Women Making a Difference: Claudette McGowan

Meet Claudette McGowan, CEO at Protexxa and Co-founder at The Firehood. Disruption spoke to McGowan about the importance of cyberliteracy and cybersecurity and her mission to spread digital health globally, along with her simultaneous efforts to help women succeed in the tech world.

Where did your interest in technology begin?

In high school I had a job that allowed me to work with computer systems and at that time it was such a niche area, but it taught me that technology can enable and empower. Since then I’ve always wanted to remain on the cutting edge, and I’ve been a lifelong learner when it comes to technology. Early on in my career one of my leaders recognized an ability in me to speak with people and translate between the tech and the business, and when you do that successfully, you can build better solutions. My whole career is about being that bridge, whether it’s to the solutions or the bridge to new technology that has been introduced. 

Your work now is primarily focused on enhancing cybersecurity. Why and how did that become the focus of your work?

People generally understand the power and importance of being connected, but we need to work on being protected. Security needs to be at the table from the beginning of the process to protect services and products from cyber attacks and that brought me to that lightbulb moment: What if we help regular, everyday people? What if we put this bold mission out to make Canada the most cyber literate nation in the world and then take that product and scale it? That’s why I launched Protexxa.

What does building cyberliteracy involve?

We want to help people understand their cyber health and hygiene and what their number is? You might know your credit score, but do you know your cyber hygiene score? We help people know their indicators of compromise, scanning the surface and the deep web to understand their level of exposure. Are they being impersonated online?  Do people have access to your email? Are their credentials compromised? There's so many things that people don't realize are blind spots, which is why we built this platform to bring that to the surface for individuals and companies.  

You also co-founded The Firehood with Danielle Graham. Tell me about your mission to support women succeed in tech

I’ve done a lot of work to support more women to get into tech, not for the accolades but because I would be in these rooms and I would be alone. But I knew there was a desire to get more Indigenous people, more women, more people of colour into these rooms, and so I leaned back on being a bridge, and facilitating connections. The Firehood’s mission is four-fold: connecting people who want to be trained with people who can train them; connecting mentees to mentors; connecting people who have great ideas or businesses but are having challenges finding investors and that first injection of capital; and finally, connecting employees with employers and supporting women to rise through those ranks.