Episode 10

Diana Kelley – CTO & Founding Partner, Security Curve; Chief vCISO, Salt Cybersecurity, Board Member and Inclusion Working Group Champion at WiCyS

Published on: 18th November, 2021

About Our Diary Entry:

Diana Kelley’s security career spans over 30 years. She is Co-Founder and CTO of SecurityCurve and donates much of her time to volunteer work in the cybersecurity community, including serving on the ACM Ethics & Plagiarism Committee, as CTO and Board member at Sightline Security, Board member and Inclusion Working Group champion at WiCyS, Cybersecurity Committee Advisor at CompTIA, Advisory Council, Bartlett College of Science and Mathematics, Bridgewater State University, and RSAC US Program Committee. 

Diana produces the #MyCyberWhy series and is the host of BrightTALK’s The (Security) Balancing Act and co-host of the Your Everyday Cyber podcast. Diana is also a Principal Consulting Analyst at TechVision Research and a member of The Analyst Syndicate. She was the Cybersecurity Field CTO for Microsoft, Global Executive Security Advisor at IBM Security, GM at Symantec, VP at Burton Group (now Gartner), and a Manager at KPMG. She is a sought after keynote speaker, the co-author of the books Practical Cybersecurity Architecture and Cryptographic Libraries for Developers, has been a lecturer at Boston College's Masters program in cybersecurity, the EWF 2020 Executive of the Year, and one of Cybersecurity Ventures 100 Fascinating Females Fighting Cybercrime.

Diana Kelley recently joined Cyber Future Foundation as an Advisor. 

Highlights:

0:00 - Introductions and Backgrounds

  • On how she does it all… “It takes a village – everything I do is in partnership with others”
  • “I’m super hyper organized and that helps a lot – once I showed somebody my pantry and everything is labeled”
  • Loves being back on the advisory side; has been at big companies for 8+ years – gives her balance working with smaller companies  

6:09 - “When you get to the really big companies, as things get scaled the complications grow exponentially – have legal requirements, regulatory needs based on the geo – people can get really siloed in their focus. CISO has to have some kind of a view…”

8:44 – Diana’s Perspective on Leadership.

  • Leadership – she’s been called “pushy,” but some people want to go in and get organized and bring people together.
  • In college (she went to Boston College) and loved the radio station. They needed a general manager, and it was a student selected role; in her second year she decided to run for GM and she was the first woman!  
  • Years later when she was working in Cambridge and building out a team, she thought to herself “I could be a Vice President someday – she had been building towards this…
  • Advice: think about what is natural for you and embrace the opportunity.
  • Leaders don’t necessarily have to be managers

21:09 - The Button Learning - @whataboutbunny on Instagram

41:04 - What Gets You Excited and Which Role in Cybersecurity?  

  • There are CISOs presenting to boards – what is that you want to do in cyber?
  • Look at people who are in those roles and reach out and talk to them – ask them what their job is like
  • “I’ve learned so much by just asking people. For a while I was really curious – what’s a distinguished engineer…”
  • Ask people what it’s like to be in their job and how did they get there

Engage with Diana Kelley:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dianakelleysecuritycurve/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/dianakelley14

The (Security) Balancing Act: https://www.brighttalk.com/channel/17830/

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About the Podcast

The CISO Diaries
The path to cybersecurity leadership is not a direct route and it's those divergent routes that create the amazing stories and histories of leaders who are driving security to keep businesses and people safe.

We’re Leah McLean and Syya Yasotornrat and we intend to give CISOs and cybersecurity professionals a place to be their authentic selves. These are the unedited stories told of how they got into cybersecurity, the real struggles they’ve persevered through, personal anecdotes that make them tick, and leadership advice based on experiences.

We aren't the kind of cybersecurity podcasts that focuses on the technologies, or recent incidents. We are the podcast that focuses on the people behind the headlines and the incredible diversity of experiences and backgrounds. (And it's not lost on us that we're two awesome female hosts)!

Let's face it: we are a cybersecurity tribe and we need all hands on deck!

We hope you enjoy our CISO diary entries.

After all, we're only human, right?

Special thanks to our sponsor, Cyber Future Foundation, a non-profit global cybersecurity executive leadership community, where leaders, thinkers, and futurists discuss and develop actionable guidance and frameworks for a trusted and safer world.

About your hosts

Syya Yasotornrat

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Syya is a tenured tech sales professional with her time at SonicWALL and Hewlett Packard (HPE) with some hospitality at the Walt Disney Company and IT recruitment experience in the mix. She is currently a podcast strategist and consultant, helping others to bring out their voice and legacy through podcasting. She loves to learn and talk about anything, so feel free to reach out!

Leah McLean

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Leah is Vice President, Cybersecurity Specialist at Mastercard. She is focused on implementing strategy and programs to evolve cybersecurity risk management approaches and cybersecurity awareness and training. She actively contributes in community working groups to advance cybersecurity risk management and third-party risk. Leah is also a mentor to candidates breaking into cybersecurity careers, and collaborates with employers to rethink their workforce and hiring strategies.
Leah is a co-founder at Whole Cyber Human Initiative, a non-profit focused on redefining how we identify, train, equip, advance knowledge, and build workforce development within IT and Cybersecurity. She also volunteers for Cyber Future Foundation, a non-profit driving workforce development initiatives and private and public sector collaboration.
Previously Leah held senior level roles as a cybersecurity practitioner at Armor, a cloud security company protecting data for SMB and mid-market customers, Apstra (acquired by Juniper Networks), A10 Networks and Cisco Systems. Leah serves on the Board of Advisors for Cloud Defense, Inc., a breach visibility cloud security startup and is on the board for the Cloud Security Alliance North Texas Chapter.
Leah holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science, with an emphasis in International Relations from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is an active outdoor junkie always chasing adventure.