Career Growth Advice from Micki Boland, Cyber Security Leader | Career Tips for Women in Cyber Security

2B Bolder Podcast – Episode 73
Featuring Micki Boland

Episode Title: #73 Career Podcast Featuring Micki Boland, a Global Cybersecurity Warrior and Evangelist: Women in Tech

Host: Mary Killelea
Guest: Micki Boland

Mary Killelea (Host): Hi there. My name is Mary Killelea. Welcome to the To Be Bolder podcast, providing career insights for the next generation of women in business and tech. To Be Bolder was created out of my love for technology and marketing, my desire to bring together like-minded women, and my hope to be a great role model and source of inspiration for my two girls and other young women like you. Encouraging you guys to show up and to be bolder and to know that anything you guys dream of, it's totally possible. So sit back, relax and enjoy the conversation.

Hi, thank you for tuning in. Today's guest is Micki Boland. Micki is a global cybersecurity warrior and evangelist with Checkpoint Technologies Office of the CTO. With over 700,000 unfulfilled cybersecurity roles in the United States, nearly 3 million available cybersecurity roles worldwide with the number expected only to grow in the coming years. There has never been a better time to consider a career in cybersecurity. And I am so excited to cover this topic today and welcome Micki to the show. Thank you, Micki, for being here with me.

Micki Boland (Guest): Thank you, Mary, for hosting me. I'm very grateful to be here with you.

Mary Killelea: Of course. So the show's all about having successful women come on and share their careers. Can you talk about your career journey and how you ended up at the office of the CTO at Checkpoint Software?

Micki Boland: Oh, yes. Well, I'll try to keep this a concise story, but my career is a little bit like the Game Frogger. Have you ever played?

Mary Killelea: Yeah, I know what you mean. That's great.

Micki Boland: I actually am pretty adapted, like maneuvering around obstacles. But I started out in the Army, in the US Army. I was in Information Systems Command. It was a worldwide detachment. I always liked science and technology and math. And I really wanted to be a double E. But when I got out of the Army, I was actually hired by Kaiser Permanente as an IT analyst. And then I actually just came onto Sprint as an engineer, started out in the field and an architect, and then made my way to Nortel Networks as a headquarters engineer. And actually, I was working with a lot of customers doing alpha and beta trials of our technology, which was a pretty, pretty big deal back then. And we actually were testing hardware, software building, and basically QA-ing it with our partners. And then I decided I wanted to focus solely on cybersecurity.

So, I had done an MBA with a global security concentration. And I love counterterrorism and global security policy. And cybersecurity was actually building with those things. And then I did actually a master's of technology commercialization at UT Austin. I love technology, matching the stuff up is so cool, like a lot of intrapreneur stuff. And then really, I actually talked to a firm that helped you map your career. So this was out of UT Austin. They're like, okay, where do you want to go? What do you need? So they actually help you figure out your gaps. And it was really awesome. So I immersed myself in cybersecurity, actually. Malcolm Gladwell, he talks about the 10,000 hour rule, like you literally have to immerse yourself for 10,000 hours. And I did and actually sort of work for my own company, we had forensics, emerging tech, hacking, ethical hacking. I worked with the Secret Service and IEEE and InfraGuard, the FBI, and a lot of customers. And then basically, here I come to Checkpoint.

And the Checkpoint thing was just so serendipitous. Like first, just getting hired by Checkpoint, it is extremely, it seems extremely difficult because you they were looking for mad skills, right? And they'll develop them. But to get on there as an adult, and post graduate was a little bit challenging, but it was serendipitous because a friend of their family, basically inducted me. And then I worked with our global system integrators across the world and our managed service providers and like big global customers really learn so much from so many people here at Checkpoint. And then my VP and my peers actually nominated me to come to the office of the CTO, which has been awesome because I can't tell you how much like I, the Frogger thing comes from like my curiosity and I like to learn stuff. So I kind of like, I will flock to the things that I want to do. And being in the office of the CTO allows me all of those fun things, being curious and being creative and researching and writing about cyber security and in emerging tech and then working with our R&D leaders, our data scientists. And it's just been like, I can't even, it's kind of like a dream come true. It's like a, it's like doing like a rockstar gig that just got handed to you. Like, I mean, I know I work hard for it, but it's just so fun. It's just amazing.

Mary Killelea: That is amazing. And that's a fascinating career path. Help me understand what a cyber security architect does.

Micki Boland: That's awesome. So, I think the best way to say is that in a nutshell, a cyber security architect, our mission is to work with customers at the strategic level to help them like be their leadership in advising them and consulting them on how to leverage people, process and technology to meet their cyber security goals. Okay. That sounds so dumb. All right. Let's talk about this. What is it really like? So, you want to design an architect your own home. You go to an architect, okay, there's the building code, there's site plan, there's a building structure itself. There's what you want your building to look like your home or your office building. So that we are the architects. We actually spec everything out. We take your dream. We take the site plan. We see all the big picture. We go down to like the nth degree. We spec out everything. We create the blueprints for the frame, the electrical, the plumbing, the HVAC and the site plan. And we hand that back over to you and then say, okay, is this what you want? Like this is flexible. You know, it's modular. You can adapt. You can change it, but is this, this is a good baseline and is this what you want to do? And you say, no, I want to change this. And we change it and help you change it. And then basically that's what we do is we help customers to achieve that building that home.

You might hear a lot about like zero trust. There's a lot of buzz around zero trust, right? Zero trust, zero trust. So it's not like, it's not like you can just put a sticky label on something and it's zero trust. It's really a strategy, right? So, it's a strategy that has considerations. Just like your building or your home design, it spans frameworks and models and architecture, but there's real requirements behind that. And there's a real plan. Maybe you can only build half of it this year and you have to do the rest next year, but we help customers formulate that plan, that blueprint, and then the way to get there and along with their like short-term and long-term objectives. And then what do they need to do? So, I'm kind of like a former military that I am, you know, we say plan the work and work the plan and be adaptive and flexible, but that's basically what we're doing with our customers as architects is to be adaptive and flexible, but give them that blueprint and the specs on the way to get there.

Mary Killelea: That metaphor of the house for the layman is so easy to understand and I appreciate the metaphor really. So how long does, do you like work with customers from start to finish? Because it sounds like such a lengthy process.

Micki Boland: That's a great question. I mean, it can be very lengthy. We can be a long-term engaged or we can basically do the design and the blueprints and then hand it off to them and say some of these things involve people. So their policy, they're policy driven and they require an executive champion. They have GRC requirements, like global risk governance and compliance. And then some of these are people, right? So like enforcing the policies and letting the end users know what the policies are and what the teeth are in the policies. That's not even a CFheckpoint thing. That's a thing that we espouse, but it's basically helping with the governance and then creating like policies for end users, for devices.

And then there's the technology piece, which is a very large piece. It could be Checkpoint. It can be another technology. It can be maybe a couple of vendors in the cyber security stack. So we can be, it could be enough that we give the advice and some governance and some consulting and we hand it off to the customer and they're like, okay, yes, we want you guys to do all this for us. And then we will be involved once like everything's designed, then we turn it over to the builders, right? So like there's a general contractor, get the pro services team come in and we basically like help implement those with the account team, help the customer select the technologies and then implement those. But they may choose not to go with Checkpoint, or we might be part of it. So it depends. If it's certain emerging tech like cloud and IOT, it can be super fast because those projects, they're not like a long-term commercial build. It's like, I need a barn up really fast. A secure barn, right? So they're moving and they need security now. So, it's like, all right, help us figure this out. Let's roll. You guys help us. We got everything. We plummet in and deploy everything. It's like a mass customization.

Mary Killelea: How valuable do you think having a diverse group of cybersecurity architects on a project is to the end strategy? Meaning, you've got the women as part of that thinking process, diverse culture. How does that enhance what you deliver to your customers?

Micki Boland: It's so important because most of the time what we hear from our customers is that we need the expertise, that guidance, and we're seeking it from you guys. They have people in house, but they have their own architects many times and these people are like tremendous. And there are men and women in these roles and they're phenomenal, but they're seeking guidance. They look to us as, I say we're the global leader in cybersecurity. I feel like that is definitely true. They're looking to us for our guidance and we primarily work as a team. We come in there as advisors and consultants and we stay with them. We learned everything that they have, their current architecture, even if we're not involved in it, we actually help them plan their architecture and then we stay with them if they want us to and we stay there and we work with their architect teams.

All the time we're trying to get up in the organization to be basically sitting at the same side of the table with the CIO and the CISO. We're a trusted advisor. That seems kind of like a buzz, just kind of like a buzz term, but basically, we need to be part of that team and that's when we have the most success. If customers kind of keep us at arm's length and really just want us to fulfill, just answer these things or tell us if we're right and we don't get to stay involved, we don't see as much success as when we're really part of that customer's team and extension of that team and that is such an amazing place to be and so rewarding.

Mary Killelea: What are the pros and cons of being a woman in a mostly male dominated industry?

Micki Boland: Yeah, I'm going to say this. We used to make a joke about get out of ruler because we go into a meeting and you're the only woman there. I'm just going to give a super funny thing. We're the only one and there was a couple of other friends that I work with at Checkpoint that are women and we'd be in a meeting with the guys and the guys would be like, oh, blah, blah, blah. I'm not saying all guys and I'm not saying across the board, but there would be a lot of posturing sometimes and stuff and we were just kind of like, we would just make a joke. But the thing is that I learned, I used to come in there guns blazing with all the, so trying to prove yourself, right? You're trying to prove yourself, hey, I actually have skills. I have something of value here to bring, but I learned. I actually read a book and it was after grad school and it's a conversational intelligence by Glazer. So I was realizing that if you do that with guns blazing, it's kind of like in Jump Street 22, where the people are like, go losing their minds. It just causes other people to be distrustful, right? Like, what do you have to prove? Why are you being like this? Why are you so dominating? Is this a team player or is this person full of crap? Right?

So the thing I learned is that after I read that book and I did a lot, I actually did a lot of like testing because I really work hard to be social. I tell Ana all the time, I try to work really hard to be more social, but I'm more conscious of talking to people and actually listening, actively listening. And then not like inauthentically going, oh yeah, I understand just to get my way, but basically being authentically connected and listening to that person. And I've found that when I do that, instead of going in there guns blazing, but actually really going in there and trying to communicate and build trust. And it's a neurological thing. I mean, you're building the same type of bonding that you can do on teams, you can do across virtual teams and with your customers and other people you talk to. It actually has people reducing and putting their shields down, right? Instead of shields up, it's shields down. Oh, okay. We have the same goals. Like we are here together. That is the way I have found that has, it's worked better for me than being kind of guns blazing female in all males. It's actually, and it's kind of a subtle thing, which is something that I think women, we tend to be very caring and open and more, I guess, really listening and being connected with people. And I won't say that across the board, that's not necessarily true, because there are men that are that way as well. But I feel like that's kind of our purpose. We're more nurturing.

I think that some of the most formidable female client executives I've ever seen, they can go in there and talk about anything. Like they are just building that trust and that rapport. And they can do anything and they are just outstanding. They never show, they never go in guns blazing, but they're also authentic. And when sometimes because sometimes whoever you're working with, you kind of need to be authentic and say like, you're really messing up. And I'm telling you this for your own, you're increasing risk, you're going to have technical debt, you're going to run into issues downstream, , you're going to be rigid, you're not going to be able to adapt your architecture, you're going to have to forklift this stuff. Those are things that you can say one way, like, oh, you're like totally screwing everything up. Or you can say, look, I really care about your org. We want you guys to be successful. This is where you're messing up. And I think that, I think that's the difference. And I think, I think more men must be reading this book too, because I see a lot, I see a lot less guns blazing confrontation in the mixed, in the mixed groups, maybe we're becoming like, you know, mainstream.

Mary Killelea: Well, you know, I think people are just more awake with, you know, how, how people need to be treated for the results that they want, or at least I hope that's kind of how the world is transitioning from the professional side. I mean, you've still got your toxic environments, but I think for the majority, I think people are awaking to treat others how you want to be treated. I know it sounds so basic, but.

Micki Boland: Approach everyone as an individual, you know, and, and how you want to be treated.

Mary Killelea: Exactly. Exactly. So you, you write for cyber talk.org and you've covered topics like AI based social engineering strategies to stop cyber criminal gangs and many more fascinating ones. One, what's one of your favorite topics to write on? And then what has been a contributor author, how has that helped you kind of expand your career outside of your company? And is that something you would advise other women to do who are trying to gain visibility? And I know that's a loaded question. I asked you three questions in one, but.

Micki Boland: No worries. I got it. I got it. Well, first I will say I love writing for cyber talk and contributing to like other articles, like our spokesperson marketing team, they'll bring us like Ana has brought, Hey, Silicon angle wants, you know, like they're looking for us to say something and, and decipher and, and dark reading. Right. So, it's a great opportunity. And every time I can, I always try to say, yes, yes, yes. Because it is just so important for us to, to be doing research, to be engaged, to be doing some writing. We have editors, we have help, right. But we're also learning and growing. And it's also a way to kind of continue your education and continue like, you know, inspiring others and all that great stuff. At Cyber Talk, we have a great editor, her name is Shira Landau and she makes the process fun. Like she'll be like, all right, you want to write about post quantum encryption, right? Post quantum cryptography. That's it. Very, that could be a very deep subject. And how do you keep the right people engaged, right? Like, which is everyone, it's our audience is everyone. So she's like, okay, well, can you like, if you're going to do this, can you stick to these areas? And she'll give me some framing, which really helps me.

I think it's so critical for everyone, especially women to be writing or presenting or researching tech. I just, I was at a conference in SoCal and Dr. Billiana Lilly, she does a lot of research. She did like postgraduate naval academy and she's actually done research on some of the election integrity and things that happened with Russia and, I don't want to go into cyber security, but other nation states basically trying to like disrupt and cause challenges, which happens all the time. She presented her research was just absolutely stunning. Like everyone flocked to her, want to talk to her as much as, as much as possible. And it, it was phenomenal to see like a woman, like it front and center and everyone's listening to like, it was like, you know, EF Hutton, right? Like they were just, everyone was just waiting and it wasn't fluff. I mean, she put her research up there and it was just brilliant. So I think like, it's so important for women. If you're just starting out. We had people that they're like, I've never written before and our other, the other evangelists within Checkpoint will encourage them like, Hey, I will give you my writing. I'll give you my presentation. You can take it and make it your own. This is the research that we've done. This is the research Checkpoint has done. This is the stuff that, like Ana and our team will present like spokesperson kind of talking points, right? It's not to make us like, you know, robots to go out there and do a message. It's to give us the autonomy to go in there and take that thing and make it our own and get out there and share it with people.

And I think for women, it's so important because we just don't see that many women, you know, out there front and center. So, I would encourage everyone that can and is willing to, to just go out there and present like write something, research something, present something. I mean, at these conferences, we're required to go out there and create new research. And sometimes I'll talk to our researchers and sometimes I'll talk to like our data scientists, but I'm responsible for the research and I'm responsible for the paper to submit on these call for papers at these conferences. And some of these are like really hardcore academic conferences. That's what Checkpoint wants us to do. Like all of the evangelists in the office of the CTO to get out there. Every time we have a chance to talk to a university or at a major conference or do a radio show, talk to broadcast media. It's such a great opportunity for us to showcase Checkpoint, which is like our global leadership and make it interesting to people and relatable to like the average bear. And I think we're all trying to create cyber security warriors along the way and inspire everyone, but it's so great for women to see other women doing these things. Yeah.

Mary Killelea: What fills you the most with your role?

Micki Boland: You know what, like ultimately I think at the heart of my like being is like customer satisfaction. Like I love customers. I love helping customers. I used to be a field tech and there are systems down and you're helping them get something back up. Or you're helping them avoid like major risk or technical debt. So, I like for customers to be bold, the customers to be leaders in their industry sector. And I'd like to influence them and inspire them to actually be a leader in cyber security in their sector. I also want them to like be confident in like medical IOT or I'm working on internet of vehicles, right? Like we're deploying new technologies. The pace is fast in the medical community. These technologies, they actually save people's lives. So, we want them to be able to adapt those, but we don't want them to trade off security.

And every time we help a customer achieve their goals, it just makes me very happy. I like to influence people at all levels to, I'm kind of a big on helping them learn more about cyber security. And I like for people to get into the industry and also be curious because there's so much creativity that's involved in like, these are really, ultimately, these are big puzzles to solve, like with a lot of challenges and a lot of pieces, right? And so you have to kind of be taking a risk. You can't be risk averse. You have to be taking a risk to get into cyber security. But if people like to learn, they like to grow, they're curious. I mean, this is the place for folks like that. It will never be boring. And that's kind of what makes me go every day. That's kind of the why I do what I do.

Mary Killelea: I love it. I love it. And there's a lot of people who don't know their why. And so, when we can articulate our why, I think that helps us enjoy the work that we do so much more.

Micki Boland: Yeah. Ultimately, I want to stick it to the man, which is the bad guys, right? Like I really want to stick it to the bad guys and help customers avoid being taken advantage of. Like, but you know, it turns into how can we reduce risk? How can you be a leader? How can we influence you? So yeah, it's a blast.

Mary Killelea: When you were a little girl, did you envision you'd be doing what you were doing?

Micki Boland: No, I wanted to be a veterinarian so bad. But I knew I love animals so much. And we had animals that unfortunately, they didn't survive, you know, so it was like, I don't think I can handle this every day of my life. If every day some of these creatures that are so special are dying and I can't save them. So I was in mathematics, science, engineering, as a little kid, I took like four years of German. So, like back then, that was the way if you're in science, that was the way you went. And it was all hardcore science, every bit of science, chemistry, anatomy, physics. I mean, everything you can imagine electronics. And I didn't ever think that I would actually be where I am today, though. I never, never saw that coming.

Mary Killelea: You're an active advocate for women in tech. What do you see as like the biggest obstacle?

Micki Boland: I guess I would say two things. I think one that we're missing somewhere, not all the time, because we're doing a lot of really great stuff with STEM and, and robotics. But I think we're missing the boat with the young girls. I mean, there isn't a kid on the planet that doesn't have a smart device. Now, people say, well, kids don't care about technology like they used to, they don't care. They just want to use it. They don't know what's under the hood. They don't want to tear it apart and build it and play with it. But I maintain that that's just because no one's doing that for them. It's so user friendly, they don't really have to think about it. So, I think that one of the obstacles is we have to get in to encourage and empower girls when they're in middle school and high school through like my friend, she helps with USA robotics. It's a USA First. And they have kids like the other thing is it pulls it pulls through all kinds of disadvantaged kids and kids that are like they're want to go to tech school, but they don't their parents can't afford it. They're pulling through all these kids and girls. And they are building robots and doing robot fighting and robot like the robots are doing there's a specific challenge that they have to do. So, they're problem solving, they have to team their coding, that's such a great opportunity. I think we need to do that more. And I think when you get into higher ed, kids are like, okay, well, liberal arts is easier, engineering, math, math, science, maybe harder. But I think we need to really recruit and there are kids that don't go to college that like, one of our big researchers, like he started off just hacking stuff as like, I guess a baby. Like he was just breaking stuff in, in building it and breaking it and building it, we need to do more of that, I think, with kids and adults. I mean, we all actually all need to play. But I think those are like huge obstacles.

And then, the other thing I see is like Checkpoint, we have really great programs for cybersecurity education and in higher ed. We have Mind, which is a program where people can go and get cyber security training. The thing is that we have to appeal to people like, this is cool. This is what you can do. This is all the things. If I said, okay, you're going to come into cyber security, what roles can I do? Well, it's everything from marketing to client exec to software developer to research and development QA to an engineer architect, like we have to like show the way, what is it that you want to be? And then, in more like, maybe sometimes is what you don't want to be like, you want to be this, but you don't want to be this. Yeah, there's still, you don't have to be stuck in this pigeonhole. And then ultimately, like, I think the higher ed is now really starting to get a grip where, they're having all these great programs in cyber security, but they need these companies to hire these young people that are coming out of cyber, especially women were attracting them. Where do you want to go? Right. I'll still say, like, right now, if I was a young person, and I really didn't know what I wanted to do, I'd go in the US Air Force in cyber security, assuming I could make the scores for ASBAD in that they will let you be in cyber security your entire career. If you want to be, if you want to retire in the Air Force, they will guarantee you can be in cyber security, and you'll get pretty much anything you want to do.

So there's a lot of things to do, we just have to show that the way. I think here's your land nav, you want to get here to the summit, there's a lot of ways you can get there, there's a lot of waypoints, but what's the fastest way, or what's the most interesting way you want to go, and then show them how to get there. And that's, I think, where we're kind of all, even the industry is kind of missing the boat. And then, I guess, third is pay.

Mary Killelea: Yeah. Yeah.

Micki Boland: You know, recruit talent, pay them, because it's not easy, it's not an easy job. Many of these roles are easy within cyber security.

Mary Killelea: Well, you know, it is so interesting when you hear 700,000 unfilled cyber security roles in the United States, and then you've got tech companies laying off people, because the headwinds of just the economy, etc. Now you've got people who are looking to pivot or to find a more meaningful career. How do you advise them from taking their skills in various sectors that they were in and make it transferable? Any advice to that?

Micki Boland: You know, that's a great question. And it was really kind of touching on something I mentioned earlier. You kind of need like a gap analysis. So, the people that I worked with post grad school, they really helped me formulate a plan, right? I mean, the plan, you have to be flexible in your, like, taking the plan, like how fast can you do things? You have like life work balance, you have your family, but ultimately, they will help you formulate, okay, what are your gaps, like your skills gaps? And interestingly enough, this group of people, they actually did a lot for people that were coming out of the military that had great careers in the military, but they couldn't translate those skills to civilian workforce and jobs. Military expect, oh, well, you'll understand where I'm coming from. It's not like that anymore. But I think that you need an expert sometimes to help you like take a look at your career.

I totally pivoted from being like really, you know, emerging tech. It was everything land, WAN, switching, routing, provider edge. So, it was like circuits and to like some security and pivoted to all security. And I think that it took a lot of money and a lot of effort on my part, but I just needed that kind of secret decoder ring. Like, how do I approach it? If you can't do it yourself, maybe get someone like a professional consultant to help you. It's not that much money. I'll be honest with you, it really was worth every penny I paid. Or if within your organization, like here at Checkpoint I have people coming to me a lot of days, hey, I want you to mentor me. I want you to tell me like, what should I do? I want to be this. I want to be an engineer. I want to be like you. What do I have to do? Right. And, and we have to take the time, we have to develop people and give them if it's within their company and they can pivot so much the better. Right. So I think that getting help, if it's internal, if it's external, if you can do it yourself, but then know that you're going to have to put some time in, like some elbow grease to get those skills. You know, like I went back to school again, I got my CISSP. I immersed myself. I went to, I worked tirelessly and it, it takes a while. You have to be patient, but the effort will pay off and you can't pivot to, to any, to any career.

Mary Killelea: And you have to have that career resilience, which is that constant ability to move forward and stay the course, even though it's going to be tough and it's going to be hard.

Micki Boland: That's so true. I love this guy, Nassim Taleb. He wrote the book, Anti-Fragile. He also wrote like the Black Swan and Fooled by Randomness, but he talks about anti-fragile and fragility and systems and systems are like industries or financial markets of them. They're not able to handle something that comes, that's like a chaotic event, right? They're like, they will break, they will snap. And I think his anti-fragile is that these are systems that actually thrive on disorder. They kind of thrive on chaos. And unfortunately or fortunately, I didn't know about Nassim Taleb and anti-fragile until way when, after I started my career, but I always try to make myself anti-fragile. I never wanted to be pigeonholed or siloed. I wanted to be able to do the things that I wanted to do and pursue them and not be constrained. Or if you're like, okay, I don't have a path anymore. My future is gone because this industry or this technology is gone. And so that does provide a little bit of a Frogger like career, but it also like makes you very adaptive. And for people today, I'd say like, I don't care if someone comes in and they say, Hey, I want you to go research this in cyber security and I want you to go present it. I'd be like, yes, I'm going to do it because every time we like are put into that position where we have to go beyond what we're used to doing, we got to stretch, we learn, we learn. And it's something that you're on the bloody edge. Maybe no one else is doing this. You'd be the first one to go do it. More power to you. That's the way of being anti-fragile. And literally things will happen. The universe does actually pay off for people taking risks and accepting challenges like that. And I'd say to everyone, I hear this, Oh, I can't do this because of this or no one really gets it. Or we're subjected to these things. And honestly, I say that's like, you need a pool. You just see move on that and flip that the other way. I can do this because no one else is doing it. It doesn't matter who I am. I can go forward and do these things because no one else really can do it. I'm going to take the yes. I'm going to learn from it. There's going to be good things that come out of it and go for it and not be afraid. So to be bold.

Mary Killelea: I was just going to say leads me into my next question, which is what does to be bolder mean to you? But it sounds like you just answered that question.

Micki Boland: Yeah. I mean, your name says it all. It's just so awesome. I mean, to inspire, man, to connect to, I mean, we used to say in the military, there's a mountain I'm going to go through. I'm going to go around it. I'll go under it or I'll go over it. You know, there was no mountain in the way that you can't move unless you think you cannot move it. And I love your podcast, Mary. I love what you're doing because this gives a chance for amazing women to see what amazing things they're doing. And it's an inspiration because we need that. You know, we need that Ada Lovelace. We need that, you know, Grace Hopper. We need those women out there that today like you that are doing these things like Ana, like Liz, like Rupa on our team. I mean, there are people doing things and we've got to get that story out because that informs us that these things are possible and great things can happen if we just take that risk and go for it.

Mary Killelea: I am so grateful that you are here sharing your story. How can someone get in touch with you or learn more about your company?

Micki Boland: Oh, well, I would love it. So if they want to go to Checkpoint, Checkpoint.com, of course, if they want to talk to me, LinkedIn is probably the best way to get me. And I travel a lot. So Michelle Boland, M-I-C-H-E-L-E Boland, aka Micki, M-I-C-K-I. And then if they would, I would like ask them to check out Checkpoint MIND, M-I-N-D. So if they go to Checkpoint.com slash MIND and go check out some training. So, in a similar way, like MIT has like, you can really take like every MIT like program, you won't get a degree, but like all their course material is out there. We're doing a lot of cool stuff with MIND and there's, we have people, I mean, there's no restriction. You don't have to be a Checkpoint customer or partner. Anyone can take this training.

Mary Killelea: That's amazing. Thank you so much for being here.

Micki Boland: It's my pleasure. Thank you, Mary, for hosting me and being a great host.