One of the UK’s largest financial institutions and the parent company of Scotland’s oldest bank, has pledged its support to a new cross-sector initiative striving to improve gender diversity in one of the country’s fastest growing sectors – cyber security.
Lloyds Banking Group is the final partner to join forces with The Scottish Government, ScotlandIS and Scottish Digital Academy to support the “Empowering Women to Lead Cyber Security” programme, which has been designed by leadership coaching specialists Empowering-You to develop a community of potential and emerging women leaders in cyber security and information governance roles across Scotland, helping to address the long-standing lack of women working within the sector.
The initial three-month intensive leadership programme brings together 20-24, early-mid career cybersecurity and information management professionals, who have been selected from a national open application process which attracted interest from applicants across sectors as diverse as financial services, energy and utilities, telecommunications, government, and health. All places on the programme are free of charge to participants, with the funding provided by a combination of government and industry partners including Adarma, Morgan Stanley and NCC Group, alongside Lloyds Banking Group.
The final make-up of the cohort is agreed on by the programme’s panel of experts including Ciara Mitchell, Head of Cyber Security at ScotlandIS, The Scottish Government’s Head of Cyber Resilience Policy, Clare el Azebbi, and Roz Britton, Head of Talent Attraction and Capability for the Digital Profession at The Scottish Government, along with senior representatives from industry including security sector specialist and Lloyds Banking Group’s Director of Intelligence and Incident Response, Maggie Titmuss MBE.
Commenting on why the financial giant had decided to support the initiative, Maggie said “At Lloyds Banking Group, we fully recognise that gender diversity is key to our success and that of our people. As an organisation we need to reflect the society we serve and that is why we are thrilled to be part of this initiative to encourage women to develop their careers in IT and Cyber Security leadership.
“The low proportion of women in the UK cyber workforce really highlights the challenge we have and if we want to remove the barriers to women as they embark on and progress their careers in Cyber Security, and help them overcome their challenges, programmes like this are instrumental in achieving this.”
Further information on the “Empowering Women to Lead Cyber Security” programme can be found here.