DXC Technology’s Kylie Watson On Her Path to Cyber and Balancing Priorities

Kylie Watson’s ascent through the enterprise tech and cyber security ranks was never planned.

At just 17, Watson joined the Australian Army at a time when women couldn’t serve in combat roles. She was briefly given quartermaster and payroll tasks before moving into her preferred role as a field engineer. There, she worked on water security, bridge and decoy building, road alignment and explosives ordnance.

“I was doing a whole bunch of stuff in networks and cabling as well,” she says. “When you build things, there’s stuff under the ground – you’ve got to know where it is and be able to provide a provision for infrastructure.”

But it was the psychology of army operations that truly fascinated her. This led her to pursue a master’s degree in sociology, which helped her understand team dynamics and why decisions were made.

“I started to get really interested in not only the…