I recently became a Ninja. That's right. A Cisco Security Ninja. You can be a Ninja too!
Satyapriya Sharma has a little fun with her new Security Ninja achievement.The Cisco Security Ninja Program (http://wwwin-csdl.cisco.com/ninja_dojo/) confirms lessons learned and challenges participants to reach for higher degrees of competence and proficiency in product security. The program offers four distinct "belt" levels, each one increasing your security knowledge and furthering your career at Cisco.
"Get your Security White Belt" -was the first thing teams told me when I joined Security Business Unit more than a year ago. There was a Business Unit initiative to have everyone be White-Belt certified. So I got into the groove of things and earned my While Belt and Green Belt (Mangers) within the first month of joining. At that moment, I challenged my team to be the first whole team under our SVP that would be Green-Belt certified. We all worked hard together and achieved that Milestone! By that time advanced level ninja certifications (Blue, Brown and Black Belts) registration had started and I registered for Blue Belt. It took two months to earn it.
At this time, I started mentoring my team and others to achieve this milestone in their development as well. Then came the Brown Belt and I submitted my work for Black Belt. I had to wait for few weeks before I heard from the Security Ninja Program Submission Committee who set up a call with me to go over my submission. They told me that I am the only manager who has applied for the black belt outside of the team that created the program!
Satyapriya Sharma earned her ninja status, and wants to encourage other women to be ninjas at work.I didn't think much of it at that time, but once I got the email that I had earned my Black Belt -it started to sink in -the only manager in the whole of CISCO to earn it. Wait! That also meantthe only female manager in whole of CISCO to earn it. YAHOOOOOO !!!!! I couldn't wait to share the news with everyone especially my Women In Science and Engineering (WISE) team.
I got a lot of support from my family and the management team to reach this milestone. Being in Security Business Unit certainly helped me earn the certificates faster since I live and breathe this stuff daily!
I want to use what I learned from this experience to encourage other women, not only at Cisco, but in technology everywhere to push ahead for these expert certifications. Here are four pieces of advice to become a Ninja in your space:
Always remember -if I can do it so can you.