LEADERSHIP TEAM
Who We Are
JENNIFER HARMON
PRESIDENT
Jennifer Harmon is a technologist at heart with a passion for improving diversity in the field of technology. She was previously a leader for Geek Squad Summer Academy in 2010, hosting a 10 week-long technology summer camp targeting teens in underserved and minority communities from across the country.
Currently, Jennifer is a Product Owner at Cerner working to increase interoperability within the Veterans Affairs Electronic Health Record Modernization project. She is ardent about improving the security of healthcare data and is working towards her ISC2 HCISPP and CompTia Security+ certifications. Jennifer looks forward to growing with the WiSKC community by serving as the President.
MADI SCHULTE
VICE PRESIDENT
As Vice President of Women in Security, Madi hopes to encourage and facilitate efforts aimed at increasing
accessibility in Kansas City’s technology and security organizations. With stewardship as a driving factor, her involvement with a variety of local groups is primarily focused on assisting those that face barriers to entry and ensuring opportunities for continued growth are not missed.
Madi has helped with Girls Who Code and participated in panels focused on encouraging young women in STEM, including the SWE’s Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day & NCWIT’s Aspirations in Computing Awards. She currently sits on collegiate advisory boards at both the University of Kansas and Donnelly College. Her continued volunteer efforts include involvement with BSidesKC and SecKC.
LAKORRIA BATES
SECRETARY
Lakorria Bates currently works at Oracle as a Security Engineer where she actively mentors new associates. She graduated from Austin Peay State University with a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science with a Mathematics Minor. In college, Lakorria was heavily involved in multiple organizations such as Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Incorporated and Alpha Kappa Psi Business fraternity. She was the Vice President of her sorority and has held various managerial positions where she gained experience in leadership.
In her role as Secretary, Lakorria will continue to hone these skills while gaining knowledge about cybersecurity in order to educate others on the importance of security inside and outside the organization. Sheis a huge believer in women empowerment and why it's important that we all stick together and support one another.
ALLISON MCKENNA
TREASURER
Allison McKenna is a Business Development Executive for Ascend Technologies. She has worked in Cybersecurity for the past seven years in roles ranging from operations, consulting, and leadership to coaching, human resources and more. Allison has a passion for serving and enjoys nothing more than stepping into a problem that feels confusing and overwhelming and sorting out the pieces and building a solution to alleviate other’s frustrations. As a single mother of five children for over a decade, Allison knows the challenges women face in the workplace and at home and seeks to be a giver of positivity and aide wherever possible to other working women.
She is excited to serve in the role of treasurer as it fulfills her desire to serve her community and appreciates the need for budgets and growth, discipline and care over the resources, others entrust to such fantastic organizations like WIS-KC.
APRIL BOYD-NORONHA
COMMUNICATIONS
April Boyd-Noronha, also known as The STEM Broker, is currently the Global Diversity & Inclusion Advisor and Board Member of the XR Safety Initiative (XRSI), the first global non-profit with the mission of helping build safe and inclusive immersive realities, such as the metaverse. April has over 20 years of experience in academia and advanced technologies as an author, global keynote speaker, thought leader, and advisor on emerging trends and the future of work on diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility of historically marginalized populations. She also is the Global Security Awareness Manager for Cardinal Health.
April continues to blaze a trail in equitable practices as the first Black elected school board member of the Shawnee Mission School District (SMSD) which is the 3rd largest school district in the state of Kansas. She is the parent of three children who all are pursuing a STEM career track in cybersecurity, engineering, and drone piloting. April is passionate and motivated to help position WiS-KC in the forefront of topics such as information security that impacts women, girls, and the community. She is keenly aware that the role of Communications Chair will entail engaging our fiercest allies, committed community partners, as well as new/current supporters in the global landscape of cybersecurity awareness.
Equally, if not more important, is advocating to closing the gaps in workforce development and gender parity. April is aware of the power, impact, and connectivity of communications for an organization such as WiS-KC. She is a proud techie; a nerd who geeks out on cybersecurity, emerging trends, and innovative ways to keep the community aware of its role in fighting cyber threats. April looks forward to serving WiS-KC in the capacity of Communications Chair.
MAURA MILNER
EVENTS
Maura has spent the last two years working for Imperva, a leader in cybersecurity, covering KS/MO/NE/ND/SD. In Maura's role, she helps organizations protect data and all paths to their data through application security, as well as database security. Prior to Imperva, Maura spent a decade with TouchNet selling enterprise software and integrating payment processing into higher education. At TouchNet, she focused on the compliance and security aspects of payments taken all across a college campus. Her other experiences includes E-GRC at Archer Technologies along with a myriad of support and sales roles.
Maura has received her Masters degree in Business Administration, as well as her Bachelors in Finance and Accounting both from Wichita State University. She has three grown children, ages 23, 22, and 20. In her spare time she enjoys spending time with each of her children. She also loves sports, live music, decorating, walking, and reading. Maura currently resides in the Kansas City Metro area.
LISA CHILES
MEMBERSHIP
Lisa is the Configuration Lead on the Customer Service Infrastructure Services team at ScriptPro. She leads her team to investigate, maintain and deploy configuration and compliance updates and requirements to ScriptPro customers.
Lisa started her career in the practice of Pharmacy. After 10 years of an occupation in Pharmacy, she transitioned into Healthcare IT. Lisa has spent the last 20 years focused on software and platform security compliance, software testing, and the integration of security into various development processes.