# Valerie Perlowitz

Valerie Perlowitz works in cybersecurity and supports women building careers and businesses in deep technology. Her posts describe speaking about AI, Zero Trust and critical infrastructure, organizing the WiCyS Florida community, and starting WiDTH, a LinkedIn group for women who own or want to own deep-tech companies.

- Profile: https://b2binfluencer.marketing/creators/valerie-perlowitz/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vperlowitz
- Median of last 6 posts: 10 reactions, 0 comments (checked 2026-11-02)
- Topics: artificial-intelligence, cybersecurity, zero-trust
- Based on 11 dated posts, latest 2026-07-06

## Summary

Valerie Perlowitz is most useful for cybersecurity speaking on AI and Zero Trust and community building.

- Best for: A cybersecurity vendor wanting a practitioner speaker and access to a state security community.
- Not for: A brand seeking paid personal LinkedIn sponsorship with fixed fees, guaranteed impressions, or tracked leads.
- Check first: Confirm session deck or recording, event audience data, and current WiCyS Florida sponsorship terms.

### Takeaways

- Valerie Perlowitz presented at InfoSec World 2025 on AI, Zero Trust, and critical infrastructure.
- They started WiDTH, a LinkedIn group for women who own deep-tech companies.
- WiCyS Florida activity includes monthly virtual meetings, quarterly Brunch Bytes, newsletter, and conference booth.

## Main ideas

- **AI, Zero Trust, and critical infrastructure belong in one conversation**: Perlowitz treats AI, Zero Trust, and the 16 critical infrastructure sectors as a single presentation subject rather than three separate briefings, and pitches it to a practitioner audience spanning small businesses to Fortune 500 companies. The posts show the pairing and the intended audience, but not the reasoning, evidence, or recommendations delivered on stage.
- **Women-owned deep-tech businesses should move from about 5% of the sector to 50% or more**: Perlowitz frames the underrepresentation of women-owned businesses in deep tech as a gap worth closing rather than a fixed condition. The stated sectors are cybersecurity, AI, machine learning, quantum, space, and related fields, and the ambition is expressed as a movement from roughly 5% to 50%-plus of businesses in the sector. It is a goal, not a reported result.
- **Closing the gap requires an ecosystem, not just more founders**: Perlowitz argues that counting women-owned companies is not enough on its own; the people starting them need shared information, expanded networks, and access to technology, education, mentors, and advisors. The group is described as a place to build that support structure deliberately rather than leaving founders to find it individually.
- **Recognition comes from sustained team work, not one good event**: Perlowitz credits the WiCyS Florida Affiliate of the Year award to a multi-year effort by a stable team, describing fundraisers, membership drives, and STEM teaching in the run-up rather than a single successful push. The post also acknowledges years of growing pains, presenting the result as accumulated work.
- **A community needs a predictable rhythm to hold members**: The membership pitch rests on recurring, named benefits rather than a general invitation: monthly virtual meetings, quarterly in-person Brunch Bytes, and an affiliate newsletter, with a deadline to join. That cadence is presented as the reason to sign up and the practical shape of the community.
- **Growth depends on outside organizations, not members alone**: Perlowitz states that the organization grows through support from outside organizations and asks readers to contribute, positioning the affiliate as a career-advancement cause that companies can back. The post does not set out sponsorship tiers, prices, or what supporters receive in return.
- **In-person presence and tangible giveaways bring people in**: Perlowitz pairs a conference booth with physical items — "signature donor boxes" of affiliate goodies — as the hook that starts conversations, explains the organization, and converts visitors into members. The approach is repeated, not incidental.

## Work to read

- [Presentation at InfoSec World on AI, Zero Trust and critical infrastructure](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/vperlowitz_cybersecurity-ai-criticalinfrastructure-activity-7388642809496616960-eXso)
- [Announcement of an InfoSec World 2025 speaking slot](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/vperlowitz_infosecworld2025-craevents-cybersecurity-activity-7386581639067512832-qFd0)
- [Founding WiDTH, a LinkedIn group for women who own deep-tech companies](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/vperlowitz_ive-started-a-group-on-linkedin-for-women-activity-7365163051697799168-UAt1)
- [WiCyS Florida wins Affiliate of the Year](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/vperlowitz_wicysaffiliateoftheyear-wicysfloridaaffiliate-activity-7439427079223316480-ySuZ)
- [WiCyS Florida membership drive and what members receive](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/vperlowitz_its-that-time-of-year-again-for-the-women-activity-7471986598511804417-a60m)
- [Request for outside organizational support for WiCyS Florida](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/vperlowitz_this-is-an-important-organization-that-supports-activity-7471982693275082752-oMO6)
- [Conference booth with donor boxes at InfoSec World](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/vperlowitz_infosecworld-womenincybersecurity-ai-activity-7388636245901537281-VLWm)

## Brand relationships

- **WiCyS Florida Affiliate** (affiliate)
- **Women Owned Businesses in Deep Tech (WiDTH)** (mention)
- **InfoSecWorld** (mention)

## Partnerships

Reviewed posts show Valerie Perlowitz speaking and organizing rather than selling sponsorship packages. They presented at InfoSec World 2025 on AI, Zero Trust, and the 16 critical infrastructures, and promoted their session ahead of the event. Much of the public activity around Perlowitz is community-building: they started WiDTH, a LinkedIn group for women who own or want to own deep-tech companies, and they help run the WiCyS Florida Affiliate, which recruits members and asks outside organizations for support. The affiliate's visible asks are membership drives, conference presence with donor boxes, and a general call for organizational backing. No rate card, sponsorship tier, audience package, or personal partnership terms appear in the reviewed material, and no official inquiry route for working with Perlowitz was verified. Treat commercial formats and pricing as unconfirmed. A buyer planning a speaking engagement should note that the reviewed material establishes conference speaking and deep-tech community reach but does not establish a booking process, fees, or availability.

## Alternatives

- Phil Tonkin: Pick Tonkin over Perlowitz when the engagement has to be about operational technology and industrial control systems rather than a broad AI-and-Zero-Trust talk. In a July 2026 post, Tonkin walks through a case his team at Dragos examined: commercial AI tools being used to spot an internally accessible SCADA/IIoT management interface at Mexican government organisations, with no evidence of access to the operational environment. He turns that into three priorities for operators — full visibility across the operational environment, less unnecessary exposure between enterprise and OT systems, and response plans built for industrial realities rather than IT assumptions — and points to a piece he wrote for Talk GovTech. In a September 2025 post he promotes presenting at techUK's Operational Technology Security Conference in London, covering the OT threat landscape, resilience and detection practice, IT/OT convergence, and cross-sector collaboration. A vendor selling OT or ICS security, or a conference organiser assembling an industrial-control track, gets a speaker whose published material already sits inside that buyers' vocabulary and who is used to appearing before policy and industry audiences. If the buyer's goal is a session that interviews an AI-assisted intrusion against real control-system exposure, Tonkin is the stronger choice, because the reviewed material shows him working through that exact scenario rather than announcing a general zero-trust session.

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AI-assisted summary of public posts. Audience demographics are not available. Engagement appears only where we checked recent posts. Method: https://b2binfluencer.marketing/methodology/