Don't Chase Unicorns

We recently sat down for a virtual interview with Lisa Hall, who leads Information Security at PagerDuty. PagerDuty is the central nervous system for real-time digital operations at over 13,000 organizations, including nearly 60% of the Fortune 100. The publicly-traded company is a household name in DevOps and IT and has led the recent renaissance in infrastructure monitoring and response, serving customers around the globe. PagerDuty is mission-critical for every single customer, and teams place unparalleled trust in the security of the company and the platform. PagerDuty's team works nonstop to maintain that trust.

Your path to leading a security organization is unique. How did you get started and what are you doing today? 

Since the 80’s I have always enjoyed learning about computers and gaming (Playing King’s Quest on IBM really got me hooked). My first “tech job” was tier 1 support at an Apple call center and my start in the security industry was serendipitous. I was actually working Administrative Assistant jobs when I applied to an Executive Assistant to the CISO position at First American / CoreLogic. When I went to interview, I learned the CISO and Information Security Officer were both women, and I was excited to see women interested and successful in security. I loved learning about information security, and as the EA to the CISO, I had the opportunity to be a part of everything—from project planning to board meetings. I voiced my interest in learning more and advancing in security and eventually grew from EA to Security Analyst. From there, I moved into a Security Manager role. Since then, I’ve consulted with EY, joined my first Bay Area start-up,Twilio, in 2013, and now I head up a team of 12 here at PagerDuty! Shout out to Lou Viscusi, Coleen Coolidge, Laurel Geise and Cynthia Watson for opening doors for me along the way! A support network is everything. 

You've successfully approached security hiring in unconventional ways. Can you share your approach and lessons learned?

I start with the assumption that security is learnable. One of the top struggles we hear about in security hiring is “finding talent.” The talent is out there. When we give people opportunities, they bring diversity, excitement, and fresh perspectives into the organization. In security, we have to think about one concept in many different ways to understand how something might be vulnerable or compromised. Security is a creative industry that requires a diverse skill set, above and beyond technical aptitude.

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