Changing Lanes: How I transitioned unexpectedly from one career path toward another.
By Luiza Klaus, Corporate Systems Engineer II
With my bachelor’s degree in marketing and a couple years’ worth of professional experience in marketing and consumer relations, a position in sales seemed like a great fit. But for me, that all changed after one phone call.
When I joined Palo Alto Networks in 2018, it was as a Business Development Representative (BDR). As part of this job, I needed to cold-call customers to talk about how our solutions could address their needs and bring value to their businesses. It’s a competitive role, which is a situation I thrive in, and I really enjoyed that job. In fact, I got so caught up in getting ahead and doing so well that within just a few months I was ready for the next challenge.
I started thinking about career advancement, and the next logical step from BDR was a Corporate Sales Representative (CSR) position. Typically, if I encountered a potential corporate customer, I would then turn the business over to a CSR. So I decided that if I wanted to move ahead career-wise, it would be a good idea to start listening in on those calls. And one day I did.
On this particular call, the CSR worked with a Systems Engineer (SE) to talk to the customer. The CSR addressed the business aspects of the conversation, whereas the SE dealt in more technical terms. That SE would demonstrate the products and talk specifics about the technology involved in our products and how they could address the customer’s needs. During that call, the SE was explaining the details of a product I’d never heard about before. I grew excited about the product and the interactions they were having — the customer fully relied on the SE to explain its nuances. Unexpectedly, I felt more drawn to what the SE was doing.
I decided I wanted to figure out a way to transition into an SE position. How could I make this happen? I remembered a prior experience with my previous employer, when I’d expressed interest in moving into a different role within the company. I was instantly met with negativity from my manager – I hadn’t been there long enough, I was needed in his department and not elsewhere, I had to earn my stripes before I moved to another department, etc. But I also believed that things happen for a reason, and I knew I had to at least try. Plus, if I was going to invest the time and effort into becoming an engineer, I should start as soon as possible.
Fortunately, my manager at the time had always been helpful and approachable, and the culture has been one that is supportive of internal mobility. So I went for it! I explained to him that I was really interested in a Systems Engineer position, but that I’d earned a degree in marketing and had no real technical background. I asked for his thoughts on what it would take for me to make that transition.
He responded just as I’d hoped. He was not only positive and supportive, but he encouraged me to talk to the SE manager about it.
I reached out to the SE manager to ask what steps I should take to become an SE. He was happy to help by putting together a list of steps. That list, which he emailed me several weeks later, became my unofficial SE training program. I was becoming a guinea pig by trying something that had never been done before at Palo Alto Networks!
I completed all the steps in about seven months because I was so interested in what I was doing. I loved every bit of the process. When I wasn’t working in my BDR role or when I had any downtime at all, I was studying my SE materials or accomplishing a new phase of training. Every week, I met with the SE manager to update him on my progress and address any questions I had about the content.
When I was finished, an SE role became available. I threw my hat in the ring, interviewed, and was thrilled to be offered the job in February 2019! Additionally, because of the success of the training program my former manager had developed for me, I was given the opportunity to share my feedback and work with him to create a standardized two-year Systems Engineering Academy, which recently became an official part of LEAP, the company’s early-in-career training program.
Now that I’m in my current SE role, I know I absolutely made the right decision to pursue this career. This doesn’t even feel like work to me — I’m having so much fun with my customers and my team. This is everything I could have ever wanted, and although I am always looking forward to new challenges and ways to advance my skills, I know that I want to remain in the Systems Engineering realm no matter what. There’s truly nowhere else I could see myself than right here with Palo Alto Networks.
What this experience has shown me is that it’s important to take that first step and ask for what you want. The worst that can happen is that someone tells you no — but at Palo Alto Networks, that’s unlikely to happen. I’ve seen other colleagues of mine make moves to other positions within the company in similar ways. As long as you are honest and have good intentions for your team and the company, the best approach is a direct one. I would also recommend really talking to people about what you’re interested in and asking lots of questions. Do your research to be sure this is really what you want, and to demonstrate that you’re willing to put in the work. If you do that, chances are great that you’ll end up where you’re meant to be.
LEAP of Faith: Palo Alto Networks offers a just-right place for early-in-career talent to get started.
When I was in high school, I actually was aiming to go to medical school and become a pediatrician. The patient-interaction aspect of that career appealed to me, but its challenges didn’t really become clear to me until my mother and I became caretakers for my grandmother, who suffered and eventually died from ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease). It made me realize the emotional toll a career in medicine might take on me, and I had to face the fact that I just wasn’t cut out for that career path. But I couldn’t have imagined then that I would go on to become a systems engineer with Palo Alto Networks.
Having grown up in a family of tech professionals — both my parents work in IT and my sister studied computer science — it made sense for me to obtain a computer science degree, which I did, at the University of Colorado Boulder. What I would do with that degree, I didn’t yet know. In my mind, this would lead to a career as a web developer, and I wasn’t really interested in writing code all day long.
I was fortunate while in college to be accepted into CU Boulder’s BOLD (Broadening Opportunity through Leadership and Diversity) program. Among other things, BOLD supports students from diverse, underrepresented backgrounds by providing access to scholarships, internships, job opportunities, and career development. This program helped me learn more about the career options a computer science degree might lead me to, and I realized that I didn’t necessarily have to go down a development path.
In my last year of college, I found an internship in Professional Services with Palo Alto Networks. This team works with enterprises to help them deploy, configure, and manage operations of cybersecurity products and services.
Though the role, which was quite advanced for me, didn’t seem like a perfect fit, I learned a tremendous amount and felt very positive about the company. When my internship was over, I did not go on to work full time in that department, but I left having talked to several people about my interest in returning at some point if a position elsewhere within the company opened up. By the time I graduated college, I knew I wanted to work in cybersecurity in some capacity.
Before long, I discovered an opportunity with Palo Alto Networks’ Systems Engineering (SE) Academy, a division of its LEAP Academy program for early-in-career graduates. I reached out to my previous connections at the company to express my interest and find out more, and several months later, after interviewing, I was offered a position in the next SE Academy cohort in Plano, Texas beginning in August 2020!
Laying a Career Foundation
The goal of the SE Academy — and the LEAP Program in general — is to provide a sort of intermediary work experience that sits somewhere between internship and full-fledged professional. The LEAP Program is really tailored to the exact stage of life we’re in. We’re never really trained in what it’s like to start a career — that there are things we’re going to need to know. You just have to learn by doing. In a lot of ways, the SE Academy has been a godsend to me, because in this role, I get to work full time as an Associate Systems Engineer while also being granted the time and space to learn under the direction of seasoned professionals. We’re not expected to know everything, but we can build on our knowledge and gradually take on more responsibility.
LEAP participants are offered workshops on things like what a 401K is or how stock plans work … as well as some life skills that we might otherwise be too shy to ask about. We’re invited to speaker series, where we learn from others’ experiences and are offered their contact information, so we can follow up with questions and further development. My involvement in LEAP has led me to opportunities I didn’t even know existed.
Even as an intern, I was impressed by the Palo Alto Networks team — its collaborative nature and demonstrated commitment to diversity and inclusion. It’s evident throughout the company, and I’m part of many Employee Network Groups (ENGs) dedicated to groups such as women, early-in-career professionals, those of Asian descent, and many more. The steps made toward inclusion and diversity here I haven’t seen before in any other place I’ve worked.
Before the SE Academy, I really didn’t know what a Systems Engineer did, so joining was a “leap” of faith. I discovered that SEs are involved in the presales process; we work with sales representatives to talk to prospective customers, and the SE speaks from the engineering side, demonstrating the product and explaining some of the technical aspects about how it works. It’s actually perfect for me: I’m dealing with the technical details that I enjoy, but I’m interacting with customers and others across the company, which is also something I really like. This is a role I never knew existed in college, but it’s really the sweet spot I was looking for, and I hope that after my two years with the SE Academy are completed, I’ll have the chance to stay long-term and grow my career with Palo Alto Networks.
The Right Fit
In 2017, as I was heading into the last year of my bachelor’s program in computer systems engineering at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, I was given the opportunity to do a three-month summer internship with Palo Alto Networks. In my program, the curriculum actually focused on both hardware and software, providing graduates with a more well-rounded education. But my interest had mostly been in software. However, when Palo Alto Networks approached me about an internship with the Hardware Engineering team, I decided to take it. I thought this would be a great experience that would expand on my academic training. Plus, I knew this was a great company to work for and this would help me get my foot in the door.
In this role, I worked hands-on with circuit boards — testing, analyzing, and reporting signal integrity issues. It was a good experience with an amazing team, but about halfway through the internship, I realized hardware wasn’t really for me. I spoke to my managers about it and explained that I was feeling more drawn to software engineering. It couldn’t have been a better experience. They not only understood, but they worked quickly to transition the remainder of my internship from hardware testing to automating a lot of their testing platform. So I was able to write up a lot of the infrastructure for testing the circuit boards, which gave me a chance to work more with software. We began having discussions about what a full-time role might look like for me — the Hardware Engineering team seemed excited to keep me at the company, but I was also very clear that I wasn’t looking for a full-time hardware role.
The internship went so well that as I was approaching the end, my manager connected me to the Director of the VM Series team and put in a good word for me. I was invited to interview for a software engineering position, and soon after my senior year began, I was offered a position!
Perhaps it’s unusual at some companies to speak that openly about a desire to switch roles or departments, but from what I’ve heard from others and experienced myself at Palo Alto Networks, its leaders are really open to having those conversations and helping you find the right fit. It may not happen in an instant, but if you approach your manager and are open and honest about your intentions, they seem very open and willing to help make it happen.
I also believe it’s important to branch outside your team and discover what’s happening elsewhere in the company. For me, as a recent intern in the first “real” job of my career,I found the Early in Career employee network group hugely helpful because it allowed me to meet new graduates as well as longtime employees who were willing to share their insights and experiences with me. This helped me to fully understand what work the company was doing and what areas most appealed to me.
I think a lot of people come into their jobs not fully understanding what those jobs entail or where they’d like to end up. But once you have that understanding, communicate that with your manager — it benefits them and the company as a whole to have people using their strengths in areas that they love. The amount and quality of work people do correlates to the amount of passion they have for it, so there’s a benefit to encouraging people to follow their interests.
My current manager and my director are both incredible people who genuinely look out for their employees and want what’s best for us, so I’d feel very comfortable talking to them about anything — including any possible changes I might want to make in the future. I think every employee has the right to explore different career opportunities, and speaking from my experience, Palo Alto Networks does an incredible job of putting people in the right positions to succeed.
An Unexpected Detour
A lot of us go into our careers with a plan for where we want to go and how we’re going to get there. But sometimes we’re presented with opportunities we never planned for and discover we’re right where we want to be.
I started my career in the United States Marine Corps, where I held several positions, including roles that involved network and systems administration, telecommunications, network builds, upgrades, migrations, and more. I enjoyed that so much that I enrolled in an associate degree program in enterprise networking at Foothill College in California.
During that time in 2017-2018, I also participated in a program called Year Up, a nonprofit technical training and career development program that works with corporate partners to help young adults ages 18-24 get a head start on their careers. For my program year, Palo Alto Networks was the corporate sponsor. Because of my background and degree program, I was fortunate to be offered a six-month internship as a Desktop Support Specialist. As someone with no prior professional experience, I truly appreciated the learning I was able to do during my internship, and I worked with an amazing team. However, I still had a passion for routers and switches, for how networks are designed and built, so I was still focused on a career as a network engineer. During my internship, I made that desire well known to my manager.
In the last few months of the internship, I was placed in a rotation with the Corporate Systems Engineering team. SEs here are an integral part of the sales team, helping to convey technical information to potential customers and devising security solutions that address their needs. This experience helped not only to provide me with a wealth of knowledge about Palo Alto Networks’ products and sales, but also to connect me with a number of people from departments across the organization.
When I finished my internship in July 2018, I received a full-time offer to continue working as a Desktop Support Specialist. I knew this was a great opportunity I couldn’t pass up and I accepted right away, knowing I had a lot more to learn but also making it known what my ultimate career goal was. By August of that year, I was a full-time employee. I felt blessed to have been given this chance.
In this role, I was collaborating with a couple of network engineers in the company, and one of them unofficially became a sort of mentor to me. I confided to him that I was interested in eventually moving into the same sort of role, and he suggested that if that was truly my goal, I should gain a bit more knowledge in Palo Alto Networks’ firewalls, which was how the company implemented its network. I realized he was right — although I’d had a few courses on that at school but nothing substantial.
I reached out to the team lead in Corporate Systems Engineering whom I’d worked with during my internship SE rotation and learned that, coincidentally, they had an opening for a Systems Engineer. “I know you’re still interested in becoming a Network Engineer,” he told me, “but I think this would be a great way to learn more about our products on a daily basis.” I accepted his offer and in June 2019, I became a full-time Systems Engineer.
My plan was to perform this role for a while until I could eventually work my way into a Network Engineer position. But once I began working as an SE, I absolutely fell in love with it. I love sales, I love working with customers to help them find the right solutions and close those security gaps they have in their environments. Helping to steer them in the right direction to improve their security posture is so satisfying. I’m learning new concepts every day; it’s never boring, and no two days are the same. Sure, it can be stressful at times, but it’s well worth it. In this role there is immediate gratification in solving problems. I’m developing public speaking skills, strengthening my customer service abilities, and contributing to the important sales work taking place in the organization.
I’m so thankful to have worked with managers that were fully supportive of my desire to pursue my chosen career and willing to do whatever it took to help me get there, even if it meant leaving their teams. They weren’t going to let that stop me from being successful, and they never stopped encouraging my growth, wherever that happened to lead me. That openness on their part, combined with my openness to taking an unexpected detour on the road to my goal were what led me to a position I’m really happy in today.
Since starting this role, my goal has changed from becoming a Network Engineer to moving up within Systems Engineering to eventually work on named, major, or global accounts or even become a consulting engineer. If you’d asked me a year ago whether I’d even consider these fields, I would have said no. That’s why I’m a firm believer now in trying everything — new roles, new experiences, new foods. You just don’t know what you’re going to fall in love with.
Carving My Own Career Path with Internal Mobility
I’m not sure anyone wakes up and says, “I want to be a software salesperson!” But as I started thinking about what career would be a good fit for me, I looked at my strengths and interests. I had always been passionate about and good with technology. But I was also outgoing, which was different from the more introverted personality often associated with those in technology careers. Drawing on those strengths and interests, I decided to earn a dual degree in information systems and business so that I could merge the technical side of myself with my natural ability for communicating technical information to others clearly and effectively. I was fortunate to join Palo Alto Networks in 2019 as a Major Accounts Manager — a job where I could do the work I love every day to provide security solutions for our customers.
My role involved overseeing a portfolio of retail accounts while also keeping my thumb on operational technology and heavy industry. But as the months went on, I could see an opportunity presenting itself to develop a whole new aspect of the business. One multinational business that appeared on my radar was a tremendous opportunity that started to present itself in our business dealings. At that time, though my Systems Engineers and I made for a strong, effective team, we simply couldn’t put in the time and effort to cover an organization of that size and scale — yet I had a growing desire to do so.
I’m notorious for taking on far too much. I can’t help myself, I love being busy and taking on new projects and responsibilities. So when I saw an opportunity to develop this new area of business for Palo Alto Networks, I naturally dove in head first. While I continued selling our solutions to our regular retail customers, I also began trying to formulate a strategic approach to this multinational company’s business.
I never set out to become a Global Client Lead, but it began making sense as the months went on. I began getting more and more into the planning side of going into the global market and increasingly realised I really enjoyed running large, global, strategic accounts. I reflected back on my career and could see that when given those opportunities in my work, that was when I was happiest and did my best work.
I started having conversations with my leaders, suggesting that we double down on this opportunity — whether it was with me or somebody else — because the opportunities were too great to ignore. I think it was the easiest conversation I’ve had in my career. In my positions at other organisations, when I’ve wanted to move to a different role, I’ve found that, politically, it’s been quite hard to have those conversations. But first of all, this conversation was the right thing for the company, which was my approach — whether or not it was me heading up this effort, this was something I believed the company needed to be doing. Obviously, I wanted it to be me, but I would have understood if it wasn’t; it was the right thing to do, regardless. Yet our leadership was really supportive from the start.
Once those conversations began happening, I began calling out to others within the organisation, asking for resources and people to help work on that account, and we started looking to restructure and move into global accounts work. And as we solidly moved into fiscal year 2021, my new role became more formalised. It became obvious right away that this was going to be a full-time job and that juggling 15 other accounts was not going to be possible.
That meant I was leaving a gap where someone else would have to fill the role I was leaving behind, and in some organisations that’s a roadblock to internal mobility. Yet the managers at Palo Alto Network believe, wisely, that the pros outweigh the cons. Not only was this new aspect of our business going to add value, but when people are truly performing the right jobs, doing something they’re passionate about and is a strength, that’s when they do their best work, and the business benefits from that.
In addition to advocating for my new professional role, I also recently identified a gap in the corporate responsibility work in the Australia-New Zealand region, particularly around volunteer work. I saw an opportunity to structure that better and get more involvement across our countries to make a greater impact. Though it’s outside my official job duties, I followed my passion for giving back to my community by setting up a strong new Corporate Responsibility program, which helps the organisation with its recruitment efforts, a really important component in the ANZ region, and it boosts morale, which is essential to our success. It also has helped me to make many new, valuable professional connections and build skills that are useful in any role. Again, in those efforts, I have received the full support of my managers, who knew that not only was it something I felt very strongly about, but it was simply the right thing to do.
When I was young, someone gave me a great piece of advice that I’ve ever forgotten: Don’t let anyone make decisions for you about your career. You must communicate your interests, take the reins, and make purposeful decisions to get where you want to be. If you express what you want with confidence and purpose, and build the business case just as you would when selling our solutions to customers, I have found that people want to help you get there.
A Great Place to Grow
I started working for Palo Alto Networks in November 2019, joining the front-end team for Prisma Cloud Compute, part of Prisma Cloud, the company’s cloud-native security platform. Prisma Cloud secures the host, container, and functions across the application lifecycle and provides vulnerability management, compliance, and runtime defense.
I work with the team responsible for the user-interface functionality and visualization that enables the user to secure, monitor, and manage the application security. We take pride in our efforts to provide a unique user experience, creating most of our visual components ourselves while also being consistent in design with other aspects of the Prisma Cloud platform. We want to ensure that the experience we would like to have with the application is the one we offer the customer.
In the short time since joining the company, I have had the opportunity to work with some of the industry’s best technologies and talents. I have also learned so much about my field.
I was fortunate to conduct independent technology research as part of our migration to a new front-end framework. I was assigned to research a solution that can fit our styling demands. During this research, I consulted with other front-end teams at Palo Alto Networks — people with whom my team usually does not work — about their technologies. This research allowed me to get in-depth, front-end styling knowledge and have an impact on our product development. I appreciated the opportunity I received to cross-collaborate with others in the organization, gain new insights into technology, and make significant contributions to our product.
Why Palo Alto Networks?
I started my career in 2013, working as a software engineer and an endpoint security team leader. When I decided to go back into software development, I wanted to stay in the cybersecurity field. So the opportunity to work at Palo Alto Networks, a company on the front line of cybersecurity technology, was a perfect fit.
The technological aspect was an important one in my decision to join the company, but just as important was its workplace culture and the investment it makes in its employees.
In fact, Palo Alto Networks places a strong emphasis on employees’ professional and personal development and makes significant investments to provide it. The company offers various resources, courses, and workshops in a multitude of subject areas, so employees who would like to develop their skills in certain areas may do so. These resources are customized according to employees’ interests and knowledge levels so that the information provided is of value to employees. In my short time at the company, I was able to take part in several such courses and workshops. That enriched my knowledge and gave me tools beyond the scope of my work.
Palo Alto Networks’ Culture
Palo Alto Networks has a positive and welcoming culture. It is also an environment of empowerment — employees are encouraged to take full responsibility for their tasks rather than going through a hierarchy or being forced to remain locked in by titles or job descriptions. The company empowers employees to push themselves forward and places value on the sharing of different ideas. That ensures that employees feel heard and that their contributions matter.
Employees are an integral part of this positive culture. In every interaction I have had, professional or other, I have encountered a willingness among others to help as much as possible. There is a very comfortable working environment with a healthy feedback culture that advances and lets us help each other to grow professionally.
Palo Alto Networks is also committed to creating an inclusive and diverse workplace, which is why the company has implemented several programs, some to which employees can contribute, to ensure a more diverse industry in the future.
Since coming to Palo Alto Networks, I have learned a lot about both cybersecurity technology and myself. I have been able to research new technologies, improve my presentation skills, and even publish my first blog post — all with company encouragement and support. For all these reasons, I highly recommend working for Palo Alto Networks.
Reach for the Career You Want
By Dilruba Malik, Software QA Manager
My background is proof that if you work hard, reach for what you want, and refuse to become derailed by obstacles, you can have the career that you desire. Today, as an Engineering Manager, leading a highly talented software QA engineering team with Palo Alto Networks, I feel I am living the dream I have held since I was a child.
I grew up in rural Bangladesh, where education is a privilege, not a right. But I had a dream that I would someday become an engineer. This goal would by no means be easy to reach, but I had learned early on that I would have to persevere and work extra hard if I were to achieve this goal. I put in many hours of studying, which helped me to take and score well on my college entrance exams.
Just as I was beginning my studies at college, I had to move to the U.S. with my family. I didn’t speak any English, so here I was at age 21, working my way up from the bottom once again. Because I then had to support my family, I had to take a series of odd jobs, at times earning only $5 an hour, and I worked both day and night so that my younger brothers could complete their education.
My first job in the U.S. was at McDonald’s, which gave me a great opportunity to interact with many Americans each day, which helped me to quickly pick up the English language. Eventually, I earned a promotion to assistant store manager. And though I had experienced a setback on the journey to reach my goal of becoming an engineer, I didn’t become discouraged — I knew in my heart that it would happen, but it just might take longer than I had wanted. My hard work paid off and I was accepted to Georgia Institute of Technology, where I earned an electrical engineering degree, all while continuing to work and support my family.
After years of hard work, I graduated from Georgia Tech, and I went on to secure engineering roles with several multinational companies, from Microsoft to Cisco, Hitachi Vantara, and, in May 2020, my current role with Palo Alto Networks. I also have been fortunate to be involved in Women in Tech, giving talks and sharing my story to hopefully inspire other women who face challenges. I have a great opportunity through this network to show others what is possible through vision and hard work.
Since joining this company a year ago, I feel I am where I belong. This is a company that welcomes and celebrates the many differing cultures and experiences that our employees bring. I have been welcomed wholeheartedly by my colleagues, despite (thanks to COVID) never having met them in person. In the short time I’ve been here, I have been empowered to introduce many new processes and allowed to bring positive changes that were inspired by my past experiences. This is a company where anyone can voice any concern without hesitation and always feel that you are working together as a very committed and engaged team.
My experiences have taught me to appreciate what I have, to make do with very little, and to treat everyone with respect by understanding each individual’s unique challenges. You never know what someone else is going through or how a little support and encouragement can be just what that person needs to achieve their goal.
As someone who still finds inspiration in challenge and pushing myself to the next level, I am happy to have found a role with Palo Alto Networks, a company that encourages this mindset and offers every employee the chance to take on new responsibilities and push boundaries to see what’s possible. And it makes every employee — no matter where they come from or what they’ve experienced — feel included and welcomed.
Life-Long Learning
By Catherine Yang, Customer Retention Manager, Greater China
Keep learning, keep exercising, and keep reading. This is my advice to women who are just beginning their careers in the information technology industry.
Keep Learning
I was born in Chengdu, which most people recognize for its giant panda research facility. I think I am also part of the first generation to begin using computers in China in the 1980s. My father, an engineer, even let me play games on his Apple computer, which I still remember was a shooting game.
The IT industry has experienced more tremendous, rapid change than any other in modern times. Just consider how many IT companies in the last few decades have come and gone. If nothing else, the lesson we should draw from this fact is that if you want to work in this industry alongside dynamic and creative people, it’s vital that you keep learning and don’t become complacent. The industry is constantly evolving, and to remain successful, you must continue evolving with it.
This learning may take place in formal school training programs or on the job. Personally, I began my career journey in IT with a bachelor’s degree in engineering. But soon after I began my career, I realized that I needed to be closer to the customer to get a real taste of the business. This made me pursue a Master of Business Administration degree, which expanded my knowledge and experience. It’s like a game of chess. You are not a chessman who only plays a particular role. It would be better if you understand the strategy as the chess player. Possessing market and business knowledge empowered me to have business insight. What I needed to do next was to learn on the job and accumulate experience.
On the job, my “teachers” are my colleagues and managers. I still appreciate my first manager in IT. His pursuit of excellence and commitment to constantly raising the bar earned him the distinction of becoming the youngest manager at the company. His focus, drive, and empathy for others impressed me deeply, and I believe these characteristics are what made him outstanding and successful.
Keep Exercising
It may seem unrelated, but I urge all women to keep exercising, not only keep you fit, but also because it makes you more energetic and vigorous. All the successful women I know in this industry take care of their bodies and minds because it gives them the energy to face the challenges of this industry, including rigorous negotiations or the occasional late night, as well as maintain a healthy work-life balance.
One of my ex-colleagues, a sales director at a top security company, participates in marathons all over the country. Another, who is very elegant in aerial yoga, is an excellent product manager at a top SaaS company. I am a national third-level athlete and have been training in swimming since I was six years old. Even now, despite my busy schedule, I continue to exercise, playing badminton every week and going to the gym regularly. Healthy and positive living not only gives us a fuller, longer life, but it benefits our careers as well.
Keep Reading
An interesting soul is one in a million, which is why I always advise future IT professionals to keep reading. It will give you the ability to think independently. The answers and conclusions it will provide are important, but the intellectual processes that lead to them are even more important. Reading can expand your mind and force its growth, helping you to more efficiently identify problems and develop the methodology for solving them. I generally like to read history, politics, and biographies, but any reading will provide you with a growth mindset, which will improve your mind and benefit your career. Diversifying your reading list will give you the ability to look at the problem more holistically, which enables you to mitigate the risks, seize the opportunities, and foresee the future.
I face new challenges and opportunities everyday, especially since I have been appointed renewal manager of Greater China. It is a new role in the organization, one for which I am grateful, as it offers me the opportunity to lead the team to achieve higher goals. Timely and appropriate rewards are the tradition of the IT industry, but if we were to stop pushing when we accomplish our goals, we would not remain successful for long. We will always be setting new goals and reaching to achieve new heights. As long as I keep learning, exercising, and reading, I will not be afraid of any challenges and difficulties ahead.
I am very happy to have you join our team and grow with us.
My Journey Before and With Palo Alto Networks
By Ashwini Prasad Krishnamurthy, GSI Partner Manager, Singapore
I embarked on a career in technology sales and channel management in 2004. My Palo Alto Networks journey began in 2015 and I currently manage our strategic Global System Integrator (GSI) business across JAPAC. The pace at which we continue to evolve is exhilarating, and it’s indeed an opportunity of a lifetime to be a part of it! I am grateful for the wonderful colleagues that I have the pleasure of working with fulfilling our mission of becoming the cybersecurity partner of choice for our customers and delivering our vision of making each day more secure than the day before.
The fast pace of cybersecurity industry transformation brings with it growth challenges as well as several opportunities. I have often found it easy to handle any setbacks by always being guided by our vision, mission, and company values.
In my early days at Palo Alto Networks, I managed a broad range of regional partners but have since pursued a very focused path in driving our strategic GSI business with our top global partners. These partnerships are highly instrumental in delivering long-term business value to our most critical customers by continually delivering innovation to enable secure digital transformation — even as the pace of change is accelerating.
Choosing to Challenge
As a core member of the JAPAC Women’s Networking Committee, I am honored to manage our “Industry Partnerships and Development” engagements and lead purposeful programs that help women connect, inspire, educate, and empower each other through personal and professional development, networking, and community involvement.
I have had the privilege of initiating our company’s very first Lean In Circles in 2020, which have since expanded globally with over 10 circles and 60 members, and those numbers are growing. Each Lean In Circle is made up of a group of peers who meet regularly to support each other, seek advice, learn new skills, and grow together in an atmosphere of confidentiality and trust. Since the inception of Lean In, I have ensured that our participating members take turns to facilitate our engagements, and this has proven to be a very powerful initiative in empowering the team and growing leadership skills organically within our organisation.
Recently, I had the honor of leading an early education program in cybersecurity for young girls in Singapore, in partnership with Accenture Security, our strategic GSI partner. We introduced our basic level 1 cybersecurity program to 112 Girl Scouts from both international and local schools ranging in age from 5 to 16 (grades K-12). Our young leaders can’t wait to take up the intermediate and advanced cybersecurity courses in the coming quarters, and we have expansion plans to take this program to other JAPAC countries soon, too.
On a more personal level, our community of artists within the company gives me great support and advice in continuing to develop and grow my skills as a hobby impressionist landscape artist.
I’m proud to be a part of the Palo Alto Networks community and to continue to choose to challenge norms by pushing myself and those around me to be our best selves!
Motivated By Challenge
By Pratthana Suppradith, Systems Engineer, Thailand
Life is about choices and changes.
Life has never been easy for me, I could say. There were so many changes and challenges I needed to go through. This even proved true when I needed to choose between passion and practicality.
Since I was young, singing and music have always been my refuge and delight. However, as I was approaching my high school graduation, I realized my dream of pursuing further education in music was not worth considering. I was born the third child out of four in a family in which money was sometimes scarce, and majoring in music education required spending a lot of money. Therefore, during my senior year of high school, with determination to prove my educational potential and reduce financial stress on my family, I decided to apply for a scholarship to pursue my higher education at a private university. I didn’t know at first which education program would be the right fit for me, but being a mathematical-arts student, I had gradually formed motivations and aspirations to learn about numbers and formulas. After studying the course syllabi of all programs enrollable in the university, I found that a degree in telecommunications and computer networks engineering could be my best choice.
Difficulties you face will ultimately trigger determination to succeed.
Being an engineering student brought about challenges and opportunities concurrently. When I was a junior, there was a subject that was compulsory for all students, which was called Data Communications. Here was my turning point. The subject was primarily designed for students in the computer engineering program and was not an ideal course for students in other fields. However, I proved to myself that nothing was beyond my abilities as long as I aimed to achieve. I got to class one hour earlier than everyone else throughout the semester, focusing on the content and studying hard. Thankfully, my hard work paid off with the highest score in the section as my reward.
Being a female engineer was never easy.
In Thailand, it’s undeniable that people do prefer a public university to private ones. Graduating from a private university was therefore one of my greatest two challenges in my professional life; being a woman in the engineering field was the other one. In Thailand, this occupation is still dominated by men, making many people perceive that only men can be successful as engineers. So there were several times I needed to prove that those perceptions were wrong.
I began my career path by working for a local internet service provider as a network engineer. During that time, I worked closely with other vendors on several projects to exchange expertise and best practices to improve and enhance our capacity and achieve best results. I did not see many women in my field, though. As time passed, I realized that my desired optimal career goal was to be and to work like those vendors. Among those with whom I worked was a systems engineer from Palo Alto Networks. He had demonstrated his prowess to an extent that I considered him a role model. Aspiring to be like him, I intended to make everyone focus on my expertise instead of my gender. I spent six years gathering experiences, achieving each target set and going beyond limitations, telling myself to be the best I could be.
Happy family, happy me.
My determination was formed when I realized how dire my family’s financial status was. Back when I had been in high school, we did not even have a house of our own. My parents did not have money to support my education. As the third child of the family, I wanted to be successful in my life and be someone my parents could rely on. I worked seven days a week after school to finance not only my own lifestyle but my family’s as well. With all my perseverance, I managed to buy a house two years after my graduation, enabling me to create certainty for my loved ones.
The route to success is your own.
Even though working for Palo Alto Networks has contributed a great deal to my success, the world of technology and cybersecurity still has something new for you to learn and develop yourself every day. What’s important is that you never let anything stop you, and never forget to be thankful for everybody around you and even for all the obstacles and opportunities that emboldened you.
Optimize your skills, turn your dream into a reality, and be confident in yourself. I wish you all the greatest success in life!