Lara Hemmarty completed her studies in Computing, Systems Analysis and Design, E-Business at Western Sydney University. Lara has been an account executive, an inside sales associate for Google, responsible for growing G-suite’s customer base, supporting a productive business environment and identifying new business opportunities, generating business plans and defining strategic tactics whilst managing multiple cross-product opportunities.  More recently Lara started working with IBM in business development, social & commerce, where she assisted clients to grow business to be effective and efficient.  Lara then moved into IBM’s collaboration solutions, allowing Lara to again find the right solutions for business and assisting organisations on their journey to re-imagine their work. Lara is still with IBM in a Security Specialist role, specialising in Security Software, which means Lara’s role is to protect important information and software that, if not protected correctly, runs the risk of adversaries (bad guys or bots) accessing the data and potentially inflicting financial damage.  Lara is also one of the NSW Cyber Security Innovation Node’s Ambassadors, which is formed by a group of business, academics, professionals and secondary students to represent the expertise and empower people to investigate roles within the Cyber Security industry.   Questions: Each day of Cyber Week there is a theme, which today is ‘Buying and Investing in Cyber Capability’ with the overall theme of workforce development, so what does buying and investing in cyber capability mean to you?   How many people seek these roles in foreign countries, for example Silicon Valley? Do we have a thriving cyber ecosystem here? Where? How can we improve? How can we as Australians invest more in cyber capability?  Do we have obstacles to overcome? What Impacts do you think will happen over the next few years if we do not take this seriously?  Cyber Week is for people new to the cyber ecosystem?  What can one expect from Cyber Week? Who can get involved? Current stigma around cyber security careers... Who is best suited to these roles?  How broad is cyber security really?  Do we want to highlight alternative pathways into these careers?  This episode is proudly sponsored by the Experts On Air Podcast Network Useful Links:  NSW Cyber Security Innovation Node Website - https://nswcybersecurityinnovationnode.com.au/ Lara Hemmarty - https://www.linkedin.com/in/lara-hemmaty-142b5826/  Sarah Box LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-box-25670667/  Host contact - sarah@nswcsin.com.au Experts On Air - https://expertsonair.fm/  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.