Making a difference within the cyber industry is of paramount importance to Jo Stewart-Rattray. She is incredibly passionate about encouraging, teaching, and mentoring more women into tech and security fields. In this episode of Industry Spotlight, Robyn Franko, Manager of Event Operations and Services at ISACA, chats with Jo about her background and career path, hobbies, and some interesting challenges the industry faces.

Jo has over 25 years of experience in the IT field, some of which were spent as CIO in the Utilities and as Group CIO in the Tourism space, and with significant experience in the Information Security arena, including as CISO in the healthcare sector. She underpins her information technology and security background with her qualifications in education and management. She specializes in consulting in risk and technology issues with a particular emphasis on governance and security in both the commercial and operational areas of businesses. Jo provides strategic advice to organizations across a number of industry sectors, including banking and finance, utilities, manufacturing, tertiary education, retail, healthcare, and government. 

She has chaired several of ISACA’s international committees, including the Board Audit & Risk Committee, Leadership Development, and Professional Influence & Advocacy.  She served as an Elected Director on ISACA’s International Board of Directors for seven years and was the founder of its global women’s leadership initiative, SheLeadsTech. Because of her involvement with ISACA and the SheLeadsTech program and her rural background Jo was selected from a large number of candidates to be one of only two non-government delegates and was invited to join the official Australian Government delegation to the 62nd Session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW62) held in New York in March 2018.  She returned to the UN in 2019 and again spoke at two UN events this year. She has spoken on Capitol Hill during a Day of Advocacy designed to bring tech leaders together in one place to discuss issues related to women in technology and then to meet with congressional representatives and Senator’s offices.