CyberWayFinder Stories

Episode #6 : CWF Founder Series with Patrick Wheeler


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"Scaling Lightning Strikes In Cybersecurity Career Pivots"


Patrick describes his career pivot into cybersecurity as a typically atypical story. He came to Brussels, Belgium from Silicon Valley in 2005 as he was working for a well-known American clothing company based in San Francisco. A few years later he became CISO (Chief Information Security Officer) of a Luxembourg-based bank and is now working as a cybersecurity architect for one of the major banks in Europe.


But years before all that - before he made the pivot into security - he was working in the construction and environmental services in California - and was well-known among colleagues as the "alpha-geek" ready to troubleshoot all their IT woes. He points out that at that time everything was a greenfield - having a computer science or STEM background was not a requirement to get into a career in technology.


Find out what Patrick calls "lightning strikes" that converge to make a successful career pivot into cybersecurity. And why the call for more STEM profiles is an incorrect systemic disqualifier that keeps minority groups out of the security field and consequently hinders innovation.



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CyberWayFinder StoriesBy CyberWayFinder