Her Story
About Harriet
Harriet Wang serves as a Corporate Intelligence Analyst in the defense tech sector. She joined her current role six months ago after beginning her career in law enforcement and government work in 2024. In her position, Wang conducts corporate vetting for investors in a startup focused on hypersonics and supersonic aircraft technology, ensuring compliance and supporting counterintelligence initiatives in collaboration with the Department of Defense. Her educational background includes a bachelor's degree in neuroscience from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and partial completion of a master's program in clinical psychology at Pepperdine University. She recently obtained her OSINT certification in open source intelligence research and is an active member of the San Diego chapter of the National Council for Industrial Security (NCMS). Wang previously volunteered as an intern counselor at St. John Community Health, providing support to patients with severe mental health disorders and AIDS. She plans to attend law school within the next year.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Harriet
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute a lot of my success to how my mom was there supporting me along the journey. She was the emotional support and honestly believes in me, just trying to push me harder and harder every day. A lot of it is because I genuinely have the urge just to be better every day. I have a motivation every day, just saying waking up to do better than yesterday, maybe writing down like 3 goals in the morning to see like today this is the things I want to accomplish before I sleep. I think that really helps me a lot. Even though in college, I was always the kind of person, I will get upset if I don't get like the grade that I wanted, and I always get upset if I lose a game. So genuinely like I'm a competitive person, but also like motivated.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
Always make your decision or make a choice before like perfection. Some people always wait to do the next thing or like jump to the next thing when everything's perfect, but I think is most important is you don't have to always be prepared. As long as you think you're prepared enough and you're confident in what you do, do the thing that you believe is gonna happen, right? Make the move that you think is gonna make you better. Like the perfect time isn't never gonna be never gonna come.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Probably knowing what you're getting into cause I feel like a lot of women really care about you know the purpose, the mission of the company. Do your research. Make sure that this is really what you want. But also do not scare to make a jump if you really think this is a good time.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The biggest challenges would be a lot of people might not necessarily agree with like you know the products that we create and the purpose of products that we use especially if they're not really serving for you know the best purposes you know they're used like for the war and stuff but a lot of people are genuinely passionate about the product itself that they create like you know the aircraft the missiles. All that kind of jazz but the purpose of those products people don't really agree with that. But you know it's just not something for us to decide. It's more like you know the time the situation you know what a country decide to do.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Personal life I value consistency. I value time management right? So better organizing your time. For professional I value like an open space open communication. When it comes to like peers when it comes to with your leaders they give you the space for you to grow so you can truly expand your creativity onto things like you care about and you show them this is your progress. So I would say better to summarize career-wise probably like creativity the space to grow.
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