Cristina Bentué

I started my entrepreneurial adventure almost a decade ago, and this journey has lead me to become a voice in the ecosystem of Cybersecurity startups and scaleups, participating in several mentoring programs to empower girls and women in STEAM roles. As co-founder and Chief Operating Officer at IriusRisk I have had the privilege of working with a team who has taken a small startup into the market leading Threat Modeling company, growing from 2 people to currently 120 employees across three continents, and this growth is expected to continue, as IriusRisk is regarded as one of the most promising companies in the appsec sector.

This success was achieved through hard work, sleepless nights, good luck and practical strategic planning of resources by the Operations team. I never dreamed of leading a technology company (my dream was becoming Indiana Jones) and I studied a number of masters programs in Near Eastern Studies specialising in Akkadian and Sumerian. A blog post on how Gilgamesh and Enkidu is a metaphor for breaking silos between Dev and Security teams is on my todo list.