Mrs Päivi Brunou, Head of Cyber Security Technology, Wärtsilä Voyage, advises us to be open to new opportunities and keep up with new thing and trends. Sharing her career story, she explains how her studies led her to maritime industry and her current position in which she focuses on helping the teams to understand cyber security risks and opportunities and she encourages us to share the stories and lessons learned with regards to cyber security to stay better protected.
Mrs. Brunou also notes that sometimes the work-life balance is not an easy task to achieve, but her kids have taught her balance and to capture moments, reminding us that while the days can be long, the years are short.
SAFETY4SEA: How did it come about that you joined shipping industry and your field of expertise specifically?
Paivi Brunou: Growing up, I was always interested to understand how things were supposed to work and ended up in electrical engineering. Most of my career I’ve been breaking code, devices and processes to understand how to make them even better. Requirement engineering led to cyber security and past 5 years’ I’ve been fully concentrating on cyber security and robustness.
S4S: What about your current job/ role most excites you and why?
P.Br.: Having opportunities to work closer with the customer and helping the teams to deliver more secure solutions is very rewarding! As Head of Cybersecurity, Technology, I focus on helping the teams to understand what risks and opportunities there are related to our products and services. Working with the wider maritime ecosystems helps in understand what really matters. And, of course, I wouldn’t be a true engineer if I wouldn’t mention all the up-and-coming technologies we get to work with!
S4S: Who is/was the most influential person/mentor to you & why ?
P.Br.: Definitely my kids. If anything, they have taught me balance and to capture moments – while the days can be long, the years are short! From the industry side, I’d like to mention Hopper. She’s one of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer and the mother of bugs!
S4S: What is the best and what was the worst piece of advice you’ve ever been given and why?
P.Br.: Best advice “Know your numbers” was given to me by leadership mentor Jaakko Hartikainen when I transferred to a new role: Whether it’s your metrics, your budgets or your sales targets – know what is behind the numbers. / Worst advice must have been early in my career to concentrate only on things I was excelling then. There is always a reason to keep learning and un-learning – the world around us evolves and so should we.
S4S: What is the most worthwhile career investment (in energy, time, money) you’ve ever made?
P.Br.: Be open to new opportunities! I’ve relocated to work in foreign countries. It gave perspective and as non-native English speaker confidence in languages skills. Also keep up with the new things! Whether trough studies, books, podcasts or talking with others
S4S: If you could give a piece of advice to your 18-year-old-self one thing, what would it be and why? What piece of advice should you ignore?
P.Br.: Advice: the last 20% of the effort might not be worth it ! (Also don’t wait for the deadline) / Ignore: We have always done it this way
S4S: In the last five years, what new belief, behaviour, or habit has most improved your business life?
P.Br.: If you need to split your day to two – do it. If you want to work (sometimes) during the evenings and weekends – do it. Sometimes the work-life balance is not in balance – but if you make it right most of the times – that is enough.
S4S: What would you like to change in the current maritime landscape and your area of expertise specifically and why?
P.Br.: As maritime ecosystem is busy building digital solutions and finding value for whole ecosystem from data -am hoping we find solutions where we can share the data in meaningful and sustainable way to benefit the wider ecosystem. For cyber security, I am looking forward for the dialogue to continue and strengthen. Share the stories and lessons learned to stay better protected.
S4S: What is your personal motto?
P.Br.: “A ship in port is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for. Sail out to sea and do new things.” Grace Hopper.
The views presented hereabove are only those of the author and do not necessarily those of SAFETY4SEA and are for information sharing and discussion purposes only.
