Hi, my name is Kristen Verderame. I run global government relations for NetApp and in my role at NetApp, I have the great pleasure to work with a lot of senior women around the world. And that is what this feminist series is all about. It's my great pleasure to welcome and introduce Director Jen Easterly, who heads up the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. She runs all of the cybersecurity efforts on behalf of the entire US government. So a big job and I also have with us today our NetApp Chief Security Officer Mignona Cote today. Awesome to be here. I'd like to start out by giving a little bit of our backgrounds in cyber. Let's hear about your journey Jen. So I started out in the Army, grew up in the U.S. Army, went to West Point, was in for 21 years, was an intel officer really didn't come to cyber until I got to Fort Meade and I was deployed to Iraq with the National Security Agency. And we were asked essentially to stand up a new high technology program that would take all of the data that we were collecting in theater about the terrorists that were setting off improvised explosive devices that were having catastrophic impacts on Iraqi civilians and our troops on the ground. It took about six weeks before we were able to be successful and get the system up and running. But then ultimately, it allowed us to take thousands of insurgents off the battlefield andultimately save the lives of troops and Iraqi civilians. I really just had a total passion for how you use technology, how you use cyber to be able to solve the toughest problems in the world. What a great mission. I mean, if anything, to work for. Right. The safety of our soldiers overseas. Mignona, how about your journey? Well, it was by accident. Superman had come out and I fell in love with Lois Lane and always wanted to do investigations. And so I took an audit role. City of Shreveport Municipality. That was a big city for me. So did a lot of investigative work around fraud. And then that just opened up many doors and moving into Dallas, Texas, and worked across six Fortune 50 companies. So I've always had a desire to learn more, investigate and fix things which kept unfolding more and larger challenges within the cybersecurity world. Though I have been through almost every era, I think I was there at the beginning of technology and now looking at the next wave of where we're going, I highly doubt that I'm an attorney by trade. I had to clear a lot of acquisitions in the early days of my career with the national security agencies of the United States. So I had to learn the physical and logical security of the corporation I represented. And I've remained active in cybersecurity throughout my whole career. I think a commonality in this area of cybersecurity is that curiosity. I know you do some work with girls that code and you do a lot of mentoring. What suggestions would you have for getting young women involved in the world of cybersecurity? First, you need to start young. We work with the Girl Scouts. We work with Girls who code. We work with women in cybersecurity. I spend a lot of time traveling around and talking to young women about the different pathways to get into cybersecurity. It's not all hacking or coding. What you need is curiosity. I agree. For us, it's a it's part of our corporate culture and we support the HBCU Partnership challenge in Congress. There's all sorts of really cool things we do that move our NetApp ball forward. One of the reasons I came to NetApp is because we have corporate values that we actually live by. Let's close with one thing that may be has happened to you in your career. What would you say is kind of a turning point or something that happened that really stood out to you? Well, I was at Nortel Networks. I wanted to get out of the audit role. And in order to do that, I went and told the CIO I could fix everything. Like all technologies, the switches, the operating systems, the applications. And I convinced them I could do that. I didn't even know what a project manager was. And that's where I learned the most is because I took on a huge hard project and just owned it. I didn't care about men or women anything, I just owned it. You just step forward. I love it. So in this 2000, I was teaching up at West Point and I was assigned to be the executive assistant to this retired four star general guy called Barry McCaffrey is very famous, badly wounded in Vietnam, and highly,decorated. But he had this reputation of being super mean and super profane. People would brief this guy and like literally they would faint. He was so mean. At one point he sits me down. He's like, Jen, I need to give you some advice. I was like, Fantastic, I'm going to get advice on how to be a four star general. So he sits down. He says to me, Jen, you need to get married and have children. Oh my Gosh! Not what you expected. And so we talked about it and he was saying, you can be a four star general, you can be a highly successful officer, you can do anything, but you can also be very happily married and be a mom. And interestingly, about two years later, I was engaged in two and a half years later, I was a mom, which is the best decision I never made. And so because I think a lot of women worry that if they're going to be successful, they can't take time out and do the things that, you know, you get the most out of life. And being good friends and family. Agreed. Well, you ladies are fabulous. I can't believe you're spending time with us. I'm so happy and grateful to be working with you guys on a day to day basis. I'm very grateful for that and grateful for all you do for this country. And thank you for your service. Thank you. Appreciate you guys being here today. And we have many more episodes of our STEMinist series. I welcome everyone to tune in. Lots more to see. Thank you so much.