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Women in IT Security: Honorable Mention

Galina Antova is an industrial cybersecurity executive and entrepreneur who most recently co-founded and assumed the title of chief business development officer at Claroty, a firm that secures OT networks running critical infrastructures. She also is a force behind SheEO, a global initiative advocating for female entrepreneurs.

With 30 years of experience specializing in cybersecurity and complex systems, Faye Francy became the first executive director of the Automotive Information Sharing and Analysis Center (Auto-ISAC) in Oct. 2016. Previously, she was executive director of the Aviation-ISAC and before that led the Boeing Commercial Airplanes (BCA) Cyber ONE engineering team.

Limor Kessem (left), executive security adviser at IBM, stands out as a widely quoted source on security matters and is in demand as a speaker at industry events. Formerly, she spent five years in the research lab at RSA Security and contributed regularly to the company blog. She tweets on security as @iCyberFighter.

With more than three decades of experience providing strategic leadership in information security for global corporations, Shamla Naidoo is entering her third year as the VP of IT risk and global CISO at IBM. She was cited in these pages last year for her efforts at building out a diverse cross-section of individuals specializing in business strategy, problem-solving and technology. 

Rekha Shenoy is VP and GM for the industrial cybersecurity business, focusing on Industrial IoT devices, which she once said can bring cost savings and improved efficiency to smart city initiatives. However, with new threats, regulatory requirements and hidden costs, she advised that smart cities must be proactive in defending their critical infrastructure. She led the strategic partnering efforts that resulted in the $710 million sale of Tripwire to Belden.

Sally Yates spent 20 years as a federal prosecutor in Georgia before being appointed a U.S. Attorney and then Deputy Attorney General by President Obama. After working at the DoJ for 27 years, she entered the zeitgeist after testifying against President Trump's travel ban. Explaining her response in a commencement speech on May 24 to Harvard Law School grads, she told the crowd: "I believed that this would require us to advance a pretext, a defense not grounded in truth, so I directed the Department of Justice not to defend the ban.”

A five-year veteran in the cybersecurity field, Lauren Zink is the team lead of security awareness, communications and education at Diebold Nixdorf, in Northeast Ohio. She rose from an entry level analyst to the lead of her department overseeing a security awareness program for more than 29,000 associates in 90+ countries. She's a champion for women and minorities in the field.

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