Establishing my career in IT risk and assurance as a Jordanian woman has been a fascinating journey.
The Middle East has a cultural fabric where women traditionally have not been expected to prioritize their professional careers. Throughout the past years, such expectations have shifted toward open-mindedness and acceptance to women in the workforce. I now see more and more women leading tech firms, being in charge of tech departments and making their mark in the industry.
Even so, working in technology, which is an industry that tends to be male-dominated around the world, I have encountered certain challenges. It is common for me to step into a committee or executive meeting being the only woman participating, so one of the challenges and triumphs for me is to be able to have a chair in those meetings and to make myself heard. At first, I was a little hesitant to speak up because I was concerned about coming across as too loud or aggressive, and it took me some time to find my voice. To overcome this, I went the extra mile in preparing myself prior to any high-stakes meeting and worked to build my confidence by continuously speaking up in smaller meetings.
Despite some of these challenges and different viewpoints some people might have, I have a passion for what I do, technology risk, and I have surrounded myself with very supportive colleagues and friends. Along those same lines, I try my best to always be there for the other female members on my team and to support them as much as I can.
Sometimes my age can also present challenges. When I go to meetings, there might be judgment from a client that I am too young to understand what is needed for my deliverables or to understand what’s required of the energy sector, for example. The thing is, you cannot translate experience—experience doesn’t equal a total number of years. This is the thing I always like to emphasize. Yes, I do have limited experience compared to someone with 15 or 20 years of experience, but my experience is well-focused on IT risk and highly applicable to the projects that I work on.
My generation will see a lot of change during the course of our career, not only when it comes to gender representation, but the way that the technology environment is changing. For our generation and the generations that come after us, it’s easier in some ways because we are more accustomed to technologies than the people before us. We are adaptive to the new changes that are happening around us and accepting of them. I always like to skip manual processes because that is what I was raised on. I’ve been used to turning to mobile devices and apps for assistance, compared with my parents, for example, who still find it a bit challenging to do online payments and other technology-driven transactions. They say they don’t trust them, and they’re used to paying in cash, but I find it much more convenient and much easier when it comes to technology adaptation.
Aside from work, I love seeing more of the world. I am very passionate about exploring new places and learning different cultures, which is one of the great things about being involved with a global organization like ISACA. These diverse experiences and exposures to different regions can also be very useful in my profession in broadening my life experiences, perspectives and knowledge.