Ep 1.4 • Cybersecurity's First Mother-Daughter Founding Team | Interview with Seccuri

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Juanita Duque (CEO) and Olga Botero (CTO), co-founders of Seccuri, are the first mother-daughter co-founders in the cybersecurity sector.

Mother-daughter pair, Olga and Juanita, are no strangers to mixing business and family. Juanita’s mother, Olga, and her father started a company together at the beginning of their career and marriage. Growing up, Juanita remembers weighing in on the stock market at the kitchen table, honing her business skills alongside her parents and brother.

Olga is a global powerhouse with over 20 years of C-Level expertise including as former CIO of Grupo Bancolombia, one of the largest financial groups in Latin America. Juanita, a Stanford MBA and engineer by training, former consultant, and cybersecurity expert, called up her mother after business school and said, “let’s start something together”.

In 2022, they came together to launch Seccuri, a multi-award winning global cybersecurity skills and talent platform, as co-founders - a rare dynamic to see between mother-daughter. In doing so, they became the first ever mother-daughter founding pair in cybersecurity.

In our conversation, we discuss:

• Starting a Family Business in Cybersecurity
• Varying Levels of Seniority in a Founding Team (Who’s the Boss)
• How to Make (and Support a Co-Founder through) Mistakes
• Create “Rules of Engagement” (When Are We Family vs. Co-Founders)
• Navigating a Male-Dominated Industry (as Female Founders)

Some takeaways:

1. Know what you and your co-founder individually want to get out of the company (e.g., leadership experience, sales, social impact) and check in regularly on whether these motivators are being met.

2. Agree to leave mistakes in the past. It may be a mother’s tendency to point out the mistakes of her child… however a co-founder’s role is not to dwell on mistakes of the other, but to help them move forward and say, “ok what’s next?”

3. Admiration and respect are critical when founding with seniority levels. The founder with more seniority needs to believe there is as much to be learned from their partner as there is to teach. (See Sound Relationship House in resources)

4. Create “Rules of Engagement” when you are more than just co-founders. When do we talk business (or not)? What happens at family dinners? How can we respect each other’s schedules - for example, if one of us wakes up “late” (is 7am late…?)? (See .css-j9qmi7{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:row;-ms-flex-direction:row;flex-direction:row;font-weight:700;margin-bottom:1rem;margin-top:2.8rem;width:100%;-webkit-box-pack:start;-ms-flex-pack:start;-webkit-justify-content:start;justify-content:start;padding-left:5rem;}@media only screen and (max-width: 599px){.css-j9qmi7{padding-left:0;-webkit-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;justify-content:center;}}.css-j9qmi7 svg{fill:#27292D;}.css-j9qmi7 .eagfbvw0{-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;color:#27292D;}