| | DECEMBER 2022ENTERPRISE SECURITY8IN MY OPINIONIN MY OPINIONWhen I attend meetings or lead trainings, I'm not the only woman in the room. But that wasn't always the case. When I enlisted in the United States Air Force 28 years ago, I completed basic training and went to technical school, where you learn your military job. There I gained experience as a communications computer systems operator and began my career in information technology. Looking back on that time, I remember appreciating how my classmates came from many different ethnic and religious backgrounds. But one thing stood out even more -- I was the only woman in that classroom. As someone who'd recently left the comforts of home, that was a little scary. When you enter the military, there's no one holding your hand. You have instructors, but not traditional mentors, at least not in the beginning. I recall looking around my classroom and wondering, will I be respected as an equal? Will my fellow airmen have my back in the same way? Fortunately, those questions soon faded away as I quickly built productive relationships with my classmates.INTENTIONALITY IS THE KEY TO INCREASING DIVERSITY IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGYBy Rosemarie Lee, Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer, BlueCross BlueShield of TennesseeDespite my ultimately positive experience, I know in many ways I'm an outlier. I went from being the only female in my class to having two or three females in the classes I taught as an Air Force instructor. Recently, as chief information security officer at BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee, I've joined a team with more females than I've previously worked with in the cybersecurity space. But information technology remains a male-dominated field, and even with the improvements we're seeing, we have a long way to go before we truly level the IT playing field. At BlueCross, our guiding philosophy is to hire the best people and provide them with the best resources -- and part of that philosophy is to be intentional about getting a diverse candidate pool by casting a very wide net to ensure we don't miss great, qualified applicants. With this extra intentionality Rosemarie Lee
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