Women in Security 

Kate is currently the Security Officer at Trade Me, where she runs the security team to keep the data of millions of kiwis safe. Kate holds several governance roles in tech-adjacent organizations including Internet NZ councillor, the NZITF Board - (New Zealand Internet Task force - a body for Security professionals). Kate gives her time to many different causes in and around the tech community and is a firm believer in everyone getting a fair go no matter their background.

She spent several years working in information security consulting while based in the United States – first for the Chicago-based consultancy Neohapsis, and then for Cisco after Neohapsis was acquired by Cisco in 2015.

Amina Aggarwal has a broad range of experience that is more than 11 years in Information Technology. She is currently working as a Network and Security Design Consultant at Spark and provides cyber security advice to Spark’s internal and external customers. She is the Winner of 2021 Women in Security Awards NZ, awarded by DEFSEC (Defence Security New Zealand) magazine for going above and beyond her duties as a cyber security professional. She is also a finalist in the “People’s Choice Award” category for the Ally of the Year Awards 2022. Amina has been involved with the New Zealand Network for Women in Security (NZNWS) as an ambassador since 2021.

Briar officially started the security journey last year with NZ Super Fund, where she worked for the Risk team prior to this thrilling new chapter. Trained but not so tamed as an economist, she found her love for law and corporate governance during the master programme, which pushed her through a PhD in Commercial Law from the University of Auckland. After the graduation and before returning to New Zealand, Briar worked for UN ESCAP and UN Population Fund on various ICT for Development initiatives. She is not your typical security gal, so to speak, but she is absolutely excited to be part of this thriving industry and work with more and more brilliant fellow women in security.

With over twenty years of experience in software development and information security, Laura Bell specialises in bringing security into organisations of every shape and size.

She is the founder and CEO of SafeStack Academy, an online education platform offering flexible, high-quality, and people-focused secure development training for fast moving companies, with a focus on building security skills, practices, and culture across the entire engineering team. Laura is an experienced conference speaker, trainer, and regular panel member, and has spoken at a range of events such as BlackHat USA, Velocity, and OSCON on the subjects of privacy, covert communications, agile security, and security mindset.

Asya comes from a diverse background pulling together knowledge across blockchain, finance and telecom industries. In her last few jobs security has been the primary focus where she has built products and the teams around it.