Chances are if you’ve run into “GirlGerms” online, you’ve spoken to Jess! Based in Brisbane, Jess joined Microsoft in 2019 and is now a Senior Cloud Solution Architect in Cyber Security, after working in a mixture of both government and higher education industries for over 15 years in a mixture of Operations roles – in Jess’s own words, she’ll always be a “recovering systems administrator”. Jess’s role is both deeply technical and deeply customer focused, providing technical leadership for customers within ANZ to help secure their IT environments.

Jess is keen to help other women break into the industry – both tech generally and cyber security specifically – and helps co-run the Women IT Pros ANZ call each month; as well as speaking at conferences, talking on podcasts and interviews, and writing blog posts around how we can make this industry more inclusive for women. Jess is an advocate for authenticity – being yourself is so important and feeling comfortable to be yourself at work can allow you to shine even brighter.

Outside of work, Jess is mum to a 5 year old daughter, a cat, 4 chickens and a hive of bees. In her downtime, she spends far too many hours building Lego, playing video games or doing random crafty projects.