Barracuda’s Jess Kingham: ‘I never grew up wanting to be in tech. It wasn't a space I saw myself in’

The vendor’s newly promoted EMEA channel sales director of strategic accounts talks to CRN about her career in tech so far

Jess Kingham had never considered a career in tech, but with no prior experience in what’s viewed as a complex industry, has successfully climbed the ladder at cybersecurity vendor Barracuda.

Kingham’s successful rise was recently acknowledged with a promotion to the newly created role of channel sales director, strategic accounts, EMEA.

After previously heading up the channel for the UK and Ireland, Kingham is taking the wheel of Barracuda’s fresh partner efforts, looking at the channel at an EMEA level.

Kingham has vaulted through Barracuda since joining in 2016 as a national channel manager, but first entered the tech workforce as a channel account manager at EDR systems vendor Panda Security for just shy of one year.

However, prior to this experience at two technology vendors, a career in this field had never crossed Kingham’s mind.

“I didn’t have any tech experience. I never grew up wanting to be in tech. It wasn't a space I saw myself in,” she tells CRN.

“However, stepping into the IT space was awesome.

“When I had the right leaders and the right people around me, that's when I really thrived in the IT industry.

“But it wasn’t something I planned on stepping into. It’s something I fell into and fell in love with.”

A career in the technology sector is often viewed as a calling reserved only for the most astute minds who spent their teenage years dabbling in writing code.

IT is considered even less of an option for women, with only 27 per cent of female A-Level and university students saying they would consider a career in technology, compared to 61 per cent of males, according to research from PwC.

But Kingham has a message of ease to those questioning their technical know-how.

“Most vendors or resellers will always have training programmes to help you.

“It's something that is teachable. As long as you're willing to learn, grow and develop I don't think having no experiences impacts you at all.”

View a challenge from a different angle

“Stepping into any new industry is daunting. And with cybersecurity, there's a lot to it, and it is always changing.” Kingham says.

Her advice to people flirting with the idea of getting into the industry is to try and take a different view of the challenge.

“Look at it from a different angle in the sense that you'll never be bored, there's always something new to learn, and it's always adapting and changing, and it's not going away.

“You can constantly evolve and learn with the challenges that are in the industry.

“Looking back to when I first started, I always remember doing my first firewall training session and thinking, ‘I'm absolutely never going to learn this’.

“Over time, it becomes second nature. Don't be put off because, like anything, it’s practice and learning.

“With time, you pick things up and before you know it you know more than you thought you ever would when you initially started.”

The secret to her success

Kingham highlights several contributing factors to her success so far, including passion, learning from others, and backing yourself.

“Making sure you feel like you deserve a seat at the table is one of the things earlier in my career I definitely had to navigate and figure out,” she explains.

“I don't think I've ever been scared to voice my opinion in terms of what I thought is right or wrong.

“I'm really passionate about the channel, and that's helped me along the way as well.

“I truly care about how we treat partners, how we work partners, how we scale partners’ businesses, and I think that's something that's been recognised by Barracuda.”

Finally, she urges people to shake the fear of raising their hand.

“Don’t be afraid to ask for help. I've been really fortunate that I started off with Barracuda nearly nine years ago, and I've grown with Barracuda.

“Over my time period, I've had many different mentors in different types of roles, not necessarily leaders, but also technical roles.

“I think learning from people around you is one of the most important things you can do.”

Building a community

According to the Diversity in Tech report 2024 from the Tech Talent Charter, only 29 per cent of UK tech employees are women or non-binary.

The not-for-profit group surveyed 708 organisations in the UK, employing close to 977,000 people, and found that the figure for women in senior tech roles shrinks again at 21 per cent.

As the gender gap in the tech workforce persists, Kingham reveals her goal for 2025 is to build a community of women to help grow their careers.

“Something I want to achieve next year is building out a community for women. That’s something I'm in discussions about at the moment.

“But not just internally at Barracuda. I want to link our partners to that as well and try to help more women grow in their roles, but also step into different roles.”

Kingham wants to support people at all stages of their career, regardless of where they are in their lives and what they want to achieve in their roles.

“There's a stat that says when women hit 30 typically, businesses don't know where to mentor them or lead them to. So I want to help women navigate career changes into different roles if they want to jump from marketing to sales and to tech.

“I want to cater the community towards women who are coming back to work as well.

“Women typically will start families and come back and feel a little bit lost.

“I also have an ambition to connect women across different companies. I think it is something that I think is really powerful as well.”