Jenny Boneva is Vice President and Chairwoman of Membership Committee of ISACA Sofia Chapter. She has broad experience in the areas of IT and IT Governance, Information and cyber security.
Jenny Boneva
How do you feel in an environment that is usually dominated by male professionals?
I have more than 13 years of experience in the areas of Information Technologies and Information Security, being consultant, auditor and Chief Information Security Officer. During that time, I have been working with and managing teams mostly dominated by male professionals. Normally, I feel comfortable in such environment; however, this significantly depends on the organization itself, the values set by the top management and the established organizational culture, ethical and behavioral standards. Progressive organizations, position the cybersecurity profession at the level where we are not concerned about the gender but we focus on and evaluate the professionalism of the experts.
Do you feel women have the same opportunities to succeed in cyber security industry?
According to the Global Gender Gap Report 2017 of the World Economic Forum: “On current trends, the overall global gender gap can be closed in exactly 100 years across the 106 countries…”. Gender gap is also present in the cybersecurity world. There are still a lot of prejudice and established behavioral frameworks, that need to be changed. On the journey towards closing this gap, I believe, that the visibility and the awareness of this issue are very important components. Nevertheless, the right attitude is that, being a successful professional in the cybersecurity area is gender irrelevant. It is more about seeing the opportunities and having the self-confidence to seize them.
What are the largest day-to-day challenges women faces in your profession (how to keep on track with latest developments)?
The biggest challenge of this profession is the dynamic and fast changing technology environment, that requires continuous professional education. This is time consuming and, in some cases, this may influence work life balance.
What advice would you give to young women considering career in cybersecurity?
Working within cybersecurity area is very exciting as it offers new perspectives of the future development. The digital world that you will tap into will evolve your way of strategical and conceptual thinking. The career path has extremely high future potential and relevance. I strongly encourage women to take part in this journey.