zealand Chapter!