Five Questions with...Laura Louthan
Each week I highlight a LinkedIn Learning cybersecurity instructor by posting their responses to five questions. Today’s feature spotlights Laura Louthan . Laura has two courses in the LinkedIn Learning library, Learning Secure Payments and PCI and PCI 4.0: First Look, and more on the way for 2023.
Laura is an information security and IT leader with 20 years of industry experience. After building up years of experience in IT architecture and data management, Laura spent much of the last decade directing information security and compliance initiatives for global corporations. She has served as the senior director of global security compliance at Equifax and the head of information security at Sephora, where she worked in such areas as PCI compliance, third-party risk management, and security in architecture and design. In 2017—after nearly a lifetime of working for other people—she founded Angel Cybersecurity , where she works with SMBs who need information security guidance.
Let’s learn more about Laura!
1. Tell me something about yourself that’s not on your LinkedIn profile.
I used to be a scuba instructor at Club Med in my early 20s.
2. What does a “day-in-the-life” look like for you?
As my clients are US-based and I’m UK-based, my mornings are often spent doing non-client things like walking the dog, going to museums, riding horses, writing my LinkedIn Learning courses! Meetings start around 1pm for me until the evening. Between meetings, I’ll be working on client projects related to their security programs.
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3. When you think about the next year, what’s top of mind for you with respect to the cybersecurity landscape?
For my client organizations, which are typically smaller, the issue will always be the cost of risk mitigation for a growing firm, what can be justified and what is most bang for the buck. We are always anxious about ransomware or a breach, and continuing to make improvements -? to some extent regardless of what is the new most terrifying thing out there - is what is important.
4. What skills, technical or otherwise, are most important for success in cybersecurity???
Technical skills are very helpful as you typically work with technical people, but if you don’t have soft skills and the ability to talk and work with non-technical people, then your career path will be limited to technical roles. Security is a tough job and you are usually asking people to do things they don’t particularly want to do, so an ability to empathize and negotiate is critical!
5. Cybersecurity is constantly changing. What are some ways that you’ve found to stay on top of the latest developments and advance your own skills??
I listen to podcasts and have subscriptions to good email content. We are all drowning in content options and I find it hard to know what to spend time on sometimes. I’m going to sign up for a couple of courses (once I’ve written up my LiL courses!) to continue learning. Luckily, I have multiple clients so I’m always exposed to multiple environments and learn new things every day.