2 minute read
Ranjeeta Rani
Senior Security Engineer at KONE
Ranjeeta Rani’s cybersecurity career has taken her from the frying pan to the freezer, metaphorically speaking. After almost two decades of study and work in one of the world’s hottest countries,
India, in January 2022 she moved to one of the coldest, Finland, where she works as a senior security engineer with Kone.
She graduated with a Bachelor of Technology in Electrical, Electronics and Communications Engineering from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University in 2008 and got into cybersecurity by chance in her first job after graduation, when graduates were allocated different roles.
Rani was, she says, quite ignorant of cybersecurity as a career at that point, but has stayed in the industry ever since and has no doubt she made the right choice. “What kept my interest going was just how vast the domain is. No matter how long you are working in it you will always have new challenges to deal with every day.”
CYBERSECURITY THE PERFECT ROLE
She adds: “There is always so much to do in this space and that keeps your interest high. For someone who strives to do something different each day and work on challenges, cyber is the perfect field. At the end of the day I am proud knowing the work we do makes the world more secure.”
She acknowledges that her fascination with, and commitment to, the industry do make it difficult to maintain a good work/life balance but says, “With experience it does become a little easier, and the key is to prioritise and do time management.
“Another important approach is to really disconnect mentally when you are off work. For me, tracking things on a tool that keeps my to-do list helps me do that. Otherwise I have found myself many times still thinking about work when away from it.”
Rani credits her mentors with having played a significant role keeping her in the industry, saying she has had “many good mentors who helped me decide what I want to pursue in cybersecurity.”
DISCOVERING MENTORING
And she wishes she could have tapped into the power of mentoring at the end of her school life when wondering what career choices to make. “Getting the right information and knowing where to start was a challenge for me. If I had a chance to go back to my last year of school, I would definitely connect with mentors who can advise what areas and opportunities there are in security so I could develop my skills around my interest area.”
In 2021 Rani gained ISACA’s Certified Information Security Manager (CISM) qualification and now has her sights set on gaining the (ISC)² Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) qualification.
“It’s a good certification as it covers cybersecurity on an overall level,” she says. “For someone planning to move to a more senior technical management role this certification has many benefits, in my opinion.”
Other sources of cybersecurity knowledge Rani relies on are LinkedIN, cyber magazines, news and, for threat intelligence, various security notifications from different vendors.
www.linkedin.com/in/ranjeetarani
