Vanessa Pegueros is a highly experienced CyberSecurity leader and currently the Chief Trust & Security Officer at OneLogin (an Identity as a Service provider). She also shares her expertise with others in a “Leading and Managing Enterprise Information Security” course at the University of Washington proving that she not only excels in her career, but helps others do the same.

Her success is demonstrated in all aspects of her life including the various positions and senior-level roles she held at companies like US Bank, AT&T Wireless, and more. Pegueros obtained impressive degrees at schools like Stanford, University of Colorado, and Berkeley, and now holds multiple security and privacy certifications.

Discover more about what led her to such great prosperity, the values she lives by, and how she navigates the workplace as a woman of color.

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Throughout your leadership journey, from your first job to your current position, what are some key lessons you’ve learned that have shaped you as a leader? 

This isn’t so much lessons but more values that I think are important in leadership.  They include: 

• Treat everyone with respect, don’t put your baggage on to others 
• As a leader, admit when you are wrong and also when you don’t know something 
• See and understand the strengths of everyone and figure out how to make those strengths best work in a high performing team. 
• Strive for diversity in your team.  Diversity in gender, ethnicity, country of origin, socioeconomic, and neural diversity. 

What do you still want to accomplish? 

I would like to help more women of color participate and be successful in the Venture Capital community and ecosystem.  This includes both founders and fund managers.  

What are three key characteristics or habits that have led to your success? 

Not in any particular order 

• Strive of a balance between family, work, and health 

• A love of learning about both myself and the world around me 

• Seeing connections between very different things whether they be concepts, technology or people 

Every person faces their own challenges and women of color are certainly no exception. What contributes to your resilience as a professional woman of color? 

There are a few things that contribute to my resilience including: 

• Strong women role models in my family 
• Keeping perspective when the hard times hit and realizing that it could always be worse 
• A commitment to making the world better for younger women of color, just like women of color before me have done 
• Knowing what you can control and what you can’t control.  Minimize the energy spent on the things you can’t control 
• Faith that things will get better 

There is often a lack of representation of women of color in executive and board rooms. When you find yourself in these situations, how do you ensure your voice is heard? 

Having a perspective or expertise that is different from others in the room. Asking questions that make people think about a problem or a solution in a different way.  Don’t talk too much but when you talk be confident and powerful in your presentation. 

A recent McKinsey study on women in the workplace show that while more women are reaching C-suite level positions, women of color are especially underrepresented at entry and mid-level management positions. What can companies do to address this disparity? 

Companies need to explore the data and understand why this underrepresentation is occurring: 

• How are they recruiting for these positions, are they just relying on referrals by the current employee base which may not be diverse? 
• Once women of color are hired in, does the culture promote their inclusion, do they feel a part of the company the way others do? 
• Are women of color being actively developed and put into roles or projects that will provide them exposure and an opportunity to grow and advance? 

Once they understand the answers to these questions, a plan should be developed and implemented to close the gaps.  This may require additional resources or money and companies should prioritize that resource allocation if they want to make true change.  

What advice would you give to women of color who aspire to lead and make change? 

First understand why you want to lead and would you enjoy leading.  Leading is very different from management.  Leading involves inspiring, motivating and helping people from afar.  As a leader, you are not in the day-to-day details for the most part.  You must equip your team to execute on the goals and be there to help them when they run into challenges.  

Second, understand the challenges or areas of development you need to improve on to become a leader.  Talk to friends and trust colleagues who will give you honest feedback.  

Make sure the change you want to make aligns with your strengths.  What do you uniquely bring to the challenge of the issue that needs change and why would you be good to lead that change? 

Don’t get discouraged, failure will happen and it should.  Eventually you will find the way and be patient because it could take a lot longer than you think to make the change.  

What podcasts are you listening to and/or books are you reading? 

I mostly listen to books on my phone, this works best for my schedule, whether I’m driving or getting ready in the morning.  The books I have listened to in the last 3 months include: 

• Caste – Isabel Wilkerson 
• Breath – James Nestor 
• How to Avoid a Climate Disaster – Bill Gates 
• Tribes – Seth Godin 
• This is How they Tell me the World Ends – Nicole Perloth