Annie Liao

This post was originally published on WCAI's newsletter, a CAI ERG for women.

Senior Consultant, Cybersecurity | Women of CAI

Annie L. joined CAI in January 2022 as an entry level Cybersecurity Consultant. During that time, she has had the opportunity to work on many exciting projects including reading governance documents, creating security policies, penetration testing, and working closely with partners and clients. Because the cybersecurity industry is typically considered as very male dominated, she considers herself extremely fortunate to have the team be so welcoming. She will always be grateful to Rex Johnson for taking a chance on her when she had no formal cybersecurity experience, and to Charles Snyder and Pete Ortega for mentoring her and answering all her questions in these past two years.

Because the cybersecurity industry is typically considered as very male dominated, she considers herself extremely fortunate to have the team be so welcoming.

Her transition into IT has not been the most conventional nor the easiest of paths. In the 10 years prior to her career change she has held a wide range of professional experiences across different industries. She has formal training as a fashion designer, a pastry chef, medical administration staff, and as a legal assistant. While those experiences are extremely broad, they have always shared one feature. That is, she was usually the first stop for technical questions from colleagues before reaching out to technical support. While working as a legal assistant, she took the initiative to set up a network, which included elements such as file sharing, voice over internet protocol (VOIP) phone system, and account and access management. That was when she decided it was time to officially pursue IT as a career path, specifically in Cybersecurity.

In her personal time, she loves to spend time exploring with her husband and dog, seeing family and friends, traveling, cooking, baking delicious treats, and discovering random new hobbies. She also spends a good portion of her time practicing her penetration testing skills and tinkering with older devices that she collects from her friends and family. She finds that having this balance of varied interests helps focus and prioritize things that are truly important in her life, while also teaching her to look through different perspectives when approaching tasks. She is optimistic about all that the future will bring in both her personal and professional ventures.

As stated above, this article was originally published on WCAI's newsletter, a CAI ERG for women. I am not the author, but as a colleague of Annie wanted to share it with the LinkedIn community.