Women Working in Identity
If you are currently working or have experience working in the Identity and Access Management (IAM) sector you will know that women working in this field are uncommon. CyberIAM is lucky enough to employ some of the women that did step into this sector. We interviewed three of our female employees to get some insight into what challenges, advantages and highlights they have experienced by being a woman in a male-dominated industry.
Challenges women in Identity Face
All three of the women that we interviewed started at the bottom, straight out of University. Bhavana Somashekara started as a developer in India, Nikki Greer started out working for a centralised provisioning team at a bank and Millie Perkins kick started her career with a graduate scheme at a Top 4 Consultancy. They have each expressed that starting out in Identity as a woman comes with a set of challenges: “You have to prove yourself more to be respected as someone that does have technical knowledge”. This has made it difficult to grow in their careers. Along with having to prove their knowledge they have felt misunderstood at times and would like to have more women to share the workplace with.
Even though they had to work through these challenges, each one of them expressed that they have grown stronger as a person and became better employees because of this. They have learned how to stand up for themselves and to push themselves to be more assertive in some areas.
Advantages of being a woman working in Identity
The self-growth that these women have experienced is only one of the advantages of being a woman in Identity. The people skills that they have developed have brought them a long way, not only have they established good working relationships with their co-workers but also with customers. Not only did this character trait help them, but being women in a male dominated field in general made them more memorable to clients and colleagues.
Highlights of their IAM careers
With all the challenges they face and advantages they experience, each one of these women love working in Identity. They feel that every day is different and interesting which makes it exciting. Nikki has expressed that finding IAM was a highlight for her during her career as she’s found something that she is passionate about. One of Millie’s highlights of working in IAM includes the first time her team had 100% certification completion on a project she worked on. Bhavana expressed that being the lead developer during one of CyberIAM’s biggest projects was one of her career highlights.
Where are they now
They have found working for CyberIAM very accommodating and positive when it comes to career growth. These women have worked hard to find themselves in the job roles that they currently have. Millie is currently a Technical Business Analyst on one of our CyberArk implementation projects. Nikki is a Business Analyst for CyberIAM for an IdentityNow application onboarding project and Bhavana is a Subject Matter Expert working with one of our biggest clients. They all enjoy working at IAM and count themselves lucky to be able to work in a field that they are passionate about.
CyberIAM are very proud of the strong women that form part of our team. They have added value to each of our projects and we look forward to working with more women within the IAM sector.
If you are a woman in identity or want to work in this space please reach out to us at recruitment@CyberIAM.com
Advice for young women starting out in Identity Access Management
