On this International Women’s Day (IWD) I want to acknowledge how fortunate we are as a company to have the insight, expertise, and leadership of the very talented women in executive management roles here at Digital Guardian.

In the male-dominated cybersecurity industry we are an outlier to have women who have played essential roles in transforming the company as our Chief Financial Officer, Chief Strategy Officer & CMO, and Chief Technology Officer. In the two years we have worked together as an executive team these women have, among other accomplishments, completely modernized our financial systems, built strategic relationships with AWS, Microsoft, and Palo Alto Networks to deliver on our federated DLP vision and revitalized engineering with a full embrace of the agile development methodology and all its inherent benefits.

Ever since I joined the company, I have done my best to lead by promoting equality, diversity, and inclusion. When it comes to gender equality in the workforce, we have made a lot of progress, both at Digital Guardian and in the world at large, but it’s undeniable there’s still a lot of work left to do.

Gender bias remains a challenge – both in the world and particularly in technology and the cybersecurity industry. These biases have caused some to form prejudices, limit opportunities for women and further sow the seeds of inequality, ultimately to the detriment of our society.

A UN report last year found almost 90% of men and women hold some form of bias against females. A 2018 report said women hold only 25% of computing jobs, even though women comprise almost half of the total workforce. A study last year found that only 10% of executive-level roles were held by women in 2020. While I'm happy Digital Guardian bucks that trend, it's still a troubling statistic.

To further inclusivity as a company, it’s critical to challenge gender bias and amplify women not just one day a year but every day.

IWD is a time to reflect on progress made and ask ourselves what more we can do to lift women’s voices. The theme of this year’s International Women's Day 2021 is #ChooseToChallenge - gender bias, inequality, and the struggles women face every day.

I choose to challenge all our employees and everyone in my network to confront gender bias and help empower women daily so they can play their part in shaping the future of our world.