Untangling the Web

If you’d have asked Ola Sergatchov what she wanted to be when she grew up, the answer would have been obvious. She was a talented student at Saint Petersburg’s academy for musically gifted children; of course she’d be a concert pianist!

But this year, The Software Report business magazine named her one of the world’s top Women Leaders in Cybersecurity. As a seasoned cybersecurity executive at Guardicore, Ola is tasked with leading the company’s growth strategy, nurturing customer and partner relationships, and helping organizations protect their digital business.

Mrs. Sergatchov has reinvented herself in other ways, too. Until she was 16, she didn’t even know she was Jewish. “It’s not something you put on a billboard in Russia,” she says. “I’m my family’s last gasp. If it weren’t for me, my family would have become so assimilated that none of our descendants would ever have known they were Jewish.” Now she’s married to a Gerrer chassid and living in Israel.

The greatest influence in Ola’s life, second to her parents, was her piano teacher. “We spent a lot of time together because I was a top student. She taught me my work ethic: it’s all about hard work and willpower. Given enough of those, everything else falls into place.”