Women of Influence Award Winners Named

The 2008 Executive Women’s Forum “Women of Influence” Awards were awarded Wednesday at the event in Chandler, Arizona.

The awards were co-presented by Alta Associates and CSO Magazine, recognizing women in four categories: one winner from the public sector or academia, a private solutions provider from the security industry, a corporate practitioner from the private sector, and finally, ‘One to Watch,’ a future leader in the security field. The winners nominated by peers in the security community.

This year, the public sector winner is Dena Haritos Tsamitis, director of the Information Networking Institute and director of education, training, and outreach at CyLab at Carnegie Mellon University. Tsamitis is also adjunct faculty at the H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management.

As director of the Information Networking Institute (INI) at Carnegie Mellon University, Tsamitis is responsible for the academic, administrative, and fiscal operations of the INI, which offers graduate programs in information networking, information security technology and management and information technology – information security at Carnegie Mellon’s campus in Pittsburgh, as well as INI’s remote offerings in Athens, Greece and Kobe, Japan through hybrid distributed education formats. In her role director of education, training, and outreach for Carnegie Mellon CyLab, she is responsible for the strategic planning, implementation, and assessment of information security/assurance executive education, capacity building, and outreach programs.

The 2008 private solutions provider winner is Joanne Moretti, senior vice president, IAR, with CA Inc. Moretti, who has been general manager for CA Canada and CA US West, is responsible for leadership and direction in the delivery of CA solutions in the marketplace. In her role as GM in Canada, CA revenues doubled, making CA the leading ISV in that country.

This year, the winner in the WOI corporate category is Linda Meeks, executive director of information protection with Boeing. Meeks leads an organization supporting global business with over 500,000 active users for employees, customers and suppliers, according to her nomination. Under Linda’s leadership the organization provides secure, timely and authorized access to computing systems data for the enterprise in support of business and customer requirements.

The 2008 ‘One to Watch’ winner is Shira Rubinoff, the president and founder of Green Armor Solutions. Rubinoff, a psychologist by training, founded Green Armor after she was the victim of a phishing attack. She researched human experience related to online authentication and developed Green Armor products to leverage findings of her research.

The 2008 panel of judges included the winners of last year’s awards: Renee Guttman, corporate; Maggie Mansourkia, ‘One to Watch’; Jayshree Ullal, private; Cheryl Peace, public.