SANS Institute Partners with Secure Diversity to Launch Leadership Academy to Impact Gender Diversity in Cybersecurity

New program seeks to make a measurable impact on women and underrepresented genders in cybersecurity leadership roles

BETHESDA, Md., April 20, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- SANS Institute (SANS), the global leader in cybersecurity training and certifications, has partnered with Secure Diversity (SD) to create a leadership academy in cybersecurity for women and underrepresented genders.

This partnership addresses the scarcity of women and non-binary people holding and advancing to cybersecurity leadership roles. This new cybersecurity SANS SD leadership academy enables participants to obtain leadership skills, management knowledge, and certifications necessary to pursue cybersecurity leadership positions.

"SANS Institute is excited to partner with Secure Diversity in this initiative to create more pathways to education, community, and career advancement for women and underrepresented genders," said Lodrina Cherne, SANS Institute Certified Instructor and SANS Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion taskforce leader. "SANS champions the opportunity to provide professional training and mentorship, towards a goal of achieving better gender diversity in management and executive positions in cybersecurity."

"I spend a lot of time thinking about my career and why it's so different from other women; the freedom, the happiness, and the financial well-being my career has given me, is rare for a woman to have. Why aren't there more women at the top? The answer: training and investments in women for advancement to executive seats aren't happening. This is a national security issue," said Deirdre Diamond, Founder of Secure Diversity, and Founder and CEO of CyberSN. "We must invest in women and underrepresented genders who want to advance to executive roles. Together with SANS, Secure Diversity will support and empower women and underrepresented genders to get to the top of the career chain! Lots of them!"

This new gender-focused cybersecurity leadership academy includes career coaching, three program options, and mentoring sessions from cybersecurity leaders. The three tracks cover skill areas related to Cloud Security Leadership, Transformational Cyber Leadership, and Operational Cyber Executive Management.

The program is also timed along with COVID-19 related economic and workforce recovery to create opportunities for leadership development in cybersecurity. With a disproportionate impact from COVID-19 on women, marginalized genders, and Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), there is a need for initiatives to help make a measurable impact on the lack of gender diversity in executive cybersecurity roles across the United States.

To be considered for this leadership academy, the candidate must have a minimum of three-to-five years of professional experience, including, but not limited to, cybersecurity. The application also asks the candidate to share what experiences they have had to prepare for the SANS leadership training and GIAC certification.

Applications open on May 11, 2022. The application deadline for the academy is Wednesday, August 17, 2022.

For more information about the SANS SD Leadership Academy, please see this link here.

The new SANS SD Leadership Academy adds to the already robust portfolio of US

cyber immersion academies offered by SANS Institute, including, but not limited to, the SANS Women's academy, the SANS Diversity Academy, the SANS VetSuccess Academy for veterans, the SANS Cyber Workforce Academy, and the SANS HBCU Academy. There are also a variety of cyber immersion academies being offered by SANS Institute globally.

About SANS Institute
The SANS Institute was established in 1989 as a cooperative research and education organization. Today, SANS is the most trusted and, by far, the largest provider of cybersecurity training and certification to professionals in government and commercial institutions world-wide. Renowned SANS instructors teach more than 60 courses at in-person and virtual cybersecurity events and on demand. GIAC, an affiliate of the SANS Institute, validates practitioner skills through more than 35 hands-on, technical certifications in cybersecurity and provides the highest and most rigorous assurance of cybersecurity knowledge and skill globally. The SANS Technology Institute, a regionally accredited independent subsidiary, offers master's and bachelor's degrees, graduate certificates, and an undergraduate certificate in cybersecurity. SANS Security Awareness, a division of SANS, provides organizations with a complete and comprehensive security awareness solution, enabling them to manage their "human" cybersecurity risk easily and effectively. SANS also delivers a wide variety of free resources to the InfoSec community including consensus projects, research reports, webcasts, podcasts, and newsletters; it also operates the Internet's early warning system–the Internet Storm Center. At the heart of SANS are the many security practitioners, representing varied global organizations from corporations to universities, working together to support and educate the global information security community. www.sans.org

About Secure Diversity 
Secure Diversity (SD) was founded in 2015 as an innovative non-profit organization with leaders that think out of the box to create strategies and solutions to place qualified individuals who are in marginalized groups women and underrepresented humans into cybersecurity roles. The mission of Secure Diversity is the equal representation of all genders women and men in the cybersecurity workforce by engaging and collaborating with organizations and businesses to improve the recruitment and retention of women and underrepresented genders, to utilize marketing and social media platforms to raise awareness of women in cybersecurity careers, to remove cybersecurity institutional barriers, and innovate new strategies to leverage existing resources. www.securediversity.org 

SOURCE SANS Institute