Happy International Women's Day! Annabelle CISM has joined us today to talk about her experience in the world of technology...

Today marks ‘International Women’s Day 2021’ which is a day where we should celebrate women's achievements globally, and increase visibility, whilst calling out inequality. On that note, I decided to approach Annabelle Meek to be my next interviewee as she is the Lead Security Manager at Computacenter, and last year, was nominated for the CRN Women in Channel Award 2020. 

Annabelle is recognised as an inspirational women in tech and IT, and has told us at GardPass Cyber, that she ‘truly hopes she can inspire others to mentor young women to step into the world of technology, as she has loved every minute of her career in IT’, and therefore, spoke to us about barriers and potential solutions for women in this sector.

As a successful woman working in the world of technology, Annabelle believes that the biggest obstacle for women’s success in this sector is solely related to the personal challenge. She has admitted that the only thing that holds her back, is a lack of inner confidence and self belief. This has resulted in preventing her from being able to step outside of her comfort zone, and apply for an ambitious role, or take a piece of work onboard that she had convinced herself that she couldn’t do. Her main piece of advice is to believe that you deserve a seat at that table and then you will be able to achieve so much more!

In terms of how to overcome these personal issues, a business can and should provide mentoring and training on a frequent basis, to enable all employees to build-up women. This would help to empower females through coaching and mentoring, and enable women to have the confidence to follow their dreams and fulfil their potential to the full!

Despite vast improvements in diversity within this sector, it is still the case that if you are to walk into a mainstream tech event, you could count the number of women on your hand. Therefore, we at GardPass Cyber, agree with Annabelle that accomplishments of women should be celebrated, not because of their gender and that they are women, but because their accomplishments are worth shouting about, and this can help tackle the serious diversity issue that is still ongoing.

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