Chandralekha Yenugunti

I would say that I've always had this personal motto: never give up. I just keep trying till the end, and I really put in diligent hard work. I believe that whatever we put our mind to, we can do it, if we have that intention to do it. So I would attribute my success to these two things - my never-give-up attitude and my commitment to diligent hard work.

One of the best career advices I've received is that for me to keep learning and growing, I need to give back to my community. I learned that to teach, mentor, or support my colleagues, and just show up for the community is essential. That advice really helped me form strong bonds with my teammates, and now we all support each other. I would say the best advice is to be there for your community, support your colleagues, and volunteer in the cybersecurity community. I'm working on that part - I'm trying to sign up or write articles. I haven't gotten to that yet, but I would say that's the best advice.

For women entering into cybersecurity, I would say learn and be as hands-on as possible when learning all the cybersecurity topics and domains. Be a really good developer to understand what goes behind the scenes, so that it's easier to break into this field. You need to be really good at spotting what can lead to a vulnerability, so you need to be a good developer as well. It would be really helpful to be hands-on when learning.

The challenges are that cybersecurity is constantly evolving, so there's that need to keep up and keep pace with the speed of change. I have to keep learning, and it's a time-sensitive field, so those are the two challenges. But I wouldn't say those are true challenges - they're actually good opportunities for me as well. It pushes me to stay sharp and keep learning things. It's a good challenge, I would say.

In my professional life, I really appreciate having a collaborative and supporting environment. I have a really good team where we all support each other, and that's really important to me. I try my best to be there for my colleagues - for example, when my colleague had to go away for a year, I took care of all of her work for that year, and I appreciate having that support for me as well when I need to be away. It's important to me that I'm part of a collaborative, supportive environment where I keep learning new stuff instead of stagnating. Personally and professionally, I really appreciate work-life balance. I have several hobbies in my personal life that I find time for.