Bell Canada’s Mina Movahedi Shakib: Bridging human resilience and cyber resilience (video)

For Mina Movahedi Shakib, cybersecurity has never been just about the technology — it’s about the people behind it.

With more than a decade of experience across threat intelligence, AI risk, and digital forensics, she’s built a career around understanding not only how systems break, but how humans respond when they do.

“Behind every attack, there’s a person who suffers,” she says. “Resilience isn’t just about restoring systems — it’s about supporting the humans who defend them.”

That philosophy has guided her work at Bell Canada, where she helps the nation’s largest telecom provider strengthen its defenses through threat investigation and proactive intelligence. Movahedi Shakib approaches cybersecurity as both science and psychology — an ecosystem where “cyber emotion” matters as much as technical precision.

Her ability to translate complex incidents into human-centered lessons has made her a sought-after voice at conferences and mentorship programs, particularly around mental-health awareness and psychological safety in high-pressure SOC environments.

Her leadership approach is rooted in empathy and communication — ensuring that every response plan considers the well-being of the people executing it. On World Mental Health Day, she reflected: “In cybersecurity, we talk about resilience all the time. But true resilience begins with caring for the people who protect us.”

Elevating the next generation

Movahedi Shakib’s influence extends beyond the SOC. She is determined to shift how executives perceive security — not as a cost center, but as a business enabler that builds trust, resilience, and competitive advantage. “It’s time to move from reactive to proactive,” she notes. “Security doesn’t just protect the business — it powers it.”

As one of the few women often speaking at technical events, she knows firsthand the challenge of being underestimated. Her response has been to lead visibly and lift others. Through mentorship and advocacy, she encourages women and newcomers to the field to “speak with confidence, share knowledge openly, and redefine what leadership looks like.”

She views diversity as a strategic necessity, particularly in an AI-driven future. “We can’t build ethical, trustworthy AI without diverse teams and diverse data,” she says. To that end, she mentors newcomers, recent graduates, and minority professionals to help them feel they belong in cybersecurity.

Looking ahead, Shakib sees AI-powered attacks, deepfakes, and evolving social-engineering tactics as defining challenges for the next five years. Her plan is clear: stay curious, invest in mental-health awareness, and create space for the next generation to thrive.

“We may be the trial version of the AI era,” she says, “but the next generation will perfect it. Our job is to prepare them — with knowledge, resilience, and heart.”