Her Story
About Dorothy
I've been working in technology for over 30 years and in cybersecurity specifically for more than 10 years. My career began supporting switching equipment at companies like New Birch Networks, which later became Alcatel Networks. I then spent 15 years at British Telecom, where I had an incredible journey that included a 5-year overseas assignment in Belgium and extensive travel throughout Europe. At BT, I progressed through various marketing director roles, led competitive intelligence and market intelligence initiatives, and eventually managed proposal management and bid work with a team of 20 people. After BT, I moved into cybersecurity at Tripwire as director of competitive market intelligence, where I built their competitive program from scratch as a single contributor and helped shape their overall strategy. I briefly worked at Dell Tech in accounting software, but it wasn't the right fit, so I returned to cybersecurity at Venify. There, I built their program from the ground up, managed a team of 3 people, and expanded beyond competitive work to include customer and market insight, making strategic recommendations for the company. Currently, I'm at Illumio managing a smaller team focused on laser-focused, deep-dive technical competitive intelligence. I'm passionate about competitive and market intelligence work and plan to continue in marketing and competitive roles. Beyond my professional work, I'm deeply committed to mentoring other women in technology, helping them navigate their careers, advocate for themselves, and overcome the barriers that my generation faced.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Dorothy
01What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Don't be afraid to be your authentic self. I think early on in my career, I was a lot more afraid to speak up. Do your homework, understand the market and the landscape, and make recommendations. Don't be afraid to stand up to business leaders and give strategic advice to them. I have no problems now talking to the CEO or chief product officer and saying, hey, if you want to grow your revenue, you have to do X, Y, and Z, and here's why, and here's where the market's headed. I feel a lot more confident in my own skin now. You can make a greater impact if you're your authentic self. It's hard oftentimes for women because of gender roles - women want to get along with everybody and for everybody to like them, but sometimes if you want to make a big impact, you can't always worry about whether or not people are going to like you. You have to be respectful and say things in a diplomatic way, but you can still make a big impact with recommendations. You really need to not be afraid of the technology. A lot of guys don't have engineering degrees, but they've learned how to talk the talk. What I do is I get onto YouTube and I watch these technology videos, and I learn it. The more you learn and the more you can go through technical training, even if you don't have a technical degree, if you can talk the talk, you're accepted and part of the club. Don't just hide in a corner doing your work - you have to promote it in a respectful and professional way. If you want to get promoted, you need to get in writing from your manager exactly what you need to do to get there. I had to do that at BT where I hadn't gotten promoted yet to director level, and I kept hammering on my manager, checking off things every quarter until I got promoted after a year. Don't be afraid to apply for roles even if you don't have all the skills - a lot of men apply for roles when they don't have all the skills. And it's okay to fail occasionally. Not every time you try something are you going to be 100% perfect. Sometimes you make mistakes and blunders, but you learn from them. You can learn more from your mistakes than your successes.
02What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The next big thing is AI and automation. I just got back from the Gartner Security and Risk Conference, where everything was agentic AI. Ten years ago, DevOps and cloud was nothing, but now it's dominating the entire market. Everybody knows what DevOps and cloud is. You must be under a rock if you've never heard of it. The technology landscape is constantly evolving, and it's important to stay on top of these changes through continuous learning.
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