Debola Israel-Bolarinwa is a cybersecurity consultant with extensive experience in leading enterprise-level security projects, managing cyber risk; and ensuring third-party supplier due diligence, compliance and assurance across critical sectors. She has worked within steering-groups and as part of a government think-tank in the UK to foster proactiveness and commitment to the development of a robust cybersecurity posture for the UK’s critical national infrastructure and energy organisations. Also passionate about helping others and living the change she wants more Nigerians to adopt; she speaks on her work in cybersecurity and contributing to the nation’s development.
Take us through your educational and professional background.
My first degree was in Applied Chemistry. I graduated in 1989 then did my MBA, graduated in 1991 and went straight into banking. I qualified for Associateship of the Chartered Institute of Bankers (ACIB). In 1992. I went into management consultancy. I trained as a project manager. I got all my qualifications by 2000. I returned to Nigeria from the UK in 2007, set up my consultancy in 2008. I was here roughly nine years then I went back to the UK. My background generally is in consultancy, organisational development and performance enhancement.
From there, I moved on to managing programmes and projects and into IT as a project manager. A good project manager should be able to manage projects in any field. I say to people generally, that you should know everything about something and something about everything. That led me into a lot of fields globally because I intended to work with big organisations or national governments in the UK. A lot of the time, you tend to manage multisite projects. That was good for me in terms of exposure. In my bid to know a little about everything, I moved into IT and then into cyber security. Many of the people who know me for organisational development and business management consultancy may not know me as a cyber security specialist, particularly in this part of the world since I went through secondary school and tertiary education in the UK but came back to Nigeria and lived with my family for nine years while running my own management consultancy here.
Why did you go back to the UK?
It was mainly because of my family. I am very dedicated to my family, they come first. We came to Nigeria in 2007, because we really wanted our children to know Nigeria and be Nigerian. We kept them here for five years and sent them back to the UK for five years and we remained. As they went through boarding school, and then my first born was ready for University; I have a son and two daughters. With my son going into University, I figured I need to pour more of myself into them. Life is in cycles, and seasons. When you miss a season, you can’t pull it back. I really thank God for the way He spoke to me that day. That’s why I went back, I just went there to be there for my children.
Tell us about delving into cybersecurity.
I had always been in IT through my management consulting work. I had always managed IT professionals. Whenever I go into a job or task or team, I would spend time to see what they were doing so I could speak to them with intelligence and we understand each other. I have always had that background knowledge, and when Data Transformation started, I managed Data Transformation teams. In the same vein, cybersecurity was always something that was there in the background. But in terms of focusing on cybersecurity, I started training about seven years ago.
Honestly, the fact that we need to pay keen attention to cyber, with all the things happening with AI, endeared me to cybersecurity. I foresaw these things as a few other people would have seen. Another thing was that in spite of how I looked, I realised that at this stage of my life, I needed something that I could rely on as a consultant rather than going to a job 9-5. I needed something that was sustainable. I want to serve the people because that is how I am wired. If I am not serving people, I am like a fish out of water. I cry within when I go to the bank when I see for example, security guards, because I can tell who has eaten and who has not eaten and it makes my heart bleed. And I know we can do it, because we do it for people outside of our country. We have the resources and everything we need; it’s given to us.
How would you serve if you don’t go to Politics?
This is on a personal level; I have adopted children I pay school fees at all levels. I look after families, I look after some pregnant women to ensure the baby is safely delivered and that the mother is safe after birth, but that’s one person. I can only reach my own sphere. That is even without putting myself out there. There are many people doing things like this, but we need to join the dots and make it more impactful and we can.
Can you share your experience working as a cybersecurity expert in the UK.
With cybersecurity what you find is that people tend to embrace it in a very academic way. The difficulty with cybersecurity is practicalising it. Cybersecurity is supposed to be part of the fabric of an organisation being an entity. In the same way that we breathe to survive, an organisation has to survive in the key tenets. And cybersecurity in today’s world is not something you attack as an adult; it has to be part of the fabric of business. Look at AI, you can do anything with it. I was representing my organisation Southern Electricity (SSE), one of the largest energy companies in the UK. Now, because I was very vocal during that meeting, they asked me to join the fintech team, and that’s how I got involved. What we were debating was third party supply. SSE have some external organisations that manage some parts of the engineering and IT management.
Right now, a lot of security breaches come through third party suppliers. We have things like cyber warfare and I can assure you, we all pray that it never happens but if there is a third World War, it’s not going to be guns and bullets, it’s going to be cyber. Some countries understand it and designate it, some of them do not. In the UK, we have a cyber national infrastructure, which basically is a group of organisations, which if any of them is attacked, can bring the nation down. I was put in to lead the third-party supplier assurance to get that right, because the weak link is always the third-party suppliers. A lot of the problems to cybersecurity is that they are very academic. People know the answers in exams, but the practicalities were the issues.
In Nigeria, I don’t know how far ahead we are. There is a lot of cyber espionage going on. Now, if you look at Israel, Gaza and Iran, if you look at countries that are supporting Israel, they are beginning to cyber-attack. And a lot of those countries, will not tell you it was a cyber-attack, they will just tell you that the systems went down.
It’s so important that people and organisations and nations are aware of these things and begin to take steps. AI is not where it was three years ago. It is so far ahead; the bad guys will tell you, you have a set number of days to break a system, with AI it happens in less than a day. The key thing is organisations who are aware, how do you help them practicalise to a point where cyber becomes part of the fabric of their organisation. We call it security first. When you make plans, think about security as you’re going along.
What it feels like being a woman in that space?
The first thing is wherever I go, I try to focus on my work. This is how I’ve raised my children as well. Don’t play the black card, or the gender card. Just do your thing and do it well. They will recognise you through the excellence of your work. What you find is that the men there don’t expect you to make a real impact. A lot of people feel very easily threatened in the workplace. That’s the battle I find myself facing, but the biggest challenges I have had has been through women.
You’re a people person. I would like to understand the connection between that and cybersecurity.
They’re kind of like two different things, but at some point, they will join, because our lives pretty much becoming all about cyber right now. Cyber reasonably affects our lives. Cyber is my work. That’s what pays the bills. If money was not an object, it may not be what I’m spending most of my hours doing. I would be serving people. That’s where the people thing comes in. The foundation thing is not on the cards. Like I said before, I just like to go in and do my work.
However, if a foundation approaches me, then I would be interested. I would love to partner with government bodies, organisations, individuals who are like minded or serious about what they want to give. For me the important thing is that we join the dots. Every Nigerian should have a sizeable part of Nigeria, and be proud to be Nigerian. Everybody is doing something but how do we bring it all together, most importantly to affect the government in a way that we should. The dynamics have to change in Nigeria. We need to get to the point where the people are driving government.
