Manon joined Stormshield in 2007 as an assistant in the Marketing department. As she progressed from post to post, she gained new skills and successfully embraced the challenges of this constantly changing sector. We look back on her career, which already spans thirteen years.

 

Manon, how would you present your job at Stormshield?

First and foremost, to understand my job it’s necessary to understand the company’s business model. Using indirect sales channels, Stormshield relies on a network of partners to market and distribute its cybersecurity products to the end customers – private companies, public authorities or governments.

My work as a Field Marketing Manager therefore involves organising this network of resellers with regard to their marketing and communication activities. I monitor and support them to help ensure the visibility of the Stormshield brand and to give them all the tools and motivation they need to sell our solutions. Working as a duo in this job, we provide support, advice and sometimes financing for the performance of marketing operations, whether on a face-to-face basis (such as open days or Tours de France) or using digital means.

The second task assigned to me is organising events (for example shows such as the Assises de la Sécurité and FIC in France or Gitex in Dubai) to promote Stormshield and to carry out prospection for new clients.

 

What are the challenges of your job today?

The main challenge in cybersecurity is ensuring that you constantly evolve and reinvent yourself. To stand out and always reach more people, you need fresh ideas, events and proposals. The aim is to surprise and convince people! It’s therefore vitally important to keep up to date with the latest trends, influences and new communication methods.

You also need to be able to adapt to the culture of each country with which you are dealing. What might work well in France might not necessarily work in Spain or Italy for example. It’s therefore important to discuss, to listen and to monitor the local teams and operating methods in each country. It’s also important to adopt effective communication, and this is something which I find particularly interesting and rewarding from a personal viewpoint.

Finally, one of the major challenges is to successfully assert yourself and to be taken seriously in a male-dominated environment. At the beginning of my career, I’d often be mistaken for the intern or the assistant. This is certainly because of my age but also because of my status as a woman when dealing with men who were often older and more numerous in this industry. The best way to assert yourself is to be professional and recognised as such, whatever your job. You also need to be able to adapt and to readily state your position, your decisions and your feelings without holding anything back while at the same time displaying an ability to listen and to adapt your language and behaviour to your male colleagues.

 

When you joined Stormshield thirteen years ago were there as many women here?

When I arrived, there were only nine women working on the Villeneuve d’Ascq site. There were no women outside the sales, management and communication departments. But that didn’t worry me, because I have quite a strong character [Editor’s note: we were asked to add the “quite”]. It should be noted that gender parity is often the norm in marketing, where women often make up the majority of staff unlike in other departments.

But things have changed since then, and there are many more of us now. More and more women are also taking up technical careers. More than 13% of the total workforce is today comprised of women. It’s still low in volume terms but the proportion is increasing. Today, I have female colleagues in our customer service department for example, which is a big step forward as they are in direct contact with clients for technical matters!

 

Why do you think women are in the minority in these sectors?

The cyber sector – and more generally the IT sector – is reputed as being a rather masculine environment. Wrongly! But because of this, it puts women off studying in such fields.

To change this image and to encourage more women to take up careers in this industry, we need to find new ways to promote it. Hence the idea of showcasing my experience and that of my female colleagues.

Women have the impression that careers in the cyber industry are highly or even excessively technical, whereas in reality this sector requires a great deal of creativity and teamwork. This change in mindset also concerns the education we provide to children, by changing stereotypes from childhood upwards. To do so, we need to shift perceptions by changing both the highly masculine language used in this sector but also by helping women to discover all the opportunities offered by a career in this industry. This is precisely what some of my colleagues are trying to do, by giving presentations in schools and high schools for example.

 

Which information or advice would you give to any woman reading this article, to encourage her to join Stormshield or to take an interest in the cyber sector?

When you choose to work in the cyber industry, you’re joining fast-moving world, a world which is very open, offering a wealth of fascinating personal and professional opportunities.

Stormshield offers many career possibilities and good prospects for personal advancement. For my part, I’ve been fortunate to be able to change jobs three times. These opportunities always came at a moment when I had the impression that I’d covered every aspect of my job and that I needed a fresh challenge. And this also goes for the company itself… There have been so many changes, developments and opportunities since I arrived! I’ve always had the opportunity to learn and to set myself new objectives.

My advice would be to take a fresh look at our sector and not simply to see it in the way it’s often portrayed. Give it a go! We need talented people, whatever their gender!