Diversity and Inclusion at Endace

Original Entry by : Endace

By Garima Bhatia, Test Manager – Appliance QA, Endace


Endace has recently started an exciting initiative which we wanted to share.

We have always been a culturally diverse workplace with people from all over the world representing many different nationalities and cultures. We are proud of this and want to recognize and celebrate the diversity we already have at Endace.  Each of our individuals has unique perspectives, skills, experiences and backgrounds that bring valuable contributions to the organization.

Supporting this diverse set of individuals to feel included is important; so people feel they truly belong to the organization they are working at and can achieve their maximum potential.  For Endace as an innovative organization, this means reaping the rewards of diverse thinking, and a stimulating work environment that leads to a satisfied team with strong collaboration and teamwork.

It is important that diversity is not only accepted, but celebrated, in ways that gives this diverse group of people a strong sense of worth and belonging. Everyone should feel accepted and valued for who they are in order for Endace to build a corporate culture that demonstrably supports and celebrates every individual’s self-expression.

What are we Doing?

Our approach to making diversity at Endace inclusive, by embracing our different mix of people, is a bottom-up approach. Our People team conducted an internal survey, and a series of discussions and presentations, to encourage input from people across the organization. In these sessions, we examined and discussed what diversity means and how acceptance and celebration of diversity go hand-in-hand with inclusion. We discussed how this benefits the business by allowing it to tap into the potential a diverse workforce has to offer, and how it benefits individuals by encouraging their individuality in a productive way.

This process was widely supported across the organization and led to agreement across the board that an active focus on Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) was an important initiative for everyone at Endace.

As our CEO Stuart Wilson said “this initiative is to ensure everyone has an equal voice so the business benefits from the best of the abilities that we have as a diverse team at Endace. I am motivated to give a voice to those who may be reluctant to step forward and I am looking forward to seeing what we achieve together.

The D&I Committee: and Our Voices

D&I can be “in the eye of the beholder”. So our challenge was to gain an organization-wide perspective of what diversity means to everyone at Endace. We needed to understand where we are now and what we want to focus on improving.

We established a community-led group, by calling for volunteers from across Endace, to collect input and ideas from across the organization, that could be implemented in conjunction with the People team. We found we had many people that are enthusiastic about this initiative and who wanted to be part of the group proactively taking steps to better understand and support our team members.

As Sam from the Software team says, “the differences that exist between us all are a strength, not a weakness. The D&I Committee provides a platform for us to celebrate and better understand this.

We had people who wanted to voice opinions on many different issues and were willing to dedicate time and ideas.

As Michael in the Support team said, “being part of Endace’s Diversity & Inclusion team resonates strongly with my personal commitment to breaking down barriers for marginalized and vulnerable communities.  I am passionate about making a positive difference, whether it’s in relation to gender, age, ability, sexuality, or cultural diversity.”

 

One very motivated volunteer, Kate, provided a very perceptive insight; “I believe acceptance of difference makes us stronger and smarter. It is not the diversity that is key, it is the openness to it.

 

We were also fortunate to have a senior leadership team member, John Attala, Endace’s VP of Worldwide Sales, sponsor the initiative as the D&I group leader. John said,

As the son of a first-generation immigrant, our family’s diversity stood out. My parents became leaders in their careers and community and I believe our cultural differences educated our community in a small way. Diversity and inclusion are important to me and I’m excited to be part of the first Endace D&I Committee. I hope together we can help facilitate a workplace that is safe, welcoming and where ideas are freely shared because I believe diversity is the one true thing we all have in common”.

Once assembled, the group was trained by the people team on D&I fundamentals and tasked with identifying focus areas and specific objectives Endace could undertake to ensure D&I are embedded across the organization.

So Far: and What’s Next?

The experience of being in the D&I committee so far has been a unique one. We have identified the focus areas we collectively agreed to work on and identified teams to work on each of these focus areas. These teams are responsible for ensuring the overall group makes progress by firstly building awareness of issues in their specific focus areas and then by identifying actions that will address those issues and ensure diversity is not only accepted but overtly celebrated across the organization.

We have taken our first steps – including having all managers participate in an “unconscious bias” workshop. This workshop helped attendees to understand that biases do exist, how they can identify and become conscious of them, and how to be mindful that these biases don’t get in the way of everyone being treated fairly.

As we move forward, we are driven to actively support our organization becoming a place where individuality is celebrated and everyone has a sense of belonging, of having a valued voice, is accepted and respected, and has opportunities to develop.  Change happens over time, but we know this can be achieved through our commitment to community-led initiatives and the hard work of our D&I Committee.


Endace Packet Forensics Files: Episode #18

Original Entry by : Michael Morris

Michael talks to Tim Dudman, Senior Principal Consultant, Riskaware

By Michael Morris, Director of Global Business Development, Endace


Michael Morris, Director of Global Business Development, Endace

Interested in hearing what some of the UK’s leading government cyber defense experts are doing to address their biggest concerns and challenges?

Then don’t miss this insightful episode with Tim Dudman, Senior Principal Consultant for Riskaware, where he shares his experiences in collaborating with academia, industry, and UK Defense funding to generate leading-edge cybersecurity capabilities.

Tim talks about some of the gaps he sees across the industry and how AI and SOAR platforms are fitting in and complementing many security architectures.

Other episodes in the Secure Networks video/audio podcast series are available here.


Endace Packet Forensics Files: Episode #17

Original Entry by : Michael Morris

Michael talks to Jen Miller-Osborn, Deputy Director of Unit 42 at Palo Alto Networks

By Michael Morris, Director of Global Business Development, Endace


Michael Morris, Director of Global Business Development, Endace

Want to hear about the latest attack trends, what to expect in the future and how best to prepare your defenses?

Then don’t miss this episode of our Packet Forensic Files series as Michael catches up with Jen Miller-Osborn from Unit 42 – the threat intelligence group at Palo Alto Networks.

Jen talks about some of the threat trends the team at Unit 42 has been seeing lately – including how ransomware attacks are becoming more sophisticated and targeted, how DDOS attacks are making a comeback, and what the recent Solarwinds “Sunburst” attacks have demonstrated.

She also provides some helpful tips for best practice cyber defense and talks about how the threat landscape might evolve over the next year or two.

Other episodes in the Secure Networks video/audio podcast series are available here.


2021 awards season kicks off with nine new awards for Endace

Original Entry by : Endace

Endace Wins 9 New AwardsEndace and the EndaceProbe Analytics Platform have been honored with nine awards in two well-regarded industry awards programs: The Globee 17th Annual 2021 Cyber Security Global Excellence Awards and the 2021 Cybersecurity Excellence Awards. The award categories include Most Innovative Security Hardware, Hot Security Company of the Year, Hot Security Technology of the Year, and Cybersecurity Blogger of the Year. 

From the Globee 17th Annual 2021 Cyber Security Global Excellence Awards, Endace was selected as the winner in the following categories:

  • Grand Trophy Winner
  • Gold Award, Hot Security Company of the Year: Endace
  • Gold Award, Most Innovative Security Hardware of the Year: EndaceProbe Analytics Platform Product Suite and Fusion Partner Program
  • Gold Award, Hot Security Technology of the Year: EndaceProbe Analytics Platform Product Suite
  • Gold Award, Network Detection and Response: EndaceProbe Analytics Platform
  • Gold Award, Incident Analysis and Response Solution: EndaceProbe Analytics Platform Product Suite
  • Silver Award, Network Security and Management: EndaceProbe Analytics Platform with EndaceVision

From the 2021 Cybersecurity Excellence Awards, Endace won two silver awards in:

  • Best CyberSecurity Company, Asia (between 50-99 employees)
  • CyberSecurity Blogger of the Year, Asia (Endace Packet Forensics Files hosted by Michael Morris)

There was strong competition across both awards programs this year and Endace would like to congratulate all this year’s winners and nominees – in particular our partners and fellow winners: Darktrace, Palo Alto Networks and Keysight (Ixia).

It’s great to see such a vibrant community of cybersecurity companies in the market. Our combined contributions are critically important to further improving cyber defense and helping organizations around the world protect critical infrastructure and private data from criminal and nation-state-sponsored attacks.


Endace 2020/21 Internship Program concludes with big thumbs up from all

Original Entry by : Katrina Schollum
Endace’s Summer Internship Program has concluded for another year.
Our four interns successfully completed their 12-week program working on individual projects in our R&D centre in Hamilton, NZ.

Big Smiles on the Final Day

Our 2020/21 Endace Interns with big smiles on the final day

On the last day of their program, the interns’ final task was a presentation to the business, including senior members from our global team. Following opening remarks from our CEO, our MC and VP of People, Sasha Blair, kicked off proceedings.

With a mixture of excitement and a few nerves, we learned from the interns about their successes and how they got there.  We were treated to a live demonstration of their finished project work and saw how deftly they dealt with the live Q&A sessions.

Afterwards, over some food, drinks – and smiles all round – our interns wrapped up their day with a final get-together with the wider Engineering team.

Final thoughts from this years’ interns were that the program “was a great way to start my career” and they “learned lots – it wasn’t easy but it was totally worth it.

Our Program

Our 2020/1 Endace Interns getting a final thumbs up from our CEO, Stuart Wilson.

Endace’s 12-week intern program focuses on involving interns in commercially relevant projects.  From learning about Terraform (no, it turns out it’s not about the moon) in large-scale VM deployments to developing a meaningful method for faster QA tests the discoveries and outcomes were significant.

Moreover, the structured training provides insight into the organisation and its operations and also provided training in presentation skills.

It was fantastic to see that not only had our interns learned new technical proficiencies, such as learning a new programming language, but also their growth in confidence as they saw how much their contributions provided value to our organisation.

Being a mentor for the interns was a challenging but also incredibly rewarding journey. It was an honour to be allowed to help them grow from overwhelmed newcomers to developers competently progressing their project” said Norbert Abel, our mentor from the Firmware team.

With new skills and hands-on experience, two of our interns have returned to Christchurch to continue their studies and we look forward to seeing what they achieve in the future.

We are delighted that our other two interns will rejoin the Endace team and continue to grow their talent with us. Welcome aboard!

And we are proud to continue our strong bonds with tertiary education providers as a platform to present Endace as an employer of choice for IT and engineering graduates in New Zealand.

#Internship #Careers #NZTech #Mentors