Alumni Spotlight: Rinki Sethi '04

Computer science alumna Rinki Sethi ’04 has been at the forefront of developing cutting-edge online security infrastructures for some of the most well-known Fortune 500 companies. 

The skillset behind her success is something that she says she learned as a teenager — not in any high school class, but rather in trying to outsmart her parents.

“I was a hacker. I just didn’t know it at the time,” Sethi said.

It was the late 1990s, and AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) was all the rage. Sethi and her sister would use the instant chat system to talk to their friends long into the night. Then one day, Sethi overheard her parents discussing a topic that she had only told a friend through AIM the night before. She knew then that her parents had installed a parent spy tool, aka keylogger, onto her computers.

“I found the spy tool and uninstalled it. But then my dad kept installing it back in again. So, I had to write a program to make sure it alerted me every time that he installed the tool and then would delete the tool,” she said with a chuckle. “That was my entrance into hacker mind and is what I think helped me land my first job as a cybersecurity engineer.”

UC Davis: In the middle of everywhere

Realizing she had a knack for science, math and computers, Sethi decided to pursue computer science engineering for her college degree at UC Davis. She was drawn to UC Davis because of its proximity to her hometown of Cupertino, the well-rounded educational experience the campus offered, and the highly ranked program in computer science engineering.

“Davis was amazing. It was such a great university. It was a great location and great school, such a diverse community and I made a lot of great friends who are my friends to this day,” she said.

Out of all her courses, Sethi especially liked her course in cryptography, which is the art of writing or solving codes. UC Davis was one of the few places in the country at the time to offer such a course that was in the vein of cybersecurity. 

A career in information security

Although she enjoyed the class, Sethi never expected it would become her career. Then one day, incentivized by free pizza and the fear of returning home without a job after graduation, Sethi decided to attend a UC Davis career fair with a friend who was being recruited by PG&E. At the fair, the PG&E representative asked Sethi what her favorite class was. After Sethi replied “cryptography,” the PG&E staffer mentioned a new position in “something called information protection” that might be a good fit. Sethi got a job interview the next day and an offer a few weeks after that. 

“I had no idea what information protection or cybersecurity was; and actually, back then, no one knew,” she said. “So, I started in a place where there was no career path, there was no job definition and I had to learn what it was all about.”

Sethi’s career progressed simultaneously with the growth of the cybersecurity industry. After her time at PG&E, Sethi went onto work at Walmart.com, eBay and Intuit. At eBay, Sethi said she really grew her career under a good mentor and eventually became responsible for the coordination of global security strategy for the company. She then went on to become vice president for security information at Palo Alto Networks, IBM and Twitter. Sethi is currently the Vice President and CISO for BILL — an online billing and invoicing company focused on helping small businesses.

“I think the thing that really helped me is the variety of companies I worked for: a utility company, an e-commerce site, an online auction company, social media and a fintech company,” she said. “So having these different experiences, not only did it let me take on more senior roles, but it also gave me perspective about how different companies think about cybersecurity.”

Sethi believes that having a greater diversity of thought and life experiences is the only way the cybersecurity industry will be successful. It is part of the reason why she is such a strong proponent of having more women and people of color pursue degrees and careers in technology.

An ally for women in tech

Throughout her career, including her time at UC Davis, Sethi often found herself being the only woman in the room. Her determination to persist as a woman in the tech industry was something she says she acquired at UC Davis, specifically through a College of Engineering support community called the Society of Women Engineers.

“That cohort became my close friends for four years. Anytime I had a struggle, I knew I had that group to lean on,” she said. “I’ve been very passionate about getting more girls into technology and cybersecurity. And, now that I think about it, that passion was formed because of my experience with the Society of Women Engineers, because I saw the power of having a group like that.”

One way in which Sethi has been a proponent for women in her industry was when she used her position as a manager to establish a flexible, work-from-home policy at a company that previously did not have one. She also makes a conscious effort to serve as an ally for others and asks others to help be an ally for her.

For her leadership as a woman in the technology industry, Sethi was the recipient of the One to Watch Award with CSO Magazine & Executive Women’s Forum in 2014 and won a 2018 Senior Information Security Practitioner Award from the International Information System Security Certification Consortium. She also led an initiative to develop the first set of national cybersecurity badges and curriculum for the Girl Scouts of the USA. She also mentors many students and professionals. 

Additionally, Sethi also serves on the board of ForgeRock (NYSE: FORG) and Vaultree, and is an advisor for more than a dozen cybersecurity startup companies and UC Davis Graduate Studies. She is a member of the Graduate Studies Advisory Board and has volunteered as a judge for UC Davis Grad Slam since 2021. 

“I wanted to get involved in some way at UC Davis because they helped teach me how to have balance in my life, as well as exposed me to cybersecurity through courses which really launched my career, so I’m very grateful for that,” said the mother of two. “Being on the board and being a part of Grad Slam has been a fantastic experience and I hope to get more involved.”