Influential Woman · Government Contracting

Madelaine Dudley

Senior Cyber Recruiter, X8

Columbia, MD

Certifications · Degrees · Memberships

Degree Bachelor's degree in Theater Degree 2015

Her Story

About Madelaine

I've been in corporate for about 7 to 8 years, but I've been on the GovCon side for about 6 years now. I celebrated my two-year anniversary with my current company, X8, in December. We're a small subcontractor and prime contractor - we do both on the government contracting side. We're an offensive cyber operations firm that specializes in supporting the IT community within the government. We have a couple of different customers that support or drive missions in offensive cyber to ensure national security. I manage the recruiting department for our company. There's typically not a typical day in my role. As a small company providing services to our customers within the government IT space, every day is different and comes with its own challenges. I have sole contributor responsibilities that I'm responsible for, but when you work for a small company that you're trying to grow, you have a lot of responsibilities that are outside of your lane that you have to adapt to to ensure effective collaboration. It's a lot of pivoting and navigating and wearing many hats in a small company, for sure.

Her Interview

Ten minutes with Madelaine

01What do you attribute your success to?

I attribute my success to my leadership, for sure. I have a lot of really great people that provide the proper amount of support, guidance, and good examples to continue to strive towards.

02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?

The best career advice I've ever received is to find something that you're invested in from a moral standpoint. You have to believe and be in love with what you do in order to find happiness through the hard times of every day, which occur in any job in any field that you would ever take. It's believing in the mission, and that's what keeps me going.

03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?

I would say find a good mentor - someone that you trust, someone that you respect, and someone that you feel has similar aligned values to the person that you want to continuously become. Also, don't hold your tongue.

04What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?

Authenticity is one of the biggest values for me - being true in your work, being true in who you are, and not cowering or submitting to things that are in direct contrast to that. I'm also an extremely loyal person, which can be tough and would almost go against advice that I would give somebody, because unfortunately, in today's day and age, there are a lot of companies that don't respect the value you bring as a person versus a professional within an open requirement. But I've been lucky enough to find a place that doesn't operate that way. Integrity is important too - just being able to carry through on what you commit to.

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