Aarti Gadhia

About me

I was born/grew up in: Nairobi, Kenya

I now live in: Delta, BC

I completed my training/education at: I studied Financial Economics at the University of Wales, Swansea (UK)

What I do at work

In my job at Bugcrowd, I connect and network with Cybersecurity teams across Canada. My daily activities start with calling someone from the IT department. I use good questions and listening skills to understand their challenges. Once I fully understand their problem, I’ll recommend the best resources and tools to solve their problems. This is usual done through a presentation. My goal is to make sure that I can help them reduce the risk of a security breach.

Good listening skills and curiosity are all you need to become a sales professional. Some of the soft skills I apply daily in my role include listening, curiosity, networking, communications, and problem solving. Before the pandemic, I travelled to many different cities across Canada to meet clients. Today, I do my work virtually.

My career path is

I studied Financial Economics at university. My dream job was to be a stockbroker. As I moved to Canada 16 years ago, I just needed a job to settle down fast. There was an entry-level position for an anti-virus company. The only exposure I had to this industry was that one of my floppy disks had been corrupted due to a virus. I’ll share a little secret… despite having to rewrite my project (which I hadn’t spent much time on) for once, the virus actually saved the day! I had other work experiences to build on and learned on the job. I moved into sales and found that I was good at it. I love what I do. Check my LinkedIn profile for more details of my career path.

I am motivated by

Cybersecurity is an exciting industry. Every day there is a different challenge or a new breach in the news. The unethical hackers are constantly working to attack companies. There are two kinds of hackers: ethical and unethical. The difference between both is the intent. I work with the ethical hackers (good hackers). Ethical hackers work to find weaknesses in computer networks and figure out how to fix them. This prevents the unethical hackers from stealing information or causing problems. What I enjoy the most is that I am making an impact by helping keep our digital world safe.

How I affect peoples’ lives

There are so many new cyber threats, breaches and tactics emerging each day. This is a serious risk to our economy and personal lives. I know that through my role as a Cybersecurity Sales professional, I am contributing to a greater vision, which is to keep our digital world safe from cyber-attacks.

Outside of work I

I enjoy doing puzzles, cooking, watching movies, video editing, and yoga. I also enjoy speaking at many conferences. I volunteer for the Indo-Africa charity as well as mentor graduates. I recently wrote about my career journey in a chapter of a book called "The Rise of Cyber Women: Volume Two". I also volunteer with three local cybersecurity boards, which offer free monthly events to promote cybersecurity and careers in this sector. Here’s a recording of one of these events on careers in cybersecurity.

My advice to others

Don’t let anyone tell you that you are not good enough. Life is like a Safari of experiences and everyone has their own path. Be authentic; don't change who you are. Speak up and don't be afraid of the outcome.