MNO citizen Bonnie Butlin (Photo source: Natocouncil.ca)Métis Nation of Ontario (MNO) citizen Bonnie Butlin, co-founder and Executive Director of the Security Partners’ Forum (SPF) and International Coordinator of the Women in Security and Resilience Alliance (WISECRA), recently won the 2015 Professional Security Magazine’s Women in Security Award (Security Manager Category), a prestigious award British historian Baroness Rugh Henig calls the “Oscars of the Security industry.”
Butlin was recently described as “[a] dynamic individual [who] has perhaps without intention, become a role model,” in an article by Victoria Heath, a writer for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Association of Canada.
The most remarkable aspect of Butlin’s career is her many achievements in an industry with a high ratio of men to women. According to Heath’s article, women only make up 4 per cent of United Nations Peacekeepers and only 11 per cent among Information Security Professionals.
“No doubt, the daughters of today and tomorrow will thank Bonnie and other women like her, for giving us dreams to chase, grounded in their real achievements,” Heath wrote.
In 2013, Butlin was named one of Security Magazine’s “Most Influential People in Security” and was inducted into the Homeland Security and Emergency Management Hall of Fame in 2014. This year, she also won CSO Magazine’s Compass Award and announced as a finalist for the 2015 Executive Women’s Forum Women of Influence Award in the category of Private Solutions Provider.
Butlin is a board member of The Vimy Report, an online publication focused on informing Canadians and leading discussions on security and defence issues.