On September 23, 2022, Girl Security hosted its annual Pathways Expo, joining security leaders from across industry, government, and academia, with girls, women, and gender minorities from across the United States for a day-long, virtual exploration of careers in national security alongside skill-building and informational sessions on education pathways.

Participants engaged with experts on careers in the private sector, including cyber security, automotive, and retail industries; the government sector, including intelligence, policy, law and strategy; the social sectors, including advocacy and research; and academia.

Industry Pathways

Experts shared important career advice for young people considering security pathways. For example, Karen Dahmen has spent the last decade focused on security practices in cloud security at Microsoft. The first part of her career was focused on security compliance, but she found her passion in security consulting due to its importance in several social sectors, including Wifi, voter ballots and domestic violence cases. Dahmen offered two points for consideration: “The first is belonging.” At her first security conference, she remembered being caught off guard by the lack of diversity. Feeling upset, she eventually felt motivated and wanted her “security workforce to model the world,” and is now inspired by the progress in the last 10 years. “The second is framing the skills and experiences that each individual has,” citing the quote, “be yourself, everyone else is taken.” Dahmen shared two Microsoft cybersecurity certifications for people to utilize (Student Training; GitaSharma Collections) and resources detailing pathways and scholarships in security.