BHUSA15: Executive Women's Forum

Alta Associates hosted Black Hat's Executive Women's Forum! The discussion was led by none other than Joyce Brocaglia, CEO of Alta Associates and Founder of EWF.  This was a great opportunity to network with other women working in security and hear more about the programs of EWF (and lunch was good, too!)

EWF focuses on women making decisions in security and privacy, hosting an annual conference where women can spend time with other women working in security. Women who have attended past conferences note how awesome it is to be surrounded by so many intelligent and security focused ladies. It's very inspiring to see the success stories and see how they got there and learn about their road blocks.

In addition to the major EWF conferences (this year's is October 20-22, 2015 in Scottsdale, AZ), they do local events as well.

This year's conference's theme is Big Data, big Risks, Big Opportunities, with talks on negotiating, opportunities and innovation in healthcare big data, data sovereignty, global cybersecurity policy and government control and the voice privacy conundrum. Also, includes a themed dance party!

EWF provides mentors to help junior and middle managers get to the next step, as an inspirational conference is good to get things started, but not maintain progress. They've got a program called The Leadership Journey. It's a year long program! Covering things like establishing your leadership vision, optimizing emotional and social intelligence, managing stress and cultivating resilience, work/live integration (because there is no balance).

The soft skills are actually the hard skills - lots of people are good at coding, but not any good at the truly hard stuff - the "soft skills".

This was followed by a fun Q&A with Theodora Titonis, Vice President of Mobile at Verac01de.


Recommended reading: The Confidence Code.