Technology

Top 20 Women In Cyber Security Singapore; Top Profiles from CISOs to Hackers

July 18, 2020

SINGAPORE, August 17, 2020: The ‘Top 20 Women in Cyber Security in Singapore’ was awarded this Thursday 13^th of August 2020 at 7pm SGT as part of a global ‘Top Women in Cyber Security’ initiative established to recognize women who have advanced the security technology industry.

The winners represent women in cybersecurity in Singapore for 2020 who have made significant contributions, advanced the industry, and shaped the path for future generations of professionals among other vital contributions.

The Women in Security & Resilience Alliance (WISECRA), which engages a growing network of women in security and resilience associations and groups globally, in partnership with Responsible Cyber Pte. Ltd., a Singaporean start-up building the next generation cloud-based all-in-one cybersecurity solution for Small and Medium Businesses, and MySecurity Media, a primary source of information and reference for security industry professionals, as well as end-users, are pleased to announce the Top 20 Women in Cyber Security in Singapore. Amongst the winners are representatives of leading government agencies and industry firms, from banking, finance, automotive, and consulting:

Alexandra Mercz – She is a champion for cyber security and managing the complex relationship between business and technology stakeholders in large financial institutions. After starting out in accountancy and financial audit, she pivoted to implementing governance, risk and compliance frameworks for financial services organisations all over the globe.
Alina T. – is a prominent figure in the automotive cybersecurity industry in Singapore. She founded and leads the Car Security Quarter (CSQ)—a Singapore-based automotive cybersecurity special interest group— and the Singapore Chapter of the Automotive Security Research Group (ASRG-SIN)—a global non-profit initiative that promotes knowledge sharing and development of security solutions for automotive.
Indrani Chandrasegaran – She is a Cyber Security Executive. Indrani has a total of 20 years’ experience in delivering cyber digital transformation programs, cyber governance advisory, technology advisory, cyber defense operations and managed security services in APAC, Middle East and Europe.
Josephine Tan – She is an accomplished IT and Information Risk Management professional with over 25 years of experience in multiple fields of Information Technology including infrastructure operations, applications development, process re-engineering, IT financial control, Enterprise Security, Cyber Security, Payment Systems Security and IT Risk Management.
Astha Keshariya, Ph.D. – She has consulted Commercial and Academic organizations in the field of Information Security and Cryptography for over 16 years.
Kimberly Chow – She works with customers ranging from large regulated enterprises, to unicorn cloud native organisations to develop, design, and build secure, resilient and compliant architectures. Kim regularly conducts public workshops on Cloud Security, most recently, a talk at the AWS Summit 2020 on Managing Identities at Scale.
Sheena R Jacob – She is a leading technology lawyer with a strong cybersecurity, media, privacy and data protection practice
SHIN YI LIM, Shin Yi has led the development of the national SG Cyber Talent initiative with the aim to nurture talented cybersecurity from a young age, and to help cybersecurity professionals deepen their skills. Her team works closely with employers, cybersecurity communities, government agencies and academia to drive key programmes under SG Cyber Talent. These programmes include SG Cyber Youth, SG Cyber Women, SG Cyber Olympians and SG Cyber Leaders.
Shuchen Hu – She is a Digital Forensics & Incident Response Specialist with a professional history serving the financial services industry. In addition to cyber incident response and data analytics, Shuchen has led cybersecurity product development projects and contributed to improving team efficiency by developing automations and cross-regional collaboration plans.
Sugar Chan – She received her Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology with full scholarship from the university, in addition to multiple professional certifications including OSCP, CRT, GPEN, GICSP and CCSKv4.
Monika Talekar – She is a cyber security professional and a security enthusiast with more than 5 years of experience. Her areas of expertise are Web/Mobile/ Network Pentesting, DevSecOps, Source Code Review, SIEM and Compliance. She has completed her bachelors of Engineering in Computer Science as well as achieved certifications which are well known in the cyber security industry like Offensive Certified Security Professional (OSCP), Offensive Security Certified Expert(OSCE) and Certified DevSecOps Professional (CDP). She also participates in bug bounties in her spare time.
Vesta Matveeva – She is a cybersecurity expert specializing in cyber investigations, digital forensics, and incident response. Vesta has investigated international cases involving financially motivated and state-sponsored APT-groups.
Yi (Estelle) Wang – In 2008, Dr. Yi (Estelle) Wang received her PhD degree in the School of Computer Engineering at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. From July 2016 onwards, she has worked in Singapore within the Security & Privacy Competence Center (SCC) which is part of the Holistic Engineering and Technologies (he[a]t) organization.
Jenny Tan – She is currently leading a global internal audit practice, including IT audit, with a global real estate MNC. Her mandates include delivering quality audit, advocating a transformational audit practice and becoming a business partner within the Group. In her current capacity, Jenny has forged strong working relationships with its IT Security, Digital and IT Infrastructure teams to secure the firm’s IT & IS defenses.
Annie Sim – She has over 15 years of experience in Information & Technology (IT) infrastructure operations and cybersecurity, and OT cybersecurity. Prior to joining CSA in November 2016, she was responsible for the implementation of local and regional security services in DBS Bank Ltd. In her earlier years, she was a Manager leading a team of engineers in IT network security operations in Defence Science Technology Agency.
Nan H Maguire – has 15 years experience in the Cyber Security industry and worked extensively with Fortune 350 and FTSE 100 companies across the globe. After graduating as an Electronic Engineer, Nan worked in a number of large banks in the UK before moving to a reputable international professional services firm as the security expert. She was the Cyber Security executive advisor to multiple government agencies and a number of large international financial institutions globally through which she developed strong management and delivery skills with a wide range of cyber security, operational security and technology risk knowledge.
Neha Malhotra – She is a passionate information & cyber security enthusiast, working as a Security Program manager. She has experience driving various cybersecurity initiatives within IAM, vulnerability management, data protection, network security and more. She effectively brings together strategic business goals, security tools, technology, teams with special focus on cyber risk management. With her unique perspective in managing the challenges that exists across cybersecurity governance areas, she supports organizations in their digital transformation journey, to further bolster organization’s security posture as well as to comply with emerging regulations.
Anuradha Lipare – is a cybersecurity enthusiast with a strong management and technical background, and proven track record for implementing and supporting a wide range of security solutions. Her passion is working with people and helping them to learn, understand, and improve their overall security posture.
Sunila Shivpuri – She is is currently the Chief Security Officer – APAC.
Shumawa May THIN – she sets the strategy and guidance on design, development and implementation all the aspects of information security at regional and country level, managing large multi-cultural, multi-disciplinary teams spread across 9 countries. She has 14 years of diversified experience across the broad range of roles with hands-on expertise in operation security, information security risk, compliance and security program management. She earned her master’s degree in Information and Communication Technology from AIT and professionally certified with CISSP, CISA, CISM, ISO27001LA.

The top winner Kimberly Chow was awarded a leadership scholarship sponsored by the Cyber Leadership Institute, helping her moving her career to the next level. Cyber Leadership Institute has partnered with WoSEC Singapore to award a scholarship to the winner to join the October 2020 Cyber Leadership Program. Each scholarship is worth AUD$ 2,875. Kimberly will join a global class of CISOs / cyber leaders in an intensive & highly interactive online program geared to impart leadership, strategy design, influencing, and board communication skills.

Judges were representatives of leading cybersecurity identities in Singapore, Malaysia and Australia, including:

Shamane Tan, Author, TEDx speaker, founder of Cyber Risk meetup which has more than 3,000 members across Australia and Singapore, and APAC Executive Advisor, hosting her C-Suite talk shows, moderating panels, in addition to her advisory work.
Darren Argyle, Group Chief Information Security Risk Officer and the Co-Founder/ Chairman of Cyber Leadership Institute, an internationally acclaimed cyber security leader, with a wealth of real-world hands-on cyber security experience.
Asou Aminnezhad, seasoned cyber security professional, recognized consistently for performance excellence and contributions to success in IT and OT domains and for different industries globally.
Michael Smith, an independent consultant with over 25 years’ experience in the IT security and intelligence fields performing roles in management, engineering, software development, auditing, incident response, and threat intelligence.
Dan Goldberg, Principle Partner with Transformation and Security firm, Cybza, and a Director of Being-Cyber and CyberSafety-Dads for Australia. For over two decades Dan has led Global Data, Digital and Networks Transformation and Cybersecurity programs. Dan takes pride in his good fortune to have worked with so many amazing people and pivotal programs in our technology and cybersecurity industry.
Magda Chelly, is a former Chief Information Security Officer. Magda is very involved in diversity initiatives and is leading the Women of Security Chapter (WoSEC) in Singapore. She has a Ph.D. in Telecommunication Engineering, is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional and is a Certified Information Security Officer (S-CISO). Chelly has been supporting companies across the world as a CISO during her career, building cyber security strategies, and technical roadmaps for continuously changing technological landscapes. She has been a keynote speaker for international conferences, and is recognized as an international influencer, globally.
Bonnie Butlin, also known around the world as “Canada’s First Lady of Security” is the co-founder and executive director of the Security Partners’ Forum (SPF), a first-of-itskind agile international network of security professionals, bridging all domains and disciplines of security. Under the SPF banner, she created the Women in Security and Resilience Alliance (WISECRA), which engages a growing network of women in security and resilience associations and groups globally.

The event was moderated by Chris Cubbage, the Director of MySecurity Media and Director of Amlec House. Chris is author of Security Risk Management in Corporate Governance, co-author of Corporate Security in the Asia Pacific Region and Executive Editor for the Asia Pacific Security Magazine, Australian Cyber Security Magazine, Cyber Security Weekly Podcast and other channels, including the MySecurity Marketplace.

“By offering recognition to women working in the field, other women may be inspired to consider cyber security as a career, which in turn helps address the imbalance,” said Bonnie Butlin, the founder and international coordinator of WISECRA, a global network of female security and resilience professionals.

“The response to our call for nominations turned out to be both inspirational and informative. We have observed a broad range of capabilities and achievements among the candidates across the many domains of Cyber Security and Resilience. Powerful diversity, elite business climate, wild economic transformation and pure perfection are just some of the few things Singapore is revered for. These Singaporean and Singapore-based cyber security professionals show us the variety of possible career paths in the industry and represent strong role models, starting from very technical roles like penetration testers or ethical hackers to Chief Information Security Officers of multinational companies for current and future generations”, said Dr Magda Chelly, co-organiser and founder of Women of Security (WoSEC) Singapore Chapter.

Magda added: “I founded the Singapore-Chapter of Women of Security (WoSEC). The WoSEC group goal’s is to give the right support for female professionals in our industry, and a safe place to evolve, and expand their capabilities. We exchange about job opportunities, possible challenges in the industry, provide workshops, and organize events to celebrate each other successes, and showcase role models.”

“Diversity is a core value for Responsible Cyber, and we believe change needs actions. It’s important to have diversity represented in leadership positions, and encourage strong role models for future generations”, adds Mikko Laaksonen, TISO and co-founder of Responsible Cyber.

The video and booklet each available via this link

https://aseantechsec.com/top-women-in-cyber-security-to-be-recognised-20-winners-to-be-announced-at-virtual-awards-ceremony/

Media Contact: