» SPOTLIGHT
Women's Day Supplement
RESILIENCE PAYS OFF Kaitlyn Elizabeth Riddle, Global Social Media Marketing Manager, Infoblox says that she is representative of women who are earning their way to senior positions through hard work, resilience and higher levels of education
What made you choose this career path? How would you summarize your professional journey so far in terms of meeting expectations, both yours and the organizations? My professional journey has been nothing short of a wild adventure filled with struggle, hard work, risk, opportunity and hardearned success. I worked as a public school teacher for six years prior to changing to a new career path in B2B digital marketing. In 2014, after considering multiple potential new career options, I began working for a world class company in Silicon Valley called Intertrust Technologies. Intertrust gave me a strong foundation for learning and growing as a digital marketer in the technology, streaming media, and cybersecurity spaces. From there, I fell in love with the cybersecurity industry and with social media marketing. I’ve been a proud Infoblox for the past five years and counting, and this is where I belong. Infoblox has far exceeded my expectations as an organization that helps enterprises worldwide enhance their cybersecurity posture, address core networking challenges while enhancing their work from anywhere experiences. Infoblox has also far exceeded my expectations as a company that goes above and beyond to take exceptional care of its employees. Infoblox is where I have felt I belonged before, during and after my ongoing breast cancer and treatment. Our entire company has supported me throughout my ongoing journey as a breast cancer patient. Our CEO Jesper Andersen personally delivered a wagon full or beautiful, organic groceries and flowers to my home during chemotherapy treatment. Have you ever heard of a CEO doing something like that before? Me neither.
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CXO DX / MARCH 2022
What’s more, Infoblox provides me with ample opportunities to learn and grow in my role as Global Social Media Marketing Manager. My many mentors at Infoblox are also helping me to build strong relationships and leadership skills I need as I begin to climb the corporate ladder. From your experience, is gender a differentiator in Marketing at all or are men and women similar in these roles in terms of the strengths they bring to these roles in conceptualizing and executing? Are women sufficiently recognized for their contributions? Tabish Asifi The cybersecurity industry tends toGroup portray the representation IT Governance Lead of women in cybersecurity as a dilemma than as an opportuMajidrather Al Futtaim nity or cause for celebration. This trend seems to apply across We women in cybersecurity and in B2B digital marketing are empowered by our incredibly hard work, resilience and higher levels of education, and we are earning our way to leadership positions in higher numbers. For example, according to research from ISC2, 24% of cybersecurity professionals identify as female. This imbalance is what seems to make headlines. However, research also shows that prior to 2013, only 11% of the cybersecurity industry were women. That’s a 118% increase of women in cybersecurity from 2013 to today. These remarkable accomplishments are more than worth celebrating! As for Marketing, female representation remains stronger compared to the cybersecurity industry alone. Not only are most Marketing roles held by women, recent research from LinkedIn also shows that the majority of Marketing leaders are women, too. The highest representation of women is social media related
