Al Batoul Kutbi: Cybersecurity expert

Al Batoul Kutbi is currently responsible for Microsoft’s cybersecurity solutions that cover identity protection, advanced threat protection, and date classification for the end customer across all financial, private and governmental sectors.

Al Batoul has worked across a number of prominent cybersecurity roles in Saudi, helping customers in different industries position and raise their security posture in their company. She started working in multinational companies in 2007, and at the time, was often the only female in the team, which came with many challenges in a predominantly male workplace, including being overlooked or even ignored.

Al Batoul powered through all this and focused on her career, exploring different areas of technology from hardware and software to applications. She’s currently responsible for Microsoft’s cybersecurity solutions that cover identity protection, advanced threat protection, and data classification for the end customer across all financial, private and government sectors. She also regularly volunteers and participates in conference talks and training young female tech professionals.

While she has set a lot of milestones in her career, the most memorable one is when she joined a number of specialists in cybersecurity and risk management to avert zero-day cyber attacks when a lot of hacking attempts took place in Saudi Arabia and neighboring countries.

Continuous development and learning is a part of Microsoft culture and Al-Batoul has kept herself up-to-date with the latest cyber trends to tackle the cyber threats and by taking multiple certifications. Leading through adaptive change and loving that change is the one lesson that Al-Batoul constantly applies to her personal and professional life.