Meghan Maneval, vice president of product strategy & evangelism at RiskOptics, on her dedication to diversity in a male-dominated industry. "My perspective is really focusing on what are those things that I can do to make someone else's life easier or better."

Honored by SC Media as an industry power player, Lara Meadows shares career secrets on how to tap your personal potential and succeed.

SC Media caught up with Ladner, an expert in information governance, during a 10-week conference blitz, where she reported that women still make up just a small fraction of attendees.

“I had a conversation with the CEO of RiskOptics where I said, pretty frankly, that I wanted in. I want to be part of this product, I have an idea, and I think it can work. Hire me," said Meghan Maneval, Vice President of Product Strategy and Evangelism at RiskOptics.

Fabiszak credits one of her early mentors in cybersecurity who pushed her to push the limits every time – she keeps doing that today, yet also encourages her team members to find the right work-life balance.

When Wendi Whitmore applied to the Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations, she was told that it wasn’t a role for her – Whitmore went on to conduct major computer crimes investigations for the Air Force and now heads up Unit 42, a leading threat research and incident response organization.

Said the CISO and VP of Trust at Reddit: "The internet felt like a space to explore. I wanted to protect and defend that. It felt like you needed to have a contingency plan for when things might go wrong.”

Said Code42's chief information security officer and CIO: “We don’t want to solely focus on stopping collaboration or blocking things, but more focus on securing the collaboration culture.”

Said the chief security officer of Citizen Bank: “Being in the law enforcement and intelligence communities years ago has provided me with a very strong baseline into what we’re seeing the financial industry now.”

Said Night Dragon's vice president of business development and strategic alliances of finally finding female colleagues: "At that point I realized how empowered I felt to have someone that resembled me in my world.”