Trisha Paine, Head of Global Marketing of Cloud Security at Check Point Software, was recognized by Cloud Girls, in collaboration with the Alliance of Channel Women, as a Rising Star in the eighth annual Cloud Girls Rising “Women to Watch” awards announced in May of 2023. The Cloud Girl Rising awards were created to honor women in the telecom and IT channel who have shown leadership and innovation in the emerging cloud space as well as to inspire more women to step forward and follow their example. Trisha was honored as a Trailblazer, a seasoned female technology veteran who is paving the way for her organization, customers and industry in advancing cloud and next-generation technology solutions. She is recognized as a role model and mentor to colleagues and others at work and the partner community.  Cloud Girls is pleased to share more about Trisha in this edited excerpt from her award application. What examples demonstrate your success at implementing or promoting cloud and next-gen technology, management principles or process?

The concept of Zero Trust has been around for a while but mainly focused on the network layer. This concept however needs to evolve and expand as more workloads are placed in the cloud and more power is handed to the developer. Right now my team and I are working to take this Zero Trust concept and apply it to the software supply chain, we are taking those same principles and outlining to customers how they should be thinking of its application in context of the code itself. Everything from effective permissions, to threat prevention to stop zero day attacks, to scanning for vulnerabilities throughout the CI/CD pipeline, to contextual AI to identify and stop risks early. We are taking these principles on the road and working as a cross functional organization to present at conferences, create workshops, conduct surveys and analysts reports, to creating podcasts so we can educate the market on these very important best practices. Then it turn provide guidance to our customers on how to implement these solutions in their own environments. This effort has taken a lot of work across the business and we are excited to expand our efforts in the coming year.

How have you led by example? What have you done to inspire team members around cloud and next-gen technologies?

I also emphasize that taking risks is not a bad thing and encourages the team to look at the bigger picture. They always need to be willing to innovate in order to move the business forward. I would rather them fail fast. An example of taking risks is in regards to a campaign my team was running to a very technical CSA and developer audience. They started with just one technical asset and was receiving low performance. They had the idea to expand this program into a full funnel, omni-channel approach which started with a teaser video and then took the customer on a journey towards a full assessment and workshop. Thanks to this ingenuity, they were able to increase engagements by 500% and drive revenue. When challenges arise, I find myself setting the example for my team to tackle them with courage, initiative, and creativity. For instance, we are constantly introducing new capabilities within our cloud security solution, and I make sure to put in the effort to educate and make myself knowledgeable in order to best support and teach my team. Finally, I keep the team motivated and have faith in them, no matter what obstacles come our way. This helps us to remain confident and committed to our team’ s vision. Ultimately, leading by example has enabled my team to recognize their capabilities and the strength of working together. Together we are continually pushing the boundaries to market Check Point as a cloud security leader.

How have you mentored other women in the channel – above, below and at your level?

Mentorship is such an important part of any career, and I am a firm believe that successful leaders not only learn from those that are ahead of them in seniority, but also learn from those within all levels of their team and throughout the organization. I have been blessed to have incredible mentors in my career at all levels, and in turn, look for opportunities to pass it forward and mentor future leaders. One such woman sat in my office 10 years ago, I was hiring for a role in product marketing, but there was something about her tenacity and spark that I could envision her perfectly for our newly founded cloud service provider marketing role. She did great in this position, working with AWS to bring to market our first integrations and offerings, and she continued to build upon her marketing leadership experience in this role. From there, I continued to coach her and mentor her throughout her career. Imagine my excitement, when she called to say she had accepted a job as a VP of Marketing for a cyber security company at the age of 37— I couldn’t be more proud. To continue our mentorship relationship, she and I will have cadence calls every few weeks to see how she is adapting to her new role, to listen to her challenges and experiences, and offer guidance. Mentorship also works up, when first joining Check Point, I had a senior leader on the product management team- she was a rock star. She led women in tech forums and simply commanded the room. I learned so much from her- on how to stand out, take action, and be brazen. She taught me to not shy away because I am a women in cloud security, but instead to step in and continue to push for what is right. In turn, I taught her much about marketing and positioning. How to not be engineering-led but market-led. Together, with executive sponsorship, we completely relaunched the cloud security branding for our company and repositioned our solutions around customer value— not versions. This mentorship relationship was a mutual and truly embodied a women in tech dynamic duo that I will always cherish.

Congrats, Trisha!!