Parul Mittal Senior Manager - Tech Risk at Bendigo and Adelaide Bank
P
arul Mittal landed in Melbourne from her
tech workforce through mentorship, professional
native India in 2014 with her husband, and
development and leadership training.
not much else: no relatives, no friends, no job and, without permanent residency, no
“I want to bring a change in the mindset of people
immediate hope of getting one.
that IT security is not just a man’s place,” she says. “With my initiative in SheLeadsTech, I target to bring
“I realised how alone one is without family, friends
that change with more participation in events like
and a job, she says. “But I learnt that if you’re
GoGirlGoIT, or a session on how STEM can pave a
authentic, people will value you and will want to build
way forward for young girls, especially in the field of
relationships with you.”
science and technology.
Mittal used her time waiting for permanent residency
“Women’s perspective is missing. We need to
productively: she studied for and passed the CISSP
make women more aware of what cybersecurity is
exam and worked to develop her network. “I attended
and what a career in it could mean to them. This
IT security conferences and forums to get to know
awareness should start from the schools and not
more people around me. It was an interesting time
when women start looking for jobs, then it could be
where I had to build my network from scratch, and it
quite late.”
was not easy.”
A BIG ROLE IN BANKING However, she has succeeded in spades. She gained
Mittal’s role at the Bendigo and Adelaide Bank is
her first IT job, as a senior risk consultant in financial
“to drive governance, oversight and continuous
services with EY, within a year of arriving. Today she
improvement of the technology risk management
is Senior Manager – Tech Risk with the Bendigo
practices of the business and first line risk teams,”
and Adelaide Bank and a SheLeadsTech brand
she says.
ambassador, working to increase the representation of women in technology leadership roles and the
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W O M E N I N S E C U R I T Y M A G A Z I N E
S E P T E M B E R • O C T O B E R 2022
