February 28, 2025 • 50 mins
The battle for representation in the cybersecurity field takes center stage in this podcast episode featuring Stacey Champagne, founder of Hacker Heels.
Stacey Champagne is the Founder & CEO of Hacker in Heels, a pioneering organization dedicated to elevating women into positions of power within the cybersecurity industry. As an active cybersecurity practitioner and transformational coach, she continues leading from the front lines while guiding others to success. Drawing over a decade of experience securing Fortune 500 companies and startups, Stacey combines her technical expertise in insider risk, security investigations, and program management with professional coaching skills to transform women's careers.
Through carefully crafted content, specialized courses, personalized coaching, and strategic events, Hacker in Heels equips women to get paid their worth, secure promotions, and gain recognition for their contributions to the field. Stacey's innovative approach and proven track record of helping women navigate and thrive in traditionally male-dominated environments has earned industry-wide recognition, including the 2023 Cybersecurity Advocate of the Year Award from the Women's Society of Cyberjutsu.
In this episode, Stacey emphasizes the importance of leveraging diverse experiences and unique journeys, particularly how professionals from non-traditional backgrounds can add significant value to the industry. Hear her inspiring narrative of transitioning from a graphic design career to a meaningful role within cybersecurity, proving that diverse paths lead to innovative solutions.
Join us as we explore the mission of Hacker Heels, which aims to empower women to secure prominent roles across all levels of cybersecurity—not just within executive positions but as changemakers within their organizations. Discover the unique programs offered by Hacker Heels, including career transition support, community events, and resources tailored to foster personal and professional growth.
Moving beyond certification, Stacey shares impactful success stories from women who have transformed their careers through Hacker Heels. This episode encourages everyone to reflect on their own intrinsic value and how their diverse experiences shape the future of cybersecurity.
With meaningful conversations about equity and access, Stacey and Jess dive deep into the systemic challenges facing women in tech, advocating for a fairer and more inclusive industry. Tune in to be inspired, informed, and empowered. Whether you're just starting in your career or looking to make a change, this episode underscores the essential role of community support and the value of resilience in achieving success.
You won't want to miss the insights and motivation shared in this vibrant discussion. Be sure to subscribe, share, and leave a review to help us amplify these important conversations!
https://www.vigilantviolet.com/
www.linkedin.com/in/jessvachon1
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Intro/Outro (00:02):
Welcome to Voices of the Vigilant, where we dive
deep into the human side of tech.
Here we go beyond the ones andzeros to explore the people,
passions and stories driving thecyber and internet security
world.
In each episode we bringtogether experts, rebels and
innovators from across the techindustry to share their personal
journeys, challenges andvictories.
(00:23):
And here's your host and rebelin charge at Vigilant, violet
Jess Vachon.
Jess Vachon (00:33):
Hello everyone, Welcome to another episode of
Voices of the Vigilant.
My guest today is StaceyChampagne, founder and CEO of
Hacker Heals.
Stacey, welcome to the show.
Stacey Champagne (00:44):
Thank you so much for having me.
Jess Vachon (00:46):
Love to have you here.
We've known each other for alittle bit of time.
I follow a lot of your posts onLinkedIn.
Just so excited to have youhere as someone who fits the
profile of Vigilant Violet andVoices of the Vigilant, because
I see you as a little bit of arebel, but a rebel in a good way
, right, standing up for whatyou believe in.
(01:08):
Before we dive into that,though, tell me a little bit
about yourself and a little bitabout Hacker Heels.
Stacey Champagne (01:15):
Yeah, absolutely so.
I'm the founder and CEO ofHacker Heels.
I established that companyabout five years ago based off
of my experience of going frombeing a graphic designer
pivoting into cybersecurity.
I've been working incybersecurity myself for nearly
a decade, focused on insiderthreat and incident response,
(01:39):
and I found that bringing myskills from being a designer
into this industry actually wassuch a value add and boost to my
effectiveness that I canimagine if I just you know, came
straight into the industrythrough a traditional academic
upbringing, through computerscience or something right.
(02:01):
It's because I started as agraphic designer that I learned
how to communicate reallycomplex, you know, pieces of
information.
In that world it was aroundintelligence and here in
cybersecurity, obviously we dealwith a lot of things that are
really can be really difficultto conceptualize and we need to
(02:22):
be able to conceptualize notjust to each other but to our
stakeholders, to the businessand the people that we support.
So found a lot of value in thatDefinitely changed my life from
a personal trajectory of greaterincome and opportunities and
all that kind of stuff andreally wanted to lean into my
overall entrepreneurship typeinterest in bringing that
(02:47):
opportunity and realization tomore women.
And so since then, the company'sevolved.
Today we really focus onhelping women get into positions
of power in cybersecurity and Ispecifically phrase it that way
because I don't believe thatand I think many people would
(03:08):
agree with me that it's not justabout becoming a CISO.
We tend to hold that role toreally high acclaim and accord,
but at the same time, we reallywould benefit from having women
present in all levels ofcybersecurity and even those
leading cybersecurity companies.
(03:30):
You know, going beyond that,that particular C-suite role,
that CISA role, into even bigger, impactful roles in building
companies that are diverse andinclusive for us, is really
where I think we're experiencingit.
Now more than ever, we have tostart building communities and
(03:55):
workplaces designed by women andunderrepresented identities and
for us, and so that's wherewe're really charging towards
today and focused on.
Jess Vachon (04:09):
That's great.
I agree with so much of whatyou just said.
I want to go back to somethingyou said at the beginning,
though, which is that youentered cybersecurity from what
would be considered maybe anon-traditional pathway, and
that you found value in thatpath.
A lot of the times when I talkto mentees, they're coming from
(04:30):
different industries Sometimesit's healthcare, sometimes it's
law enforcement, the hotelindustry and I talk to them
about a concept that I have,which is intrinsic value.
What do you bring to the tablein your experiences that adds to
or enhances your role incybersecurity, and it's
(04:53):
important that we look at thatvalue.
A lot of times, when people arestruggling to get into the
industry, we tell them well, youhaven't had experience, so you
can't be in cybersecurity, butwe're failing to look at do they
have good customer serviceskills?
They worked in stressfulsituations.
Those two items, in my opinion,are two of the most critical
(05:18):
items for building your successin your cybersecurity career,
and I appreciate that youmentioned that value that you
had.
That you brought to the field,you know, sans having any
outside experience or growing upin the profession, so to speak,
when someone comes to you andjoins or partakes in some of the
(05:41):
programs offered by Hacker andHeals.
What can they expect from thatexperience?
Stacey Champagne (05:46):
Yeah, so we offer a variety of things.
We're structured around amonthly membership type
community currently, but withinthat you get access to different
programs that we've developed.
Like Changemakers, which isfocused on exactly those career
(06:07):
pivoters, has a ton of reallygreat material.
I had built it out at the timebefore I was a certified
professional coach.
I actually worked withcertified professional coaches
in developing the curriculumfrom that, because it's not just
about you know whether or notyou want to be in cybersecurity,
but it's really whether or notmaking a career pivot is the
(06:28):
right move for you.
So we were really intentionalabout making sure that, like,
yes, you're going to learn alittle bit about what it takes
to transition into the field,but also like you're going to
learn about yourself throughoutthe process.
So that way, even if you get tothe end of our program and you
decide that cybersecurity isn'tfor you, it's not like you
(06:49):
wasted money or you wasted yourtime or whatnot.
You still got to benefit fromdoing that career exploration.
So that's one of the programsthat you get access to.
We also do monthly connectioncalls and with that I invite
people who are both incybersecurity and also in
tangential fields andspecializations.
(07:10):
I mean, we've had like like wehad a wonderful woman at one
point, amy, who came and didlike somatic exercises with us,
which really, really helps atthe end of a very stressful day
working in incident response tobe able to do some of that like
body, mind, movement and kind ofseparate and disconnect and and
(07:33):
kind of heal from that.
You know the stress of the dayright.
So we have people like that.
But then we also have likereally awesome you know people,
leaders that you know in theindustry, like we just had Mel
Reyes, who you know has been ayou know just tons of years of
(07:55):
experience and influence acrossthe cybersecurity industry.
He came and talked with us lastmonth and so that provides
opportunity for all of us to gettogether once a month, learn
and also be able to support oneanother.
And then, lastly, one of ourbiggest draws that we have and
we have one going on right nowis our study squads.
(08:17):
Right now we have about a dozenwomen who are studying for the
CISSP and the way that we do itis that we really lean on peer
teaching and so everybody getsassigned partners and over the
10-week experience they areresponsible for basically going
(08:38):
through the study guide andteaching each other some of the
key concepts from it, and sothen you get the benefit of not
just reading the study guide butalso like having to be able to
validate your understanding byexplaining it to other people.
And I think it's such a stealbecause you know it comes with
being a member of our community.
(09:00):
The only extra cost is buyingthe study guide, and then you
also get the opportunity to winprizes and everything you know,
get access to our resources andsharing people, sharing
resources on our platform andall that kind of stuff
throughout the entire time.
So you get that incentives andaccountability and everything
through it as well.
(09:21):
So, yes, so much that we do.
Jess Vachon (09:26):
And what's so?
I assume, as a business owner,as a leader, as a teacher, in
this endeavor that you'vepursued, that you want to
measure the satisfaction and theaccomplishments of those that
go through the program.
What has been the feedback thatyou've received from your
participants?
Stacey Champagne (09:47):
It has been so great.
I mean, the feedback is reallyin the actions that people take
thereafter participating in ourprograms, right Like.
We have people who went throughChangemakers and literally went
from being like.
We have Sarah, who is a fashiondesigner.
She has been working as a pentester now for several years in
(10:10):
cybersecurity, you know.
We have Jamie, who retired fromthe military and worked on
making her way through thattransition into a cybersecurity
position and she's been workingsuccessfully now for a couple of
years.
We had a wonderful woman fromSingapore, cj, who participated
(10:33):
in our CISSP study sprint, whichis something that we're going
to be offering again later inthe fall.
Just that 30 days, really, likeyou know, accountable,
structured, you knowincentivized period to study for
the CISSP, and she went on andpassed and she's she's a CISSP
(10:54):
now, you know, and so I'mexcited to see what she's been
able to do with that.
So so, yeah, like the yes,everyone says really wonderful
kind things about theirexperience and their
appreciation of our programs andeverything.
But what I really lean into andreally take as proof of impact
(11:19):
the most are those kinds ofstories.
It's not what they're tellingme, it's what I'm seeing in them
.
Jess Vachon (11:25):
Sure, I love that.
You know it's clear that you'reasking for a commitment from
participants.
Right, you're asking for afinancial commitment, but you're
also asking for a timecommitment, and then hearing the
results should speak to thepoint that having a fee-based
service makes sense.
It took me a long time to cometo this place of agreeing with
(11:50):
you on this, but I got there bywatching what you were doing and
listening to the people youwere working with and I think I
mentioned this to you previously, but I'll say it again if I
didn't you completely changed myidea of the model that I wanted
for my own business.
It makes sense that if you'regoing to be spending your time
(12:11):
and your own capital because Iknow you're doing that that at
the least you break even, butthat there's an expectation that
people are going to giveeverything to the experience,
because when they go out in thefield, as you and I know,
there's a tremendous expectationthat you're going to commit
your time to learning on yourown, investing sometimes in your
(12:33):
own training, so you can besuccessful to whatever end you
want to get to, whether you wantto stay as an individual
contributor, or you want to moveinto a management role, or
maybe you want to go out and bea coach on your own.
So I want to just give youthanks for at least changing my
mind on that.
I'm sure you probably changed alot of other minds on the model
(12:54):
that you've chosen, but I think, in my own small opinion, I
think it was a brilliantdecision on your part.
Stacey Champagne (13:00):
Thank you, I appreciate that.
And yeah, thank you, Iappreciate that.
(13:28):
And yeah, you know, we, aswomen especially, spend a lot of
time investing in gatheringother.
We do ourselves a disservice.
We basically devalue ourselvesand each other through that, and
so there are ways to, you know,recognize that, you know people
have, you know, certainsocioeconomic constraints but,
at the same time, enable fairaccess.
(13:52):
Some of the strategies that I doin my business that enable this
are the sliding scale for ahacker in heel salon.
We charge a different amount forpeople who are new to cyber
versus people who have been init for 10, 15 years, because,
you know, the assumption andexperience is that when you're
higher up in the industry, it'sactually more likely that your
(14:13):
business is going to pay on yourbehalf to attend something like
that, versus someone at thebeginning of their career,
potentially at a lower salary,may not have the opportunity to
have it paid for and thereforewill be paying for it themselves
.
We still want to be able toenable that equitable access and
, at the same time, too, makesure that this business
continues to exist.
(14:34):
At the end of the day, we allhave to make money to have roofs
over our head, food on ourtable and the reality is is all
of the, the, the, the littledetails that go into pulling
something like like the, thesalons or even our online
community off.
I mean even just the onlinecommunity, the.
The flat cost of operating thaton a month to month is over a
(14:56):
thousand dollars, so a thousanddollars to have that space
exists.
Where does that money come fromif you are not paying for it in
some way, shape or form?
Right, so it's important, right, like women should not have to
incur debt to be of service, ifthat makes sense.
Jess Vachon (15:20):
No, it's an interesting point, right,
because we're expected to do allthe things that men do, but we
have a little bit higher of achallenge to get there and we
don't.
I don't think we have a choicein it, do we?
I mean, we have to do thesethings and, to the point you
(15:41):
made, these courses areextremely expensive and people
starting out in their careerprobably for their first 10
years in cybersecurity thosecourses are completely out of
reach.
When I look at what Hacker andHeels does, you're putting it
within reach your organizationright With someone who can find
(16:05):
a way to make it work for you,rather than to have to go into
debt to take all these coursesthat might not pay off for you.
We can look across the industry.
We can look across LinkedInright now and see all the posts
from people who said you know, Igot my master's degree in
cybersecurity or I invested ineight courses at $8,000 a piece
(16:27):
to get all these certificationsand I can't find a job.
We have to think about thatright.
So some of us who are pursuingour passion projects and I
really do believe that what youhave is a passion project are
trying to find a way to do thatto contribute our time to help
others but at the end of the day, to at least break even.
(16:49):
I don't think people understandthe challenge of pursuing a
dream that pays off for otherpeople in terms of how much it
costs.
I look at how much I've spentjust to get Vigilant Violet to
this point of having the podcastand everything.
I make zero money right now onit.
(17:13):
As you pointed out, there'sexpenses every month.
There's a lot of work you haveto do outside of this.
I know that you probably havesome partnerships you've built
to help you with that, butyou've got to pay for those too
every time you have one of thosepartnerships.
So when we consider costs,relatively speaking, it sounds
like Hacker and Heal is a value,like a huge savings for people
and something that they shouldbe pursuing.
(17:34):
Just my own diatribe on thatfor your edification.
Stacey Champagne (17:38):
Yeah, I mean literally the whole point of
change.
Makers.
A big aspect of it is helpingpeople discern between going and
doing a degree program or doingone of these boot camps or
something else, and recognizingthe potential cost of it.
I mean, you know, if someonejust launches them out in,
(18:01):
launches himself intocybersecurity, without doing
some of that reflection andcoaching and review first, I
mean they could waste thousandsof dollars versus just spending
the twenty five dollars a monthto access the platform, to get
access to change makers, to gothrough the material and and
(18:23):
realize that like, oh wait, Imight not actually have to go
get a college degree to get intocybersecurity.
I could actually take one ofthese other approaches, you know
, and so there's so much valuethere and and and also, too, I
kind of want to go back to likeyou know, you, you made a
comment about how, like you'renot making money at this right
now, I'm not making money atthis right now, but but we need
(18:46):
women to run companies makingmassive amounts of money,
because when you run a company,and when I run a company, we run
it with our values first, andour values are very different
from the values that wecurrently see from some of our
you know monolith companies outthere in regards to how they
(19:06):
treat employees, how they payall that kind of stuff, hacker
and heels like.
From the very start, we offerto pay anyone and everybody who
is willing to come be a guestmentor.
We offer them at leastsomething.
If they you A lot of them willdecide that they want to pay
that money forward to being ableto fund subsidized memberships,
(19:29):
which is great.
But even just offering that andnot expecting free labor of
people know an important messageto have out there Um, and you
know I, as I'm building mycompany, I'm looking at
companies like um.
(19:50):
A great one out there is likeShani Nicholas she has a
astrology app and the way thatshe runs her business is like
making sure that everyone'smaking at least like $80,000 a
year.
Or like Tori Dunlap withFinancial Feminist she has like
week long breaks every quarterfor her entire staff, you know.
(20:13):
And so all of these kinds ofyou know benefits that really
recognize and uplift peopleversus exploiting them.
Those will only come about forpeople when we have individuals
building companies based onthose values, which I know you
will do and I will do.
Jess Vachon (20:34):
Yeah, I hate to say this, but money is power, and
we see that right now in the US,right, we see those with the
money have a tremendous amountof power.
And if those of living in acapitalistic society, right, um,
those of us that don't carryfull privilege and full
(21:09):
privilege by what?
By that I mean?
Those are those folks that areborn and don't ever have to
think about their color or theirgender or their religion, and
they navigate life just finewithout that overhead noise in
the background.
That's privilege.
It's not necessarily a badthing.
We're not saying privilege is abad thing, but what I want
(21:30):
people to understand and I thinkyou do too is there's a lot of
us, a good majority of us, thatdon't sit at the table with that
, and I say that as someone whoknows that, even as the person
that I am, that I still haveprivilege over certain other
people.
So it is important to me and Ihear that it's important to you
(21:53):
that we affect that change, andso charging a fee, trying to
make a little bit of a profit sowe can gain some of that power,
is important.
It's definitely important.
You mentioned something earlierthat made me think about a post
that you had recently.
I think it was a couple ofweeks ago, and I'm just going to
(22:14):
go off the cuff here.
I think the post was about theamount of effort you had put in
during the year forcertifications or training to
advance your career and the factthat you looked at your spouse
who had done none of that andwas still doing just fine in
their career.
That post I think it went viralhad a lot of comments on it.
(22:36):
Talk about that post.
Talk about what made you writethat and what you had for
feedback after that post.
Stacey Champagne (22:48):
I love all of the stories that people have
come up with about where I waswhen I wrote that post, what
happened that, you know,inspired that post, what the
scene was, what our relationshipis.
All of that it has been trulyentertaining to read.
(23:10):
The fact is that we are, youknow.
So the post was exactly as whatyou said, right.
It was a reflection of howwomen often have to lay out a
10-point achievement plan forevery year performance and hit
(23:36):
on those things or risk anexcuse.
And what I mean by an excuseit's that then you get to the
conversations about pay andpromotion and whatnot, and
you're going to hear you can'tget promoted, you can't get paid
, you can't have the opportunitybecause you didn't do X, y, z
right, and so a lot of times,for women specifically, it's
about not having thecertification, it's about not
(23:59):
having spoken at events or, youknow, done things that get you
external validation of yourcompetence, because apparently
what we do in our organizations,you know, is not part of the
measurement of performance.
Sometimes it seems, seems umand so.
(24:19):
So that was an illustration ofhow, like we have such stress
put on us, to the point where italmost becomes like a fear that
if we don't do those things,something bad is going to happen
(24:42):
to us, and and I mean it hashappened to us right Like we
have been passed up forpromotion, we have been paid
less.
This isn't hypothetical, thisis reality for many women out
there.
Versus looking at theexperience of my husband, who
very clearly has what he needsto achieve spelled out for him
(25:03):
in the military and, you know,if he's done those things, he
doesn't have to worry about whatelse because it's all clearly
defined.
Versus with us, They'll justsay they want these five things
and once you complete them,they'll pull five more things
out of the out of thin air thatthey never told you about and
say well, these are the reasonswhy.
This is why you're losing yourjob, this is why you're getting
(25:26):
passive for promotion, this iswhy you're being laid off,
whatever it might be, and soit's such a difference of
experience being a man versus awoman, or an underrepresented
identity in the workplace and inin how you can just go through
(25:48):
life on the day to day and andand have that in the back of
your mind as something that youlike, worry about and get
stressed out about and live with.
Right.
For him it was just like no, Idon't have anything to share and
I'm okay with that.
(26:09):
And I think that is where somany people were inserting
themselves was in the idea ofbeing okay with having done
nothing, like so many peoplewere not okay on his behalf of
him having done nothing.
The ability to do nothing inour capitalist society is such
(26:35):
an privilege and and and gift,and um, almost like a middle
finger to to capitalism.
Um, that like yeah, like weshould, that's something to
(26:55):
celebrate.
That's not something that weshould look at as a negative.
We should look at that as, likeman, you escaped the system.
Kudos to you, right.
And so, so, yeah, that that thatpost and and everybody's, so
many people's response there wassuch a if you look at it
(27:20):
closely, I'm sure you observedthis is that the people who were
having such a negative uproarabout it how do they look?
Like they identify Versus, likeall the people they're mixed in
there they got it right andthose, ultimately, are my target
audience, right, like those arethe people I want to connect
(27:40):
with, or the people who get it,who read it and immediately
understood what we were goingfor with that kind of post, and
many people said they sawthemselves in it.
Right, and those people weremajority women, right?
The people who were reallyupset and made it go viral, they
(28:00):
were men.
Jess Vachon (28:01):
So we don't have a choice.
That was that's the point,right.
We don't have a choice.
I say that we do.
We have a choice.
Where we don't do it and wedon't get promoted, we don't get
the opportunities, we lose ourjobs.
I've had that happen to me.
I'm sure you've had it happento you.
I'm sure a lot of people thatare going to listen to this have
(28:24):
had it happen to them as well.
That is a lot, and we hear itfrom all different communities.
Well, I'm not the first one tosay this.
We hear it all the time andpeople are vocal about it
because we are expected to domore, to sit at the same table
as people who are not requiredto do more.
That's why we're vocal about it.
I believe that people who don'thave to do that and they still
(28:51):
get reap the benefits of whatsociety provides them.
They're so vocal in oppositionto it because they know deep
down that they have thatprivilege, that they have
something that someone elsedoesn't and they're afraid of
losing that.
You're not going to lose it.
There's plenty of room at thetable.
We're asking you to listen, tounderstand, to be compassionate
(29:16):
and to be fair Relative to theUS.
We're all supposed to have thesame rights and privileges under
the Constitution.
When we demand changes to allowthat to happen, that is not
asking for something we're notdue.
That's asking for something weare supposed to have that has
(29:39):
been taken away.
Asking for something we aresupposed to have that has been
taken away.
So I appreciate that you havefound a way to have your voice
heard and engage people so thatthey think about what they're
saying and how they live theirlives.
If you live your life inextreme comfort and relaxation,
(30:00):
look around.
Extreme comfort and relaxation.
Look around.
Help those that are not livingthat way, because there are
hundreds of millions, if notbillions, of people on this
planet that don't have theluxury of waking up relaxed in
the morning and going to bedrelaxed at night.
All right, I went down a littlepath there, but I'm, I'm, I'm
(30:23):
very passionate about it.
I know you're very passionateabout it and, because I have
this platform, we're going totalk about it, and you know, I
know you and I you have to talkabout it.
Stacey Champagne (30:33):
I mean, we just saw, like, we saw firsthand
, like the, the fact that somany people don't realize that
this is the system we're all in.
You know, so many peopledemonstrated in their comments
that lack of recognition of thedifferent experiences between
(30:57):
men and women, or men andunderrepresented identities, or
white men and underrepresentedwhatever it might be right, or
even just how, how ourworkplaces are set up right,
like, like in our private sectorworkplaces, a lot, of a lot of
them don't have very clearrequirements around measurement
of performance.
Right Versus in the military,they have a very clear it's very
(31:18):
well spelled out expectationsof you know what they need to
accomplish at any given time.
Right and so recognizing, likehaving having the absence of
that leads to so much stress andtrauma and and and a door for
exploitation of people right,like we could.
(31:39):
We could sit here and debate,as many people did in those
comments, about how I wrote itand what you know what I might
have been insinuating about myhusband, who I love very dearly
about you know hisaccomplishments and what they
mean relative to mine, but likethat, that is tone policing,
(32:04):
right that is focusing so muchon the minutia of how I said a
certain thing versus the verymessage that you know was
intended and has verysignificant value in, in, in, in
talking about as a society, um,and yes, a lot of people missed
(32:31):
that, but at the same time,through missing that, they
proved the point that was beingmade of the post, and so it just
shows that we have to have moreof these conversations.
Jess Vachon (32:50):
Absolutely, and I want to be clear.
We're not trying to be divisive.
We're not trying to takeanything away.
No one's trying to takeanything away.
You said at the beginning youappreciated that your husband
didn't have to do that, you justwould like to be in the same
boat right.
Stacey Champagne (33:06):
How can I do that?
Please show me your way.
Jess Vachon (33:12):
Absolutely, so we know who you are today.
We're getting a sense of whoyou are, but if you're
comfortable with it, tell us alittle bit about your
experiences growing up influenceof parents or relatives or, you
know, mentors that you had thathelped shape who you are today.
Stacey Champagne (33:30):
Yeah, oh gosh, maybe I should go swap out my
my water here.
So so, such a loaded question,how am I the person I am today?
Jess Vachon (33:46):
Um, if I didn't ask loaded questions?
Stacey Champagne (33:49):
uh, but such a such a powerful question, right
, um, because it's kind of likeyou know, what I've learned from
becoming a certifiedprofessional coach is that, like
, none of this is siloed,everything is interconnected.
Who I am as a, you know,efficient and effective cyber
(34:09):
security practitioner isdirectly related to my
upbringing and the other facetsof my life, right, um, and so
there's so much value inexploring that.
I also think it confuses peoplesometimes when they, you know,
do coaching with me and they'reexpecting we're going to talk
about I don't know certs or, oryou know trainings or
(34:30):
conferences or whatever, and I'masking them about, like you
know, different facets of theirlife and their level of
satisfaction and how that allplays in and stuff like that.
So, um, so, yeah, so with me, Iwas very fortunate to be a, to
(34:52):
have accessibility to technologyat a very young age.
I had a grandfather who was apilot and he was also very and I
say he was a pilot because youcan imagine being a pilot in
like I don't know the 80s andthe 90s Financially.
That helped, right, and so he,he was able to, and he would
(35:14):
always buy the latest andgreatest thing.
He would buy a computer andthen, like you know, six months
later he'd buy another computer.
He would also like downloadjust terrible things onto it
like um, like oh my gosh, wasn'tthere like a monkey that
contained malware or something.
At one point, like you know, hewould have like it would look
cute and you could ask himquestions or whatever, but it
(35:35):
was totally just spyware.
So he would get like thosekinds of things in his computer
wouldn't work and then he wouldjust go buy another one, right?
So?
So he kept buying all thesecomputers and at one point we
started to like take them out ofthe closet and like I got one,
my brother got one at very youngages and and I think that
helped out a lot with me justfeeling comfortable with tech
(36:02):
early on and then here forwardright Another aspect of my
upbringing was being involved inthe FIRST Robotics Program.
So FIRST was founded by DeanKamen.
He invented the Segway, whichthen people tend to ask oh, is
he the one who drove off thecliff on the Segway?
No, that was the differentperson.
(36:23):
And also Dean invented a lot ofother really important
inventions, like kidney dialysismachines, artificial heart
stents, so like really just asharp, you know person.
But he created this roboticscompetition program and it
starts like I think they even goas young as like pre-K, but
like K through 12, where you goand specifically for the
(36:48):
robotics the high schoolrobotics program they give you a
challenge, you have severalweeks, a kit of parts, you
basically go and play a form oflike a sports game with robots,
and so my brother was actuallyon the founding team at our high
school and so I saw him doingthat, which got me to do it at
(37:09):
the middle school level, andthen I moved up into the high
school level and I was alwaysinvolved and I even went and
worked at first for a little bit, because I had lived in New
Hampshire and that's where theirtheir headquarters is, and and
it was through that yeah, woo,new Hampshire.
And it was through thatexperience that I I realized,
(37:30):
looking back on it, that I neverhad those negative experiences
that other people mentionedsometimes about how they were
discouraged from tech.
I mean, like I was activelyencouraged all through my
upbringing that to, to you know,put my hands on tech, to be
involved in tech, to buildrobots, like all that kind of
(37:52):
stuff.
So when it came time to youknow, go off to school and I
ultimately went and did graphicdesign, but then realized that
that wasn't going to get me towhere I wanted to be, you know,
personally, financially and allthat kind of stuff.
There wasn't much hesitation inmaking that, that transition
over to then focus oncybersecurity, because it was
(38:16):
almost like well, why didn't youstart here, right?
Like well, what's with thedetour?
Right, with graphic design.
But, you know, even in regardsto spending some time in graphic
design, that was just arecognition of like, yeah, I
(38:36):
love tech, but also I love theseother things too.
Right, and so I, you know, hadtwo ways to go and I just chose
the left path instead of theright path.
Right, and again, we just wetalked about at the beginning
about how that, you know,brought me around, back to tech
and made the journey that muchmore valuable, right, and so I
(38:58):
think all of that reallycontributed to where I am today.
But also, because this is a showabout rebels by rebels for
rebels, we should mention acouple of things on that
pristine path, which are thatwhen I was on that robotics team
(39:19):
, the school didn't fund therobotics team.
They spent many, many thousandsof dollars on the high school
band.
However, they would notcontribute to the robotics team.
Our mentors were paying out ofpocket to help us afford our
$5,000 kit of parts andregistration fees and stuff like
that.
And so, year after year,parents would beg, students
(39:42):
would beg, would be like can youplease just guarantee us some
funds so every year we don'thave to waste all of our time
scraping for money instead ofbeing focused on learning and
building the robot right?
And so, senior year, I was likeI'm sick of this, like this,
this doesn't make sense at all.
Um, we should be guaranteedfunds.
And if and like, if you're notgoing to just give it to us,
(40:04):
then we're going to let the townvote on it.
And so I went through theactual process of figuring out
how does something get on theschool board budget, like how
does something get on the ballot?
And I went and, like, collectedsignatures and neighborhoods, I
packed the school board liketown hall events and ultimately
got it on the ballot and got itto pass for again.
(40:28):
It was like it was $5,000.
Like I wasn't asking foranything crazy.
I was like just make sure thisteam can exist each and every
year, we don't have to worryabout it.
Like we'll fundraise above andbeyond if we want to go to
competitions that are fartheraway or whatever, like we'll
take care of that, but like weshould be able to compete at
least once here locally.
And so I think it was thatexperience.
(40:49):
And through that experience, Ihad people threaten me, like as
a high schooler, I had people onthe school board threaten me
about like, well, you know, ifyou do this and it doesn't pass,
we can't give you any money atall.
And I'm like you're not givingus money to begin with, so how
does how does that matter, right?
And I remember it was, it wasactually like a phone call
(41:10):
conversation and I, like I waslike, well, we'll let the town
decide that.
And I like hung up, I think,and so, and so I think that that
experience and that win, right,that win of like going after
something like that, having thatresistance and and and
(41:31):
overcoming it, enabled me to beresilient in the unfortunately
many other situations that Ihave found myself in as I've
progressed through mycybersecurity career.
So, like I have been wrongfullyterminated, I have been laid off
, and like, when you go throughthose experiences, if you, if
(41:55):
you haven't survived somethingof that like caliber of, of, you
know, pushback to yourcharacter.
They can be really, reallytough to overcome.
And and I, you know, I, Iwonder, you know, like, if it
weren't for again, thatexperience growing up and just
(42:17):
having to, you know, overcomethings a lot in my upbringing,
if I, you know, potentiallywould have left cybersecurity
the first time that happened, orthe second time it happened, or
whatever right, the second timeit happened or whatever Right.
(42:40):
And so I, I don't wish that onanybody, but at the same time, I
think it's just such a avaluable way of looking at
experiences of adversity asbeing, you know, so immensely
valuable to your life story andto your future success than
(43:04):
staying too long in the griefand victim stage of it, right.
Jess Vachon (43:11):
Yeah, thank you for sharing that, because I think
it's important for everyone tohear that right.
That's why I asked the question.
Because I think it's importantfor everyone to hear that right.
That's why I asked the question, because I want listeners to
understand that we all arrivehere in this present moment from
different paths, and it's greatto hear that you weren't
restricted in what you could dobased on gender roles.
You were allowed to just go andexplore and learn.
(43:33):
You were allowed to just go andexplore and learn and in having
that model for your life, youwere empowered to go and
challenge a school board, tochallenge authority and to go
and seek more, and that messageof resilience is hugely
important as well.
So we just looked back.
I have an empowering questionI'd like to ask, and it actually
(43:54):
looks forward, so I will poseit to you what is your instinct?
Intro/Outro (44:01):
telling you to do right now?
Ooh.
Jess Vachon (44:15):
I love this question For those who aren't
watching the video.
Stacey's thinking deeply rightat this moment.
Stacey Champagne (44:25):
My instinct right now as I think is the same
for many of us is to scream,first and foremost, given all
that is going on, but at thesame time, my instinct
constantly brings me back tofocusing on what you can control
(44:48):
, being mindful of the fact thatthere are people trying to take
your power and and not just indirect ways, but like also in
indirect ways right Of, likeflooding the media, um, you know
(45:10):
, putting stress upon the, theworkforce and and all that kind
of stuff, and people, um, andand and trying to, in those
moments, recognize where they'resiphoning from you and putting
a stop to that.
And so what this looks like inaction is like.
(45:30):
Even today, I was thinking tomyself I should really just
remove Reddit from my phone,like if I want to see catch up
on what's going on, like I cando that later, but like when
it's on my phone and it's moreaccessible, like they're pulling
me into a world that I, I itdoes not benefit me to be part
(45:55):
of right now, and there isprivilege in saying something
like that.
But I also look at it anotherway is that, like, when they are
distracting me, I can't do andstay focused on the work that
that matters in supporting youknow, the people around me who
matter right now, right, um, andso finding that balance between
(46:17):
, like, having healthyboundaries and staying informed,
um is is something that I feellike my, my instinct is kind of
um, uh, tuning into right now totry to figure out a solution
for yeah.
Jess Vachon (46:38):
Thank you, thank you.
So we're getting ready to wrapup the podcast.
I want to leave you anopportunity to tell people where
they can find you and whatyou're working on and how to
engage with you.
So the floor is yours.
Stacey Champagne (46:53):
Sure.
So where we're at right nowwith Hacker and Heels a couple
of really great things going sothe floor is yours.
That's CISSP study sprint inSeptember.
So if you want to stay informedon when that's going to be
(47:19):
launching, definitely make sureyou're signed up for our emails.
You can go to hackerinhealscomand get signed up that way.
We also, on the website, have areally fun quiz.
It's your cybersecurity careerarchetype and it's, you know,
thoughtfully put together butnot, so, you know, super
scientific could be fun to justgive you ideas of where you
(47:41):
might take your career, and soyou could do that as well and
provide your email that way.
I really am going to startfocusing on getting some salons
on the books for this year.
So last year, we held twoHacker and Heal salons.
One was in Nashville alongsideWomen in Cybersecurity.
(48:03):
One was in Las Vegas alongsideBlack Hat, def CON and all those
conferences that go on duringthat week in August, and so we
definitely want to bring thatback, but we're looking at
decoupling them from theconferences.
That being said, the Las Vegasvenue was really great, and so I
might actually just repeat thatone again, because it was so
(48:24):
great, so much fun and obviouslyso many people are around
during that time, but I wouldlove to be able to hold them in
other cities, and so what I needfrom everybody is really, if
you are part of a company orknow of a company that would
want to partner on an event likethat, I mean, those events like
at cost are, go try to rent aprivate dining room and see for
(48:48):
yourself.
It is thousands upon thousandsof dollars, right.
And so we need partnership withcompanies in order to make them
, um, you know, make them happen, right, um, and so we're going
to be working on those.
And then um also to one thingthat's not um very well known
about, but I have been offeringis what I'm on coaching, um, and
(49:10):
I do it on a uh pay, what youcan type scale, right.
So I do have like a minimum,like there's a minimum amount
that I do require in order tomeet with me because of
everything that we've talkedabout in this call today.
So hopefully that makes sense,but otherwise you can name your
(49:31):
price and there's no commitmentto it.
So if you wanna do just onesession, then that's fine.
I really leave it open because,at the end of the day, I'm like
well, if I'm providing value toyou, you'll come back, right,
and if I'm not like, then Idon't want to hold you hostage
to coaching with me, right?
And so, under this model, I cantell you that, yes, people have
(49:52):
been coming back for manymonths.
They're finding a lot of valueout of it, and so, if you are
interested in one-on-onecoaching, feel free to reach out
to me, and I'd be happy toshare the information about that
with you.
Jess Vachon (50:05):
Well, thank you so much, Stacey, for joining me
today.
And folks, if you're listening,go check out Hacker in Heels.
Check out Stacey on LinkedIn.
Show Stacey some love! Shedefinitely has worked hard for
it.
Stacey, thank you.
Thank you for listening to thisepisode of Voices of the
(50:26):
Vigilant.
If you liked what you heardtoday, please subscribe and
leave a review in your favoritepodcast app For a copy of the
transcript.
To follow Jess, to apply as aguest of the show, or to learn
more about services fromVigilant Violet, please visit
vigilantviolet.
com.
Until next time, stay vigilant!
Welcome to Voices of the Vigilant, where we dive
deep into the human side of tech.
Here we go beyond the ones andzeros to explore the people,
passions and stories driving thecyber and internet security
world.
In each episode we bringtogether experts, rebels and
innovators from across the techindustry to share their personal
journeys, challenges andvictories.
(00:23):
And here's your host and rebelin charge at Vigilant, violet
Jess Vachon.
Jess Vachon (00:33):
Hello everyone, Welcome to another episode of
Voices of the Vigilant.
My guest today is StaceyChampagne, founder and CEO of
Hacker Heals.
Stacey, welcome to the show.
Stacey Champagne (00:44):
Thank you so much for having me.
Jess Vachon (00:46):
Love to have you here.
We've known each other for alittle bit of time.
I follow a lot of your posts onLinkedIn.
Just so excited to have youhere as someone who fits the
profile of Vigilant Violet andVoices of the Vigilant, because
I see you as a little bit of arebel, but a rebel in a good way
, right, standing up for whatyou believe in.
(01:08):
Before we dive into that,though, tell me a little bit
about yourself and a little bitabout Hacker Heels.
Stacey Champagne (01:15):
Yeah, absolutely so.
I'm the founder and CEO ofHacker Heels.
I established that companyabout five years ago based off
of my experience of going frombeing a graphic designer
pivoting into cybersecurity.
I've been working incybersecurity myself for nearly
a decade, focused on insiderthreat and incident response,
(01:39):
and I found that bringing myskills from being a designer
into this industry actually wassuch a value add and boost to my
effectiveness that I canimagine if I just you know, came
straight into the industrythrough a traditional academic
upbringing, through computerscience or something right.
(02:01):
It's because I started as agraphic designer that I learned
how to communicate reallycomplex, you know, pieces of
information.
In that world it was aroundintelligence and here in
cybersecurity, obviously we dealwith a lot of things that are
really can be really difficultto conceptualize and we need to
(02:22):
be able to conceptualize notjust to each other but to our
stakeholders, to the businessand the people that we support.
So found a lot of value in thatDefinitely changed my life from
a personal trajectory of greaterincome and opportunities and
all that kind of stuff andreally wanted to lean into my
overall entrepreneurship typeinterest in bringing that
(02:47):
opportunity and realization tomore women.
And so since then, the company'sevolved.
Today we really focus onhelping women get into positions
of power in cybersecurity and Ispecifically phrase it that way
because I don't believe thatand I think many people would
(03:08):
agree with me that it's not justabout becoming a CISO.
We tend to hold that role toreally high acclaim and accord,
but at the same time, we reallywould benefit from having women
present in all levels ofcybersecurity and even those
leading cybersecurity companies.
(03:30):
You know, going beyond that,that particular C-suite role,
that CISA role, into even bigger, impactful roles in building
companies that are diverse andinclusive for us, is really
where I think we're experiencingit.
Now more than ever, we have tostart building communities and
(03:55):
workplaces designed by women andunderrepresented identities and
for us, and so that's wherewe're really charging towards
today and focused on.
Jess Vachon (04:09):
That's great.
I agree with so much of whatyou just said.
I want to go back to somethingyou said at the beginning,
though, which is that youentered cybersecurity from what
would be considered maybe anon-traditional pathway, and
that you found value in thatpath.
A lot of the times when I talkto mentees, they're coming from
(04:30):
different industries Sometimesit's healthcare, sometimes it's
law enforcement, the hotelindustry and I talk to them
about a concept that I have,which is intrinsic value.
What do you bring to the tablein your experiences that adds to
or enhances your role incybersecurity, and it's
(04:53):
important that we look at thatvalue.
A lot of times, when people arestruggling to get into the
industry, we tell them well, youhaven't had experience, so you
can't be in cybersecurity, butwe're failing to look at do they
have good customer serviceskills?
They worked in stressfulsituations.
Those two items, in my opinion,are two of the most critical
(05:18):
items for building your successin your cybersecurity career,
and I appreciate that youmentioned that value that you
had.
That you brought to the field,you know, sans having any
outside experience or growing upin the profession, so to speak,
when someone comes to you andjoins or partakes in some of the
(05:41):
programs offered by Hacker andHeals.
What can they expect from thatexperience?
Stacey Champagne (05:46):
Yeah, so we offer a variety of things.
We're structured around amonthly membership type
community currently, but withinthat you get access to different
programs that we've developed.
Like Changemakers, which isfocused on exactly those career
(06:07):
pivoters, has a ton of reallygreat material.
I had built it out at the timebefore I was a certified
professional coach.
I actually worked withcertified professional coaches
in developing the curriculumfrom that, because it's not just
about you know whether or notyou want to be in cybersecurity,
but it's really whether or notmaking a career pivot is the
(06:28):
right move for you.
So we were really intentionalabout making sure that, like,
yes, you're going to learn alittle bit about what it takes
to transition into the field,but also like you're going to
learn about yourself throughoutthe process.
So that way, even if you get tothe end of our program and you
decide that cybersecurity isn'tfor you, it's not like you
(06:49):
wasted money or you wasted yourtime or whatnot.
You still got to benefit fromdoing that career exploration.
So that's one of the programsthat you get access to.
We also do monthly connectioncalls and with that I invite
people who are both incybersecurity and also in
tangential fields andspecializations.
(07:10):
I mean, we've had like like wehad a wonderful woman at one
point, amy, who came and didlike somatic exercises with us,
which really, really helps atthe end of a very stressful day
working in incident response tobe able to do some of that like
body, mind, movement and kind ofseparate and disconnect and and
(07:33):
kind of heal from that.
You know the stress of the dayright.
So we have people like that.
But then we also have likereally awesome you know people,
leaders that you know in theindustry, like we just had Mel
Reyes, who you know has been ayou know just tons of years of
(07:55):
experience and influence acrossthe cybersecurity industry.
He came and talked with us lastmonth and so that provides
opportunity for all of us to gettogether once a month, learn
and also be able to support oneanother.
And then, lastly, one of ourbiggest draws that we have and
we have one going on right nowis our study squads.
(08:17):
Right now we have about a dozenwomen who are studying for the
CISSP and the way that we do itis that we really lean on peer
teaching and so everybody getsassigned partners and over the
10-week experience they areresponsible for basically going
(08:38):
through the study guide andteaching each other some of the
key concepts from it, and sothen you get the benefit of not
just reading the study guide butalso like having to be able to
validate your understanding byexplaining it to other people.
And I think it's such a stealbecause you know it comes with
being a member of our community.
(09:00):
The only extra cost is buyingthe study guide, and then you
also get the opportunity to winprizes and everything you know,
get access to our resources andsharing people, sharing
resources on our platform andall that kind of stuff
throughout the entire time.
So you get that incentives andaccountability and everything
through it as well.
(09:21):
So, yes, so much that we do.
Jess Vachon (09:26):
And what's so?
I assume, as a business owner,as a leader, as a teacher, in
this endeavor that you'vepursued, that you want to
measure the satisfaction and theaccomplishments of those that
go through the program.
What has been the feedback thatyou've received from your
participants?
Stacey Champagne (09:47):
It has been so great.
I mean, the feedback is reallyin the actions that people take
thereafter participating in ourprograms, right Like.
We have people who went throughChangemakers and literally went
from being like.
We have Sarah, who is a fashiondesigner.
She has been working as a pentester now for several years in
(10:10):
cybersecurity, you know.
We have Jamie, who retired fromthe military and worked on
making her way through thattransition into a cybersecurity
position and she's been workingsuccessfully now for a couple of
years.
We had a wonderful woman fromSingapore, cj, who participated
(10:33):
in our CISSP study sprint, whichis something that we're going
to be offering again later inthe fall.
Just that 30 days, really, likeyou know, accountable,
structured, you knowincentivized period to study for
the CISSP, and she went on andpassed and she's she's a CISSP
(10:54):
now, you know, and so I'mexcited to see what she's been
able to do with that.
So so, yeah, like the yes,everyone says really wonderful
kind things about theirexperience and their
appreciation of our programs andeverything.
But what I really lean into andreally take as proof of impact
(11:19):
the most are those kinds ofstories.
It's not what they're tellingme, it's what I'm seeing in them
.
Jess Vachon (11:25):
Sure, I love that.
You know it's clear that you'reasking for a commitment from
participants.
Right, you're asking for afinancial commitment, but you're
also asking for a timecommitment, and then hearing the
results should speak to thepoint that having a fee-based
service makes sense.
It took me a long time to cometo this place of agreeing with
(11:50):
you on this, but I got there bywatching what you were doing and
listening to the people youwere working with and I think I
mentioned this to you previously, but I'll say it again if I
didn't you completely changed myidea of the model that I wanted
for my own business.
It makes sense that if you'regoing to be spending your time
(12:11):
and your own capital because Iknow you're doing that that at
the least you break even, butthat there's an expectation that
people are going to giveeverything to the experience,
because when they go out in thefield, as you and I know,
there's a tremendous expectationthat you're going to commit
your time to learning on yourown, investing sometimes in your
(12:33):
own training, so you can besuccessful to whatever end you
want to get to, whether you wantto stay as an individual
contributor, or you want to moveinto a management role, or
maybe you want to go out and bea coach on your own.
So I want to just give youthanks for at least changing my
mind on that.
I'm sure you probably changed alot of other minds on the model
(12:54):
that you've chosen, but I think, in my own small opinion, I
think it was a brilliantdecision on your part.
Stacey Champagne (13:00):
Thank you, I appreciate that.
And yeah, thank you, Iappreciate that.
(13:28):
And yeah, you know, we, aswomen especially, spend a lot of
time investing in gatheringother.
We do ourselves a disservice.
We basically devalue ourselvesand each other through that, and
so there are ways to, you know,recognize that, you know people
have, you know, certainsocioeconomic constraints but,
at the same time, enable fairaccess.
(13:52):
Some of the strategies that I doin my business that enable this
are the sliding scale for ahacker in heel salon.
We charge a different amount forpeople who are new to cyber
versus people who have been init for 10, 15 years, because,
you know, the assumption andexperience is that when you're
higher up in the industry, it'sactually more likely that your
(14:13):
business is going to pay on yourbehalf to attend something like
that, versus someone at thebeginning of their career,
potentially at a lower salary,may not have the opportunity to
have it paid for and thereforewill be paying for it themselves
.
We still want to be able toenable that equitable access and
, at the same time, too, makesure that this business
continues to exist.
(14:34):
At the end of the day, we allhave to make money to have roofs
over our head, food on ourtable and the reality is is all
of the, the, the, the littledetails that go into pulling
something like like the, thesalons or even our online
community off.
I mean even just the onlinecommunity, the.
The flat cost of operating thaton a month to month is over a
(14:56):
thousand dollars, so a thousanddollars to have that space
exists.
Where does that money come fromif you are not paying for it in
some way, shape or form?
Right, so it's important, right, like women should not have to
incur debt to be of service, ifthat makes sense.
Jess Vachon (15:20):
No, it's an interesting point, right,
because we're expected to do allthe things that men do, but we
have a little bit higher of achallenge to get there and we
don't.
I don't think we have a choicein it, do we?
I mean, we have to do thesethings and, to the point you
(15:41):
made, these courses areextremely expensive and people
starting out in their careerprobably for their first 10
years in cybersecurity thosecourses are completely out of
reach.
When I look at what Hacker andHeels does, you're putting it
within reach your organizationright With someone who can find
(16:05):
a way to make it work for you,rather than to have to go into
debt to take all these coursesthat might not pay off for you.
We can look across the industry.
We can look across LinkedInright now and see all the posts
from people who said you know, Igot my master's degree in
cybersecurity or I invested ineight courses at $8,000 a piece
(16:27):
to get all these certificationsand I can't find a job.
We have to think about thatright.
So some of us who are pursuingour passion projects and I
really do believe that what youhave is a passion project are
trying to find a way to do thatto contribute our time to help
others but at the end of the day, to at least break even.
(16:49):
I don't think people understandthe challenge of pursuing a
dream that pays off for otherpeople in terms of how much it
costs.
I look at how much I've spentjust to get Vigilant Violet to
this point of having the podcastand everything.
I make zero money right now onit.
(17:13):
As you pointed out, there'sexpenses every month.
There's a lot of work you haveto do outside of this.
I know that you probably havesome partnerships you've built
to help you with that, butyou've got to pay for those too
every time you have one of thosepartnerships.
So when we consider costs,relatively speaking, it sounds
like Hacker and Heal is a value,like a huge savings for people
and something that they shouldbe pursuing.
(17:34):
Just my own diatribe on thatfor your edification.
Stacey Champagne (17:38):
Yeah, I mean literally the whole point of
change.
Makers.
A big aspect of it is helpingpeople discern between going and
doing a degree program or doingone of these boot camps or
something else, and recognizingthe potential cost of it.
I mean, you know, if someonejust launches them out in,
(18:01):
launches himself intocybersecurity, without doing
some of that reflection andcoaching and review first, I
mean they could waste thousandsof dollars versus just spending
the twenty five dollars a monthto access the platform, to get
access to change makers, to gothrough the material and and
(18:23):
realize that like, oh wait, Imight not actually have to go
get a college degree to get intocybersecurity.
I could actually take one ofthese other approaches, you know
, and so there's so much valuethere and and and also, too, I
kind of want to go back to likeyou know, you, you made a
comment about how, like you'renot making money at this right
now, I'm not making money atthis right now, but but we need
(18:46):
women to run companies makingmassive amounts of money,
because when you run a company,and when I run a company, we run
it with our values first, andour values are very different
from the values that wecurrently see from some of our
you know monolith companies outthere in regards to how they
(19:06):
treat employees, how they payall that kind of stuff, hacker
and heels like.
From the very start, we offerto pay anyone and everybody who
is willing to come be a guestmentor.
We offer them at leastsomething.
If they you A lot of them willdecide that they want to pay
that money forward to being ableto fund subsidized memberships,
(19:29):
which is great.
But even just offering that andnot expecting free labor of
people know an important messageto have out there Um, and you
know I, as I'm building mycompany, I'm looking at
companies like um.
(19:50):
A great one out there is likeShani Nicholas she has a
astrology app and the way thatshe runs her business is like
making sure that everyone'smaking at least like $80,000 a
year.
Or like Tori Dunlap withFinancial Feminist she has like
week long breaks every quarterfor her entire staff, you know.
(20:13):
And so all of these kinds ofyou know benefits that really
recognize and uplift peopleversus exploiting them.
Those will only come about forpeople when we have individuals
building companies based onthose values, which I know you
will do and I will do.
Jess Vachon (20:34):
Yeah, I hate to say this, but money is power, and
we see that right now in the US,right, we see those with the
money have a tremendous amountof power.
And if those of living in acapitalistic society, right, um,
those of us that don't carryfull privilege and full
(21:09):
privilege by what?
By that I mean?
Those are those folks that areborn and don't ever have to
think about their color or theirgender or their religion, and
they navigate life just finewithout that overhead noise in
the background.
That's privilege.
It's not necessarily a badthing.
We're not saying privilege is abad thing, but what I want
(21:30):
people to understand and I thinkyou do too is there's a lot of
us, a good majority of us, thatdon't sit at the table with that
, and I say that as someone whoknows that, even as the person
that I am, that I still haveprivilege over certain other
people.
So it is important to me and Ihear that it's important to you
(21:53):
that we affect that change, andso charging a fee, trying to
make a little bit of a profit sowe can gain some of that power,
is important.
It's definitely important.
You mentioned something earlierthat made me think about a post
that you had recently.
I think it was a couple ofweeks ago, and I'm just going to
(22:14):
go off the cuff here.
I think the post was about theamount of effort you had put in
during the year forcertifications or training to
advance your career and the factthat you looked at your spouse
who had done none of that andwas still doing just fine in
their career.
That post I think it went viralhad a lot of comments on it.
(22:36):
Talk about that post.
Talk about what made you writethat and what you had for
feedback after that post.
Stacey Champagne (22:48):
I love all of the stories that people have
come up with about where I waswhen I wrote that post, what
happened that, you know,inspired that post, what the
scene was, what our relationshipis.
All of that it has been trulyentertaining to read.
(23:10):
The fact is that we are, youknow.
So the post was exactly as whatyou said, right.
It was a reflection of howwomen often have to lay out a
10-point achievement plan forevery year performance and hit
(23:36):
on those things or risk anexcuse.
And what I mean by an excuseit's that then you get to the
conversations about pay andpromotion and whatnot, and
you're going to hear you can'tget promoted, you can't get paid
, you can't have the opportunitybecause you didn't do X, y, z
right, and so a lot of times,for women specifically, it's
about not having thecertification, it's about not
(23:59):
having spoken at events or, youknow, done things that get you
external validation of yourcompetence, because apparently
what we do in our organizations,you know, is not part of the
measurement of performance.
Sometimes it seems, seems umand so.
(24:19):
So that was an illustration ofhow, like we have such stress
put on us, to the point where italmost becomes like a fear that
if we don't do those things,something bad is going to happen
(24:42):
to us, and and I mean it hashappened to us right Like we
have been passed up forpromotion, we have been paid
less.
This isn't hypothetical, thisis reality for many women out
there.
Versus looking at theexperience of my husband, who
very clearly has what he needsto achieve spelled out for him
(25:03):
in the military and, you know,if he's done those things, he
doesn't have to worry about whatelse because it's all clearly
defined.
Versus with us, They'll justsay they want these five things
and once you complete them,they'll pull five more things
out of the out of thin air thatthey never told you about and
say well, these are the reasonswhy.
This is why you're losing yourjob, this is why you're getting
(25:26):
passive for promotion, this iswhy you're being laid off,
whatever it might be, and soit's such a difference of
experience being a man versus awoman, or an underrepresented
identity in the workplace and inin how you can just go through
(25:48):
life on the day to day and andand have that in the back of
your mind as something that youlike, worry about and get
stressed out about and live with.
Right.
For him it was just like no, Idon't have anything to share and
I'm okay with that.
(26:09):
And I think that is where somany people were inserting
themselves was in the idea ofbeing okay with having done
nothing, like so many peoplewere not okay on his behalf of
him having done nothing.
The ability to do nothing inour capitalist society is such
(26:35):
an privilege and and and gift,and um, almost like a middle
finger to to capitalism.
Um, that like yeah, like weshould, that's something to
(26:55):
celebrate.
That's not something that weshould look at as a negative.
We should look at that as, likeman, you escaped the system.
Kudos to you, right.
And so, so, yeah, that that thatpost and and everybody's, so
many people's response there wassuch a if you look at it
(27:20):
closely, I'm sure you observedthis is that the people who were
having such a negative uproarabout it how do they look?
Like they identify Versus, likeall the people they're mixed in
there they got it right andthose, ultimately, are my target
audience, right, like those arethe people I want to connect
(27:40):
with, or the people who get it,who read it and immediately
understood what we were goingfor with that kind of post, and
many people said they sawthemselves in it.
Right, and those people weremajority women, right?
The people who were reallyupset and made it go viral, they
(28:00):
were men.
Jess Vachon (28:01):
So we don't have a choice.
That was that's the point,right.
We don't have a choice.
I say that we do.
We have a choice.
Where we don't do it and wedon't get promoted, we don't get
the opportunities, we lose ourjobs.
I've had that happen to me.
I'm sure you've had it happento you.
I'm sure a lot of people thatare going to listen to this have
(28:24):
had it happen to them as well.
That is a lot, and we hear itfrom all different communities.
Well, I'm not the first one tosay this.
We hear it all the time andpeople are vocal about it
because we are expected to domore, to sit at the same table
as people who are not requiredto do more.
That's why we're vocal about it.
I believe that people who don'thave to do that and they still
(28:51):
get reap the benefits of whatsociety provides them.
They're so vocal in oppositionto it because they know deep
down that they have thatprivilege, that they have
something that someone elsedoesn't and they're afraid of
losing that.
You're not going to lose it.
There's plenty of room at thetable.
We're asking you to listen, tounderstand, to be compassionate
(29:16):
and to be fair Relative to theUS.
We're all supposed to have thesame rights and privileges under
the Constitution.
When we demand changes to allowthat to happen, that is not
asking for something we're notdue.
That's asking for something weare supposed to have that has
(29:39):
been taken away.
Asking for something we aresupposed to have that has been
taken away.
So I appreciate that you havefound a way to have your voice
heard and engage people so thatthey think about what they're
saying and how they live theirlives.
If you live your life inextreme comfort and relaxation,
(30:00):
look around.
Extreme comfort and relaxation.
Look around.
Help those that are not livingthat way, because there are
hundreds of millions, if notbillions, of people on this
planet that don't have theluxury of waking up relaxed in
the morning and going to bedrelaxed at night.
All right, I went down a littlepath there, but I'm, I'm, I'm
(30:23):
very passionate about it.
I know you're very passionateabout it and, because I have
this platform, we're going totalk about it, and you know, I
know you and I you have to talkabout it.
Stacey Champagne (30:33):
I mean, we just saw, like, we saw firsthand
, like the, the fact that somany people don't realize that
this is the system we're all in.
You know, so many peopledemonstrated in their comments
that lack of recognition of thedifferent experiences between
(30:57):
men and women, or men andunderrepresented identities, or
white men and underrepresentedwhatever it might be right, or
even just how, how ourworkplaces are set up right,
like, like in our private sectorworkplaces, a lot, of a lot of
them don't have very clearrequirements around measurement
of performance.
Right Versus in the military,they have a very clear it's very
(31:18):
well spelled out expectationsof you know what they need to
accomplish at any given time.
Right and so recognizing, likehaving having the absence of
that leads to so much stress andtrauma and and and a door for
exploitation of people right,like we could.
(31:39):
We could sit here and debate,as many people did in those
comments, about how I wrote itand what you know what I might
have been insinuating about myhusband, who I love very dearly
about you know hisaccomplishments and what they
mean relative to mine, but likethat, that is tone policing,
(32:04):
right that is focusing so muchon the minutia of how I said a
certain thing versus the verymessage that you know was
intended and has verysignificant value in, in, in, in
talking about as a society, um,and yes, a lot of people missed
(32:31):
that, but at the same time,through missing that, they
proved the point that was beingmade of the post, and so it just
shows that we have to have moreof these conversations.
Jess Vachon (32:50):
Absolutely, and I want to be clear.
We're not trying to be divisive.
We're not trying to takeanything away.
No one's trying to takeanything away.
You said at the beginning youappreciated that your husband
didn't have to do that, you justwould like to be in the same
boat right.
Stacey Champagne (33:06):
How can I do that?
Please show me your way.
Jess Vachon (33:12):
Absolutely, so we know who you are today.
We're getting a sense of whoyou are, but if you're
comfortable with it, tell us alittle bit about your
experiences growing up influenceof parents or relatives or, you
know, mentors that you had thathelped shape who you are today.
Stacey Champagne (33:30):
Yeah, oh gosh, maybe I should go swap out my
my water here.
So so, such a loaded question,how am I the person I am today?
Jess Vachon (33:46):
Um, if I didn't ask loaded questions?
Stacey Champagne (33:49):
uh, but such a such a powerful question, right
, um, because it's kind of likeyou know, what I've learned from
becoming a certifiedprofessional coach is that, like
, none of this is siloed,everything is interconnected.
Who I am as a, you know,efficient and effective cyber
(34:09):
security practitioner isdirectly related to my
upbringing and the other facetsof my life, right, um, and so
there's so much value inexploring that.
I also think it confuses peoplesometimes when they, you know,
do coaching with me and they'reexpecting we're going to talk
about I don't know certs or, oryou know trainings or
(34:30):
conferences or whatever, and I'masking them about, like you
know, different facets of theirlife and their level of
satisfaction and how that allplays in and stuff like that.
So, um, so, yeah, so with me, Iwas very fortunate to be a, to
(34:52):
have accessibility to technologyat a very young age.
I had a grandfather who was apilot and he was also very and I
say he was a pilot because youcan imagine being a pilot in
like I don't know the 80s andthe 90s Financially.
That helped, right, and so he,he was able to, and he would
(35:14):
always buy the latest andgreatest thing.
He would buy a computer andthen, like you know, six months
later he'd buy another computer.
He would also like downloadjust terrible things onto it
like um, like oh my gosh, wasn'tthere like a monkey that
contained malware or something.
At one point, like you know, hewould have like it would look
cute and you could ask himquestions or whatever, but it
(35:35):
was totally just spyware.
So he would get like thosekinds of things in his computer
wouldn't work and then he wouldjust go buy another one, right?
So?
So he kept buying all thesecomputers and at one point we
started to like take them out ofthe closet and like I got one,
my brother got one at very youngages and and I think that
helped out a lot with me justfeeling comfortable with tech
(36:02):
early on and then here forwardright Another aspect of my
upbringing was being involved inthe FIRST Robotics Program.
So FIRST was founded by DeanKamen.
He invented the Segway, whichthen people tend to ask oh, is
he the one who drove off thecliff on the Segway?
No, that was the differentperson.
(36:23):
And also Dean invented a lot ofother really important
inventions, like kidney dialysismachines, artificial heart
stents, so like really just asharp, you know person.
But he created this roboticscompetition program and it
starts like I think they even goas young as like pre-K, but
like K through 12, where you goand specifically for the
(36:48):
robotics the high schoolrobotics program they give you a
challenge, you have severalweeks, a kit of parts, you
basically go and play a form oflike a sports game with robots,
and so my brother was actuallyon the founding team at our high
school and so I saw him doingthat, which got me to do it at
(37:09):
the middle school level, andthen I moved up into the high
school level and I was alwaysinvolved and I even went and
worked at first for a little bit, because I had lived in New
Hampshire and that's where theirtheir headquarters is, and and
it was through that yeah, woo,new Hampshire.
And it was through thatexperience that I I realized,
(37:30):
looking back on it, that I neverhad those negative experiences
that other people mentionedsometimes about how they were
discouraged from tech.
I mean, like I was activelyencouraged all through my
upbringing that to, to you know,put my hands on tech, to be
involved in tech, to buildrobots, like all that kind of
(37:52):
stuff.
So when it came time to youknow, go off to school and I
ultimately went and did graphicdesign, but then realized that
that wasn't going to get me towhere I wanted to be, you know,
personally, financially and allthat kind of stuff.
There wasn't much hesitation inmaking that, that transition
over to then focus oncybersecurity, because it was
(38:16):
almost like well, why didn't youstart here, right?
Like well, what's with thedetour?
Right, with graphic design.
But, you know, even in regardsto spending some time in graphic
design, that was just arecognition of like, yeah, I
(38:36):
love tech, but also I love theseother things too.
Right, and so I, you know, hadtwo ways to go and I just chose
the left path instead of theright path.
Right, and again, we just wetalked about at the beginning
about how that, you know,brought me around, back to tech
and made the journey that muchmore valuable, right, and so I
(38:58):
think all of that reallycontributed to where I am today.
But also, because this is a showabout rebels by rebels for
rebels, we should mention acouple of things on that
pristine path, which are thatwhen I was on that robotics team
(39:19):
, the school didn't fund therobotics team.
They spent many, many thousandsof dollars on the high school
band.
However, they would notcontribute to the robotics team.
Our mentors were paying out ofpocket to help us afford our
$5,000 kit of parts andregistration fees and stuff like
that.
And so, year after year,parents would beg, students
(39:42):
would beg, would be like can youplease just guarantee us some
funds so every year we don'thave to waste all of our time
scraping for money instead ofbeing focused on learning and
building the robot right?
And so, senior year, I was likeI'm sick of this, like this,
this doesn't make sense at all.
Um, we should be guaranteedfunds.
And if and like, if you're notgoing to just give it to us,
(40:04):
then we're going to let the townvote on it.
And so I went through theactual process of figuring out
how does something get on theschool board budget, like how
does something get on the ballot?
And I went and, like, collectedsignatures and neighborhoods, I
packed the school board liketown hall events and ultimately
got it on the ballot and got itto pass for again.
(40:28):
It was like it was $5,000.
Like I wasn't asking foranything crazy.
I was like just make sure thisteam can exist each and every
year, we don't have to worryabout it.
Like we'll fundraise above andbeyond if we want to go to
competitions that are fartheraway or whatever, like we'll
take care of that, but like weshould be able to compete at
least once here locally.
And so I think it was thatexperience.
(40:49):
And through that experience, Ihad people threaten me, like as
a high schooler, I had people onthe school board threaten me
about like, well, you know, ifyou do this and it doesn't pass,
we can't give you any money atall.
And I'm like you're not givingus money to begin with, so how
does how does that matter, right?
And I remember it was, it wasactually like a phone call
(41:10):
conversation and I, like I waslike, well, we'll let the town
decide that.
And I like hung up, I think,and so, and so I think that that
experience and that win, right,that win of like going after
something like that, having thatresistance and and and
(41:31):
overcoming it, enabled me to beresilient in the unfortunately
many other situations that Ihave found myself in as I've
progressed through mycybersecurity career.
So, like I have been wrongfullyterminated, I have been laid off
, and like, when you go throughthose experiences, if you, if
(41:55):
you haven't survived somethingof that like caliber of, of, you
know, pushback to yourcharacter.
They can be really, reallytough to overcome.
And and I, you know, I, Iwonder, you know, like, if it
weren't for again, thatexperience growing up and just
(42:17):
having to, you know, overcomethings a lot in my upbringing,
if I, you know, potentiallywould have left cybersecurity
the first time that happened, orthe second time it happened, or
whatever right, the second timeit happened or whatever Right.
(42:40):
And so I, I don't wish that onanybody, but at the same time, I
think it's just such a avaluable way of looking at
experiences of adversity asbeing, you know, so immensely
valuable to your life story andto your future success than
(43:04):
staying too long in the griefand victim stage of it, right.
Jess Vachon (43:11):
Yeah, thank you for sharing that, because I think
it's important for everyone tohear that right.
That's why I asked the question.
Because I think it's importantfor everyone to hear that right.
That's why I asked the question, because I want listeners to
understand that we all arrivehere in this present moment from
different paths, and it's greatto hear that you weren't
restricted in what you could dobased on gender roles.
You were allowed to just go andexplore and learn.
(43:33):
You were allowed to just go andexplore and learn and in having
that model for your life, youwere empowered to go and
challenge a school board, tochallenge authority and to go
and seek more, and that messageof resilience is hugely
important as well.
So we just looked back.
I have an empowering questionI'd like to ask, and it actually
(43:54):
looks forward, so I will poseit to you what is your instinct?
Intro/Outro (44:01):
telling you to do right now?
Ooh.
Jess Vachon (44:15):
I love this question For those who aren't
watching the video.
Stacey's thinking deeply rightat this moment.
Stacey Champagne (44:25):
My instinct right now as I think is the same
for many of us is to scream,first and foremost, given all
that is going on, but at thesame time, my instinct
constantly brings me back tofocusing on what you can control
(44:48):
, being mindful of the fact thatthere are people trying to take
your power and and not just indirect ways, but like also in
indirect ways right Of, likeflooding the media, um, you know
(45:10):
, putting stress upon the, theworkforce and and all that kind
of stuff, and people, um, andand and trying to, in those
moments, recognize where they'resiphoning from you and putting
a stop to that.
And so what this looks like inaction is like.
(45:30):
Even today, I was thinking tomyself I should really just
remove Reddit from my phone,like if I want to see catch up
on what's going on, like I cando that later, but like when
it's on my phone and it's moreaccessible, like they're pulling
me into a world that I, I itdoes not benefit me to be part
(45:55):
of right now, and there isprivilege in saying something
like that.
But I also look at it anotherway is that, like, when they are
distracting me, I can't do andstay focused on the work that
that matters in supporting youknow, the people around me who
matter right now, right, um, andso finding that balance between
(46:17):
, like, having healthyboundaries and staying informed,
um is is something that I feellike my, my instinct is kind of
um, uh, tuning into right now totry to figure out a solution
for yeah.
Jess Vachon (46:38):
Thank you, thank you.
So we're getting ready to wrapup the podcast.
I want to leave you anopportunity to tell people where
they can find you and whatyou're working on and how to
engage with you.
So the floor is yours.
Stacey Champagne (46:53):
Sure.
So where we're at right nowwith Hacker and Heels a couple
of really great things going sothe floor is yours.
That's CISSP study sprint inSeptember.
So if you want to stay informedon when that's going to be
(47:19):
launching, definitely make sureyou're signed up for our emails.
You can go to hackerinhealscomand get signed up that way.
We also, on the website, have areally fun quiz.
It's your cybersecurity careerarchetype and it's, you know,
thoughtfully put together butnot, so, you know, super
scientific could be fun to justgive you ideas of where you
(47:41):
might take your career, and soyou could do that as well and
provide your email that way.
I really am going to startfocusing on getting some salons
on the books for this year.
So last year, we held twoHacker and Heal salons.
One was in Nashville alongsideWomen in Cybersecurity.
(48:03):
One was in Las Vegas alongsideBlack Hat, def CON and all those
conferences that go on duringthat week in August, and so we
definitely want to bring thatback, but we're looking at
decoupling them from theconferences.
That being said, the Las Vegasvenue was really great, and so I
might actually just repeat thatone again, because it was so
(48:24):
great, so much fun and obviouslyso many people are around
during that time, but I wouldlove to be able to hold them in
other cities, and so what I needfrom everybody is really, if
you are part of a company orknow of a company that would
want to partner on an event likethat, I mean, those events like
at cost are, go try to rent aprivate dining room and see for
(48:48):
yourself.
It is thousands upon thousandsof dollars, right.
And so we need partnership withcompanies in order to make them
, um, you know, make them happen, right, um, and so we're going
to be working on those.
And then um also to one thingthat's not um very well known
about, but I have been offeringis what I'm on coaching, um, and
(49:10):
I do it on a uh pay, what youcan type scale, right.
So I do have like a minimum,like there's a minimum amount
that I do require in order tomeet with me because of
everything that we've talkedabout in this call today.
So hopefully that makes sense,but otherwise you can name your
(49:31):
price and there's no commitmentto it.
So if you wanna do just onesession, then that's fine.
I really leave it open because,at the end of the day, I'm like
well, if I'm providing value toyou, you'll come back, right,
and if I'm not like, then Idon't want to hold you hostage
to coaching with me, right?
And so, under this model, I cantell you that, yes, people have
(49:52):
been coming back for manymonths.
They're finding a lot of valueout of it, and so, if you are
interested in one-on-onecoaching, feel free to reach out
to me, and I'd be happy toshare the information about that
with you.
Jess Vachon (50:05):
Well, thank you so much, Stacey, for joining me
today.
And folks, if you're listening,go check out Hacker in Heels.
Check out Stacey on LinkedIn.
Show Stacey some love! Shedefinitely has worked hard for
it.
Stacey, thank you.
Thank you for listening to thisepisode of Voices of the
(50:26):
Vigilant.
If you liked what you heardtoday, please subscribe and
leave a review in your favoritepodcast app For a copy of the
transcript.
To follow Jess, to apply as aguest of the show, or to learn
more about services fromVigilant Violet, please visit
vigilantviolet.
com.
Until next time, stay vigilant!
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