 The Cube presents On the Ground. Hey, Jeff Rick here with The Cube. We are on the ground at the Anita Board Women of Vision Awards 2016. Happy to be back for our second year. And we have one of the award winners with us right now, Michelle Gell, the leadership award winner. Congratulations, Michelle. Thank you very much. I'm very excited and honored to be here. Awesome. So you have a long and distinguished career. You're a distinguished engineer at Cisco. You're also the chief security architect, which is a very hot place to be these days, an advisor and evangelist. So you've been at it a long time. Here you're the award winner. Give us a little perspective of how tech and women and the acceptance of women in engineering roles has changed. What do you see from where you sit? Yeah, so actually, there's been a vast change. And it's just it's very exciting to see. I mean, back in the Stone Ages, when I started in the late 80s and the early 90s, literally I was the only female in the room for so many conferences and events. And it was about 2010, 2011. I was running a conference. And I went to the ladies' room at break. And we all had an epiphany. There was a line for the first time. We were like, we all looked at each other like, wow, that's so exciting. Yeah, we've arrived. There's actually a line. But more recently, what I have seen is the real big change, I think, with keeping women interested in technology. I mean, they're just as gifted. They're just as talented. Women are wired for different things. And so I think we can really come along together with the men in partnership and some things. Is I've seen the transition where women are starting to support other women. I think earlier on, it was more like competition and all that sort of stuff. But now, for the most part, we've realized that if we come together as a team and we support each other and we encourage each other, that as a community, they were able to make more strides and were able to encourage the younger, the millennials, and even the middle school girls, because that's really where we need to do it. We still have a lot of work to do. I think companies have a lot of work to do. We need male advocates as well. And it's all about community and supporting and encouraging one another. So obviously, Anita Borg, a tremendous kind of organization in the Grace Hopper celebration, a phenomenal event to really help that kind of encouragement and to feel part of something bigger than just yourself. Yeah, that's what's so awesome about this organization and this particular Gala Awards. It's big for a reason. There's a lot of media for a reason. There's Twitter, there's Facebook, there's social media. It's to get the word out to those young ladies that there's tremendous opportunities. And you can be up here too. And the way I encourage the ladies that I mentor is, you need to show them what's possible and encourage them in these situations. So that's what I'm honored about tonight. I really think the winners are just a small part of it. It's about us standing on the stage and being role models for all those people in the audience and all those people who are gonna see it on the internet like, wow, I wanna aspire to be that. And to me, that's what Anita Borg and Grace Hopper is about. So when you talk about mentorship, there's always a lot of conversation between mentorship and sponsorship. Do you see that? Do you have formal sponsorship programs inside of Cisco? How is Cisco taking kind of concrete steps to accelerate this process? So Cisco actually does have a very focused effort in this area, because we realize Cisco leadership realizes that the whole diversity, equality, and moving the needle is of utmost importance. And I think men kind of naturally tend to talk with one another, encourage one another. Women are a little bit more quiet. We do have formal mentorship programs. I am part of a community, a founder of a community where we reach out and mentor. I mean, the mentorship, and I'll talk about it tonight, it's about fanning the flames and others. It's about controlling the wildfire. It's about igniting the spark that's almost out. Encouraging them, guiding them to a path where they want to be. Sponsorship is that you're really dedicated that you're going to take a person who's ready for the next level, and you're going to sponsor them, give them visibility opportunities, you know, let them meet other people, leaders to really get them up the ladder. And we need both. We can't just have a lot of mentorship and no sponsorship. We need an equal balance of both. And Cisco has established programs. They have a whole inclusion and collaboration focus. We have a chief inclusion and collaboration officer. And even within the security and trust organization, it's kind of cool because within the last couple years, most of the new hires have been women. So we go in there in the area where I work, it's called a fishbowl, it's like 50-50. And that's really awesome to see. And what's the biggest challenge that the women have that you're helping them with? Is it they just don't feel that they've got the support? Is it, you know, kind of a glass ceiling situation? Where is it that you're kind of helping them break through? Because sometimes it's a pipeline problem, it's a retention problem. You know, kind of where's the problem that you can address through things like formal mentorship problem? I think it's almost all of the above. Some people, it's about having confidence and boldness to really speak out and know how to have that voice. And that's just not worn within somebody. I think you have to really develop that. And just last two weeks ago at our community, we had a very well-known person come in and speak about confidence. So that's one aspect of it. Another aspect is just community. If you're one of a few females in an area, it's kind of really harder to have that voice, especially if you're early career millennial. Well, maybe not millennial, they tend to be bold, but you get some people that are quiet. Like for example, when I went to the first DE ITL hands meeting after our promotion, I was one girl and 12 guys. And so to have a voice in that kind of environment or even go to the bigger, you know, you kind of need community to do that. And the third aspect is there's a lot of professional development. They have other women's network community. They have women in science and engineering. They have Cisco connected women, many, many platforms for women to come together, learn professional development skills and capabilities, network with other women and also learn technical topics. So I'm curious about your journey. You've been at it for a while. There weren't these programs before. There was no line at the bathroom when you first got started on the women's side. And it's funny you said that because we always look at that as kind of a barometer. What hooked you into this field? What gave you the passion and the drive to get past those barriers and really, you know, get to where you are today and achieve the success that you have? I think, well, I was kind of always wired to just want to be able to succeed. I had a challenging upbringing, you know, typical struggles in the 60s and 70s. I've been in my career for like 30 years to age myself. It's all good, right? And just wanting to succeed. And, you know, I had a kind of a struggle early on but my start in the cybersecurity industry was the Morris Worm event. And it was just exciting, you know. I was at NASA Ames Research Center and I just kind of had this, I want to make something happen. I want to learn. And what really catapulted my career was I did get a mentor. And I have that mentor to this day. 25 years later, Alan Powler, founder of the Sands Institute when now one of the world's largest, most successful security training organization. So I know the importance of the mentor. I value that relationship. I've had other mentors and even sponsors along the way. And even someone that I mentored before later on becomes the mentor me and actually tells me back some of my stories. I used to tell him like, remember when he told me this? We all kind of need that encouragement. We get frustrated along the way. So it's just part of it was natural wiring and really part of it was having a mentor and sponsorship to give me a platform to learn, grow, make mistakes and push out of my comfort zone. Michelle, I'm gonna give you the last word for the people that aren't on your mentorship program and are not at Cisco and are not gonna make the speech tonight. Just real short, what do you tell young women or old girls, kind of on that transition between high school and college and early career? What's your kind of short tip of encouragement? And I say this often. I say you gotta go bold. You gotta be bold, get connected and really believe you can do it because you can't. Awesome. And we're all gonna be there to support you. Be bold, pretty simple, pretty simple advice. Well, Michelle, thanks for taking a few minutes and again, congratulations on the award. All right, thank you very much. Absolutely, I'm Jeff Frick with Michelle Gell. We're at the Anita Borg Women of Vision Awards 2016. Thanks for watching.