In this encore episode of the podcast, in honor of Women’s History Month, we’re revisiting a 2019 interview with Veracode CEO Sam King to talk about the information security industry’s struggles to attract and retain talented women. This interview originally aired in episode #148.

The pandemic has been hard on everyone, but it has been especially hard on working women. Women accounted for 55 percent of the 20.5 million jobs lost in April, 2020 at the start of the recession according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, raising the unemployment rate for adult women to about 15 percent from 3.1 percent in February. That had some people referring to the COVID-induced recession as more of a “shecession.” 

Sam King is the CEO of Veracode

But in the information security industry, the “shecession” began long before COVID 19 was a thing. Just over 20 percent of information security pros are women, and the industry has long struggled to find and retain qualified women in information security jobs. Why? Many point to an inhospitable, male dominated culture and a lack of support, within security firms, for female professionals. 

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In recognition of Women’s History Month, Security Ledger is running an encore edition of the podcast focused on just this issue. In this conversation recorded at the RSA Conference in 2019, I speak with Sam King, the CEO of the security firm Veracode about infosec’s leaky talent pipeline. King said that often promising information security professionals simply drop out of the field and the workforce because they lack the support of their employer to juggle family and work obligations that are different from those of their male colleagues.

As always,  you can check our full conversation in our latest Security Ledger podcast at Blubrry. You can also listen to it on iTunes and check us out on SoundCloud, Stitcher, Radio Public and more. Also: if you enjoy this podcast, consider signing up to receive it in your email. Just point your web browser to securityledger.com/subscribe to get notified whenever a new podcast is posted.